[Info-vax] RMS intro

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

On Wed, 3 Jan 2024 00:03:36 -0000 (UTC), Dan Cross wrote:

> What I said is that it is a fraught proposition to try to keep up with
> the rate of change in the Linux kernel from outside of the Linux kernel.

And that “outside of the Linux kernel” includes the part of the Universe 
containing Microsoft. It, too, has a struggle, even with its vast 
resources, keeping up with the pace of Linux kernel development.

> To which I replied that almost certainly the inverse is true; i.e., that
> the Linux kernel folks probably have access to several orders of
> magnitude more resources than Microsoft can put to Windows.

Given how much revenue Microsoft is supposedly earning from Windows, don’t 
you think it should be putting a proportionate level of investment back 
into it?

> In article <un26bd$2sllq$2 at dont-email.me>,
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro  <ldo at nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>>That "niche" is the reason why they have had to resort to WSL2, to bring
>>Linux-type APIs to Windows. And why do they need Linux-type APIs on
>>Windows, anyway? Because that's what the developers are increasingly
>>relying on. Why didn't WSL1 work? Because the Windows kernel wasn't up
>>to it.
> 
> That seems like speculation on your part.

Microsoft’s own actions are all the evidence we need. Why abandon 
something, after putting so much effort into it, if you could have got it 
to work?

> They surely moved to WSL2 because the best, cheapest way to be "bug
> compatible" with Linux is to just run Linux.

After already putting all that investment into WSL1? That good old NT 
kernel not versatile enough to emulate the little quirks as well as the 
salient features?

As further evidence, consider how WINE is able to be bug-compatible with 
Windows, on top of the Linux kernel. Why can’t Microsoft, with more 
resources at its disposal than both the Linux kernel and WINE projects 
*combined*, return the favour?

> Python is important; this has does not imply that
> Unix-style select/poll on a pipe under Windows in Python is important. 

So how do you run that large installed base of Python code on Windows 
without that compatibility?

> For more general types of asynchronous IO (storage, networking) it says
> nothing at all, and these are certainly more important than pipes which
> are just one kind of IPC mechanism (and not super relevant to Python
> specifically).

They’re a core feature of POSIX. They exist because they make for a very 
convenient model for certain common kinds of IPC, as the original Unix 
creators discovered in their experiments.

>>Remember why Microsoft needs WSL, clunky as it is: it's not something it
>>bestowed as a special favour on the Linux or open-source world or
>>anything like that: it created it because it had to, for sheer business
>>survival.
> 
> I actually agree with this, but I think your argument here is poor. 
> MSFT needs Linux compatability because the world is trending towards
> Linux and they can't keep up, yes.  It does not follow that their
> engineers are bad, or even that their kernel is bad.

WSL1 would be evidence to the contrary.

And yes, engineers can be individually smart, yet due to a dysfunctional 
and risk-averse corporate culture, they end up producing a mediocre net 
product.