Linux and Open Source

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols & Paula Rooney

Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | September 14, 2011, 9:15am PDT

Summary: For the first time, Microsoft has made an early version of a major operating system available to everyone and anyone, and I wonder where they got that idea… Hmmm, Linux maybe?

You, yes you, can now download a copy of Windows 8. This marks the first time that Microsoft has released a pre-beta version of one of their flagship programs to the general public. I wonder where they got that idea. Could it be from Linux? After all Linux distributions has been making early versions available to the public since Linux started 20-years ago.

The Windows 8 Developer Preview alpha build, was released shortly after 8 PM Eastern on Tuesday, September 13th. The last time, debuted a similar developers preview of Windows 7 in October 2008, the company limited the early look to attendees at its Professional Developers Conference (PDC). The unwashed general public to wait until next year for a beta . That failed. Copies were leaked to BitTorrent sites within hours.

This time Microsoft elected to cut out the middle man and just release the preview to everyone… just like Linux distributors.

In another Linux-style move, all three of the Windows 8 Developer Preview images are available in .iso format disk image. That means, if you’re new to playing with new operating systems, that you’ll need to burn those images to a DVD or a USB stick and then boot the operating system from them. Better, and safer, still run Windows 8 in a virtual machine environment such as the one provided by Oracle’s VirtualBox.

So, why is Microsoft making even an alpha version of Windows available to the general public? I think Microsoft had two reasons. The first is that while they got some hype for Windows 7 by having it available semi-legally over the Internet, they also had to deal with corrupted public copies. That couldn’t have been any fun. This way, they still get techies excited about their new forthcoming operating system, but they don’t have to worry as much about junk copies of their operating system floating around.

The other reason is that Microsoft may be slow, but they’re not stupid. They’ve noticed over the years that Linux developers gets enormous amount of valuable feedback from users with every release. While, Microsoft won’t be open-sourcing Windows anytime this decade; they can certainly see the advantage of having potentially millions of early testers giving them feedback.

So, smart move Microsoft! I’m not sure it’s going to be enough to save Windows 8 with its wonky Metro interface from suffering a Vista-like fate, but if you actually listen to all your new beta testers, you might yet turn Windows 8 into a success rather than a Windows ME or-The horror! The horror!-a Microsoft Bob experience.

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Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows 8, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Operating Systems, UNIX, Open Source, Software, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka sjvn, has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the cutting edge, PC operating system

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fdfd

jywhy888 7th Mar

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Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate 14th Sep

Yes? Me thinks so.

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I agree. Why do you think Linux is looking more and more

William Farrell 14th Sep

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate

like Windows?

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

LinuxRocks 15th Sep

@William Farrell - I think you have that backwards there.... Ummm, yeah!

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

statuskwo5 14th Sep

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate I would think it goes both ways.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

facebook@... 14th Sep

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate That is the only explanation for OpenOffice.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

The Linux Geek 14th Sep

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate
Agreed, M$ once again steals great ideas from FOSS.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

Viper589 14th Sep

@The Linux Geek

you mean like openoffice/libreoffice or share point or exchange ya what ever.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

jasongw 14th Sep

@The Linux Geek If the ideas are free to begin with, how is that stealing? happy

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

I am Gorby 15th Sep

@Knix96 Oh! Come on! Sharepoint is a shallow copy of IBM's Tivoli and CA's Unicenter.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

Duke E Love 15th Sep

@The Linux Geek

How can you "steal" ideas from FOSS? Isn't that one of the core tenets of FOSS? Free exchange of ideas and having the code be open so you can learn from it? Serious, give it a rest. The rhetoric and platitudes are old, worn out and quite frankly are getting rather silly.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

benched42 20th Sep

@Knix96

So there wasn't an office suite until Microsoft released it's version of Office? (StarOffice, which predates Microsoft Office by 5 years is what has evolved into OpenOffice and LibreOffice)

And there was never a document retrieval DB until Sharepoint came along, right?

And of course there was never a communications server before Exchange existed, right?

Who's copying who? The correct answer is that they borrow ideas each way. The difference is that MS doesn't have to revers-engineer to get those ideas started.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

benched42 20th Sep

@Duke E Love

You can "steal" ideas from FOSS. You can copy the code and not open source the result, and not give credit where credit is due. I'm not saying MS has done this, but who really knows? (Remember the credit given to Mosaic browser in older versions of IE that MS had to do by law?)

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

hkommedal 22nd Sep

@The Linux Geek
They did NOT steal.
Everyone has been free to do this for a very long time.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

ItsTheBottomLine 14th Sep

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * OMG you agree with that I'm totally shocked!

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

bobiroc 14th Sep

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate

Which is why everyone imitates everyone else when it comes to their software. They take the features people like the most and use them for their own. Also creates more of a uniform feel. If you even try to say that Linux has never imitated Windows or MacOS then you are crazy. Linux imitates just as much as Apple and Microsoft do all from each other.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

ator1940 15th Sep

@bobiroc Apple was Microsoft's R&D division back in the 80's. Apple innovates, Microsoft imitates. Now they have Linux to imitate.

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Standin on the shoulders of giants

symbolset 18th Sep

@bobiroc There is no shame in standing on the shoulders of giants if in doing so you give the next guy a hand getting to the next level. Otherwise it's just stealing from the common pool, claiming ownership in your own right for all that came before.

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Waaaaa waaaaaa waaaa

General C# 14th Sep

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate
Linux failing since 1990... Oh wait I have the sudden urge to use Linux.
Thank god it was overcome by the urge to crush my nuts in a drawer.

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Linux has all of HPC, and most of mobile

symbolset 18th Sep

@General C# And a respectable majority of servers too. Between these ends it is closing on the middle. Keep laughing though. That's how we want you to be.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

hkommedal 22nd Sep

@General C#
You DO have some weird urges.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

eak2000 14th Sep

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate

What about every time Linux copies BSD or SVR4.... Or every time Android copies iOS (Apple, not Cisco)? Hmm?

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

Raid6 14th Sep

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate

Seriously, you are such a dork!

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

tonymcs@... 14th Sep

@Dietrich T. Schmitz * Your Linux Advocate

Yep. Imitation. That's why Linus cloned Unix. But virtually all of us have moved on since then.

Oh and the answer to whether Windows copied Linux is NO.

I think SJVN is suffering from OS envy wink

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It is important to point out

symbolset Updated - 18th Sep

@tonymcs@... OS X and iOS are derived from BSD Unix. Linux is, as you point out, a re-implementation of Unix. Those who don't know Unix are doomed to reimplement it - poorly. - somebody somewhen.

NT, and thus its derivatives up to W8 is a reimplementation of ideas Dave Cutler brought with him from DEC after he convinced them to not invent the PC. Poor provenance, that. He's still there grinding away and none dare question him. But he has reached his dotage and even in his prime his best ideas were born in other minds.

Everybody copies everybody, and then improves on that if they can. That is how progress is made. Even the Bard of Avon stole shamelessly from the common tales of his day, and his value add was not so much the tale itself but the enjoyable way he presented it. Even today his themes are reworked to great profit, assuring his immortality anew.

There is no shame in standing on the shoulders of giants if you a)do it well and b)don't try to prevent the next bard from standing on your shoulders, improving your tale if he can.

The idea of a common pool of public culture is passing away now. The idea that a song, a plan, a common way can and should belong to us all to improve upon is passing away. I fear that. It means an end to change; an end to progress. It is the beginning of a long descent into a stateless culture devoid of even rudimentary history.

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fdfd

jywhy888 7th Mar

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

Martijn2 14th Sep

I always get a good laugh about your blogs, just like watching Fox news.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

ItsTheBottomLine 14th Sep

@Martijn2 OUCH!

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

jasongw 14th Sep

@Martijn2 Vaughn's blogs are funny because he can't even manage to use basic English properly. On top of that, he's judging Metro as "wonky," when in fact Metro this year won a major design innovation award.

Personally, I switched from clunky iOS on my iPhone to a Windows Phone 7 device several months ago, and I'll tell you this: there's nothing "wonky" about Metro--it's easily the best UI I've ever used (and as a 15 year Systems Engineer, I've used many).

Vaughn, unfortunately, is just another biased fanboy blogger.

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The major design award WP7 did not win?

symbolset 18th Sep

@jasongw Customers choosing to buy it with their own money.

And yet it has a million Facebook likes, placement on major tv shows, and somehow throngs of online fans who aspire to own it but somehow haven't figured out how to yet. Even I, who hates Microsoft with a flaming passion took the trouble to go down to the store and talk the sales geek into selling me an HTC HD7 so I could be knowledgeable about the various ways that it sucks even in a benchmark phone. They can't even be bothered to do that.

If WP7 was as popular as Internet postings and articles would make it seem to be, it would be #2 after Android and ahead of iOS, not scraping along in the seventh spot at 0.6 percent behind even Bada and Windows Mobile 6.5.

If you love the thing so much - go buy one. It's not hard.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

Rama.NET Updated - 14th Sep

Nope I don't think so I had, even before I had MSDN subscription, access to most of their early builds. Windows 95 comes to mind. I was using the pre production copy of Windows 95 starting early 94 itself. Also I got developer's preview of many products including Win 98, .NET Framework and so on even before the MSDN subscription ever existed. Please check your facts before stating something like this. Also this was not Linux idea. Unix was shared to Universities and other organizations even in early stages of development even before the current Internet existed. Nope, it is not Linux, OSS, GNU, Linus, or GPL idea.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

deaf_e_kate 14th Sep

@Rama.NET did you get any version of Windows in ISO format so you could run it from CD or DVD or USB stick - i think not.

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Linux early distributions were not in ISO format either, so RAMA.net is ..

DeRSSS 14th Sep

@deaf_e_kate: ... correct.

People were always using various early versions of Windows. This time MS did it more convenient technically -- not less, but also not more than that.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

Rama.NET 14th Sep

@deaf_e_kate
Hmmm, it seems you forgot about ISO format history. Even Linux didn't come in ISO Format when it was released 20 years ago. Nonetheless, like DeRSSS mentioned there were other distribution formats that were widely accepted. Even Linux was distributed on Floppies. ISO became the defacto only after CDs were introduced, until then Floppies ruled the major distribution and floppies were not for ISO format.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

Samic 14th Sep

@deaf_e_kate
Then You think wrong. Almost all the version of Windows (except Windows 3.1 and before) are in ISO format in MSDN.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

ItsTheBottomLine 14th Sep

@deaf_e_kate - I think you just were schooled.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

deaf_e_kate 15th Sep

@Rama.net & DeRSSS: Did i say Linux invented it or used it 20 years ago? They used it when it was possible to use it which still predates Microsoft by a long long way. So SVJN's premise is true, MS used something made popular by Linux.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

I am Gorby 15th Sep

@DeRSSS. "People were always using various early versions of Windows. This time MS did it more convenient technically -- not less, but also not more than that."

Yes! Lots of people use early versions of Windows, and pass back the problems. That's why I always wait for Service Pack 1 before upgrading!

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

ff2 Updated - 14th Sep

@Rama.NET, Indeed, Windows 95 had it's pre-pre-pre-pre-alpha released as early as somewhere around 1993, under the codename Chicago, which was mostly just the demo of the new desktop and explorer, still, it was a very early development build. And that in the age where the internet was practically nowhere, yet.

Clearly SJVN has practically no clue what he's talking about. As usual.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

deaf_e_kate 15th Sep

@Samic:
They were not bootable OS's they were bootable installation disks on ISO - The Linux LIVE CD ISO image is a fully operation OS run from CD/DVD/USB.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

hkommedal 22nd Sep

@Rama.NET
This time the general public has a free go at trying it out.
And it comes as an .iso, just as Linux usually do.

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LOL! You're assuming Linux was first to do that.

William Farrell 14th Sep

Do some research, then stop back.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

1773 14th Sep

@William Farrell Shhhh... let them have their moment of high !!!!

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

ItsTheBottomLine 14th Sep

@1773 LOL

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

deaf_e_kate 14th Sep

@William Farrell : can you actually point to any version of any OS that came in ISO format so you could run it form a CD/DVD/USB stick so you didn't have to overwrite your current OS? I'm too lazy to do research on spurious comments

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

Pete "athynz" Athens 14th Sep

@deaf_e_kate My God - how could we have been so foolish?!?!? It's the FORMAT that matters here! If it didn't come in an ISO format that one could run from a CD/DVD/BLURAY/USB stick then - by deaf-e-kate's reckoning - it did not ever happen. /sarcasm

ISO formatting is your rebuttal? Really?

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

facebook@... 14th Sep

@deaf_e_kate DOS 5.0 comes to mind. Just saying.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

jessepollard 18th Sep

@deaf_e_kate

No problem. The original SLS Linux distribution came on a "try it out" floppy iso. You copied it to the floppy and could then try it out. The kernel was on the boot floppy, and the root filesystem was on the second. If you had two floppy drives (common), you boot from the first, then put the root floppy in to finish. Now you had a second floppy for your data.

The point is, the root floppy WAS an iso.

You could then use the system as an install system to a hard disk if you wanted.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

symbolset 18th Sep

@deaf_e_kate The first with a GUI was probably GEM, which Microsoft had nothing to do with. It came as a bootable floppy image.

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RE: Windows 8 distribution takes a page from Linux

deaf_e_kate 15th Sep

@William Farrell : Research for you and others:
The FM Towns was capable of booting its Towns OS, a graphical, GUI OS straight from CD in 1989, a full 7 years before the boot-from-CD capable Windows 95B OSR2 was released in 1996 (and that was still not to run the OS, but for installation purposes only). The first Linux-based 'Live CD' was Yggdrasil Linux first released in beta form 1992~1993 (ceased production in 1995), though in practice its functionality was hampered due to the low throughput of contemporary CD-ROM drives. DemoLinux, released in 1998, was the first Linux distribution specially designed as a live CD.