OS Open Sockets
A. RE: "The Microsoft Operating System would be limited to being just that: a platform for running other programs. All programs. Not just Microsoft programs."
When I said this I meant that the Microsoft OS should not evolve to run only Microsoft's software products (disguised as integral parts of the OS).
I think we would be better off in a world with options like Word Perfect, PageMaker, FreeHand, Netscape etc. for Windows in addition to the excellent choices from Microsoft.
B. RE: "The OS Open Sockets Solution. As a software developer who has worked both in the MSFT and Unix worlds, I believe that the current MSFT development environment already far exceeds the solution you suggest, with the NT subset being closer yet. There are clearly defined and published APIs for both applications and layered components which anyone can use, and they seem to work pretty well."
If software runs better folded-into rather than run externally by the OS, as Microsoft seems to be claiming in the case of the browser, then let's do Sockets so other software can be folded-in with full functionality as the USER chooses.
Explorer must connect to Windows 98 at several connecting points.Lets put all these points together in one place, standardize it and call it a socket. Lets publish the specs for the socket in such a way that other like-type software can be designed to snap into the socket and run as functionally as any piece of Microsoft's folded-in software.
We all realize that the MS OS still allows programs like Netscape to somehow run externally. But, after all, folded-in is better, isn't it? Microsoft says so, don't they? Its the wave of the future, isn't it? Only Microsoft products will qualify to eventually run folded-in, right? Why put everyone else out of business? Who really wants an OS to run only some programs well and not others? And, who wants an OS that runs only Microsoft programs?
Lets get back to a Windows Operating System that runs Windows programs, all Windows programs, not just Microsoft's Windows programs.
Hal |
