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To: Thure Meyer who wrote (23224)	4/11/1999 1:37:00 AM
From: Gerald R. Lampton	Respond to of 24154

PR Newswire Copyright (c) 1999, PR Newswire Friday, April 9, 1999 Response to Microsoft From the Open Source Community MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 9 /PRNewswire/ -- The following statement was issued today by Eric S. Raymond (President, Open Source Initiative), Dr. Larry M. Augustin (President and CEO, VA Research Linux Systems), Russell Nelson (President of Crynwr Software, OSI Board member), L. Peter Deutsch (OSI Board member), Larry Wall (inventor of Perl) and Guido Van Rossum (inventor of Python): Microsoft's Steve Ballmer said April 7, 1999 that Microsoft might consider offering some of its Windows code as open source if the Linux operating system continues to increase in popularity. We in the open-source community welcome this development. We are confident that Linux will continue to attract users who value reliability and flexibility, and Mr. Ballmer's undertaking may point the way to a future in which the powerful quality and reliability benefits of open source are enjoyed by users of both of the two most widely used operating systems in the world. We'd like to remind Microsoft that (as Jamie Zawinski put it recently in his Mozilla resignation announcement) open source is not magic pixie dust. Code that's badly designed or non-functional won't instantly improve simply by being open-sourced. Before the peer-review effect can benefit consumers, lots of developers must be both able and motivated to participate. We must therefore caution Mr. Ballmer and Microsoft that empty demonstrations and half-measures won't do. A partial release of components that won't build into functioning, usable software won't attract developers. A release of "Windows" that leaves the kernel, the Windows API or critical pieces such as Active Directory, SMB, OLE/DCOM, or the Exchange wire protocol still closed will readily be diagnosed by both developers and the Justice Department as a sham. So would a license that exposes source but denies outside developers full rights to modify, re-use and re-distribute without legal hindrance. These are all traps to be avoided. But if Microsoft is sincere in wishing to join the open-source community, and does the right things in the right spirit, we will welcome it. Truly open-sourced Windows code would be a boon to consumers and developers everywhere. /CONTACT: Donna Sokolsky of Spark Public Relations, 650-254-0800, or fax 650-568-0394, or cellular, 650-888-1850, or donna@sparkpr.com, for Open Source Community/ 09:00 EDT

To: Thure Meyer who wrote (23224)	4/11/1999 2:26:00 AM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

There is also an article about MS demonstrating a 64-bit version of Windows 2000. With a remarkable demonstration on an 4-way Alpha that showed, indeed its faster. An amusing quirk is that MS is considering releasing an interim 36-bit version. Let's not get confused between 36 bit and 64 bit. 36 bit is extended addressing in a 32 bit architecture. It is Intel's usual "segmented" scheme, a lot like the original 80286 segmentation except running over 32 bit registers. This is currently available on Xeon - there's just no easy way to exploit it. Page tables, pointers, everything is 32 bit except for the ability to execute some segmented addresses. So this really only enables the use of large memory in a "bank switched" operation. You will notice that no one is doing any big database or other performance work using 36 bit addressing. There's a reason for that. The 64 bit system is very different. It provides a different PTE structure, 64 bit pointers, 64 bit register operations. That's where the performance comes from. Kind of where Unix was in 1994 - at least the DEC OSF flavor.