I don’t understand Mary. How is an operating system based on a development platform?

For example, “(Maybe Microsoft's revelation on Wednesday that the .Net Framework 2.0 beta is breaking applications has something to do with this? We're waiting for official word back from Microsoft.)”. When you’re developing a new version of an OS you always break things. Vast amounts of code is being changed either by finding better ways to do things, fixing bugs that you didn't have time to fix in previous versions, or changing and adding features. And those things you break can be fixed.

Second, I think it’s a copout to use statements like “according to one of our developer sources, who requested anonymity”. If someone isn’t willing to back up what they are saying about a technical subject, they are most likely blowing smoke up your rump. I certainly wouldn’t quote someone who is not willing to back up what he or she is saying by putting their name on it. I wouldn’t consider this source reliable.

I said all that to say this: Why is it a “'Dirty Little Secret'” that the .Net Framework--specifically managed code isn’t a stable enough platform to write an operating system on? Why can’t it just be an openly known fact?

How can an OS be based on a development platform? Simple. An OS is a program, and you write programs with development platforms!
Regarding your question about
"Why is it a “'Dirty Little Secret'” that the .Net Framework--specifically managed code isn’t a stable enough platform to write an operating system on? Why can’t it just be an openly known fact?" If the instability of the .NET framework were an "openly known fact" and .NET is not stable enough for MS to use for their critical projects, then why would any other developer use .NET? Do you have some reason for thinking that Microsoft has higher quality standards than other software houses?

Reporters use anonymous sources all the time. The source could be the reporter's friend! In this case the source is reliable but maybe they don't want to be reprimanded at work for not towing the company line. Nowadays, people get fired for putting the wrong thing in their blog!

Sounds like Longhorn is shaping up to be Windows 5.5, rather than Windows 6.0

Mary Jo quoted one source: "...was going to require machines that weren't going to be available for five years or more." See Joel Spolsky's "Please Sir May I Have a Linker" article (at www.joelonsoftware.com)... .NET doesn't produce executables - it produces "assemblies" which require the run-time (kinda like Java bytecode). People write operating systems in c/c++, with the hard-core parts in assembler so they can get "close to the metal".

What the hell have you been smoking? You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. This is not a dirty little secret: .NET is being PROMOTED as a CONVENIENT way to write software FOR longhorn. It is NOT the framework on which the OS is based and NOBODY has EVER suggested that it would be. Your sources are full of crap and so are you. You should be fired. You clearly don't even understand what .NET is, you clearly have not been "watching" microsoft or longhorn, otherwise you would not have published this trash. Get a clue. Publish a correction to this article you laughable excuse for a journalist.

The only tie between .NET and Longhorn is that much of Longhorn's new APIs such as Avalon and WinFS will be fully accessible through the CLR (.NET framework), promoting better integration between software and better security. The underlying OS will be an NT kernel and an NTFS filesystem with WinFS acting as a layer on top. Microsoft is trying to persuade programmers to adopt .NET because it allows things to interoperate better, makes things more secure, and improves code readability and accessibility. .NET is not and never has been a central part of Longhorn. Longhorn is just the first OS that's interfaces can be fully leveraged by the .NET framework.

I think this story blows things way out of proportion. From what I see of Longhorn, the .NET framework will be installed and will work.

I can't recall it was ever the intention to build the OS itself as a managed code, and I'm not sure it makes much sense in fact.

What you will see in Longhorn in the .NET framework installed by default, so managed applications will run out of the box. Isn't that what you really want?

We've been saying for years that journalists need to report with sources who will go public. If they won't then they tend to be a little missleading. In this case, massively so, .NET isn't supposed to be the operating system itself, its supposed to be a library of resources to access the OS and other features which are needed to make software run on Windows in a much more secure and centric way. ANYONE reporting on this needs to understand what .NET is so that they can shed proper light on the real problems that are going on instead of sensationalizing the story. Is .NET good at what it is designed to do, absolutely! Was it designed to write an entire OS in C#? NO!!! MS is STILL writing the OS in C++, all be it maybe managed C++ in some spots but don't QUOTE me on that since I don't work for MS. You don't go off and expect to replace MILLIONS of lines of code in a yr or 2 when it took you 20 to write those lines of code in the first place. This should just be common sense! So what TOTAL CRACK POT are you listening to which suggests MS was planning on doing this? Maybe the reason MS hasn't responded to this is because they are laughing too hard right now to respond and believe your a total crack pot. I know I sure do.

Of course .Net is .Not the core of Longhorn.

From the beginning .Net has been little more than a modular paradigm shift whose obvious real function is to do TO Web-centric computing what IE did TO Netscape; that is, supplant global standards with revenue generating proprietary ownership of the market that must then "live" within the MS constraints. And live under Windows too.

It has always been my belief that .Net is not about supplanting Windows--which is the profit core of the tied-selling exercise that is MS--but is about creating enough of a dependence on proprietary .Net languages such that most if not all computing that might be Web-centric rather than desktop-centric stays within the Windows environment.

Yes, go ahead and base apps on other than desktops, as long as you still must use Windows to make that possible. Hence .Net, which despite bogus blather to the contrary, is now and always be a Windows-tethered animal.

Look at the NAME here folks. They don't call it a NET for nothin'.

I'm a developer that uses .Net regularly, and I've been keeping myself informed on Longhorn as it's progressed. My understanding from a year or two ago was that while WinFX would be handling some low-level tasks in the OS, the OS was going to be written in native code. To expect otherwise is to assume too much about .Net. .Net was designed to be an application platform, not a systems platform. It doesn't understand the concepts of processor interrupts, registers, handling a data bus, and all that. Might there come a day when the processor is a hardware MSIL interpreter? I wouldn't doubt it. But it's not coming anytime soon.

Some people have asked if device drivers could be written in .Net on Longhorn. The answer from Microsoft reps. has always been "no". Developers will still be using assembly/C/C++ for that.

It's become more defined of late. WinFX will include the Avalon presentation layer, along with XAML, and the Indigo networking layer. Those are going to be the major additions to .Net, and they'll come with Longhorn. Microsoft maintained from the earliest demos of Longhorn that one would be able to run native apps. on it. Anyone remember the DOS Lotus 1-2-3 demo they did? Every developer worth their salt knew that wasn't running on .Net.

Microsoft has revealed from time to time, when asked, that native applications would be able to access the new features of Longhorn from a native API. So no one is being shut out, though Microsoft has been presenting Longhorn as a ".Net-based OS" as a way of pressuring developers to move to managed code.

The main improvement from my perspective will be that WinFX will be a complete Windows API. Up through 1.1, there have been OS features that in order to access them, I had to make a native DLL reference and do data marshalling from .Net, in a non-OO fashion. There was just no other way, because the .Net Framework had no wrapper for it. That will change with WinFX.

Lastly, Mary, I don't know your developer credentials, but I was struck by your comment that maybe the reason Microsoft had decided to lessen .Net's influence in Longhorn was due to the 2.0 Beta's apparent instability. They made this announcement just recently, it sounds like. Given that they've been working on Longhorn for years now, I doubt they would've waited until now to say, "Oops. We're not going to use this anymore." That's too unrealistic. I think the problem is you're thinking there's a "dirty little secret" when there never really was one. I read recently, I can't remember where, that the Longhorn team had decided to use the Windows Server 2003 code base as the basis for Longhorn. That may have been the "reset" you were referring to.

Yes, people got a mistaken impression that .Net was going to underly the entire OS. I've met people who had that impression, but I think it was due to Microsoft attempting to use rhetoric to get developers thinking they really should use managed code for Longhorn projects, rather than a native development environment (like native C++). I think they didn't want to mention the native code aspects of Longhorn, because they don't want people writing native code apps. anymore on Windows. So the impression was made. They did the same thing when .Net first came out. They emphasized its web service capabilities, and de-emphasized everything else, and everyone came away with the impression that .Net was just a web services platform.

When pressed for details though, getting past the marketing messages, I think Microsoft reps. have been honest about what's really going on. That's been my impression anyway.

Well. Perhaps longhorn is .NET Enabled. Writting an OS-Grade software with .NET or J2EE is possible when the .NET is on firmware! or the processors have a .NET/J2EE instruction set!!

Check out my blog post http://shrinkster.com/70d for proof that indeed Beta 1 of Windows Vista (aka Longhorn) does not use the .NET Framework or WinFX out-of-the-box.

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"A big benefit of the new plan is that developers don't have to move to .Net if they want to use new Longhorn features" - As a developer this seems good to me... thanks