
Third-party compilers locked out of Windows Runtime development - mariuz
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/6347-third-party-compilers-locked-out-of-windows-runtime-development.html
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eckyptang
I think the EU might get the nightstick out again if they pull this. A lot of
vendors are piggybacking on MS and this will mean anti-competitive behavior.

Also, WinRT is a pretty big land grab by Microsoft and it's pissed a large
number of developers off. If they kill the current ecosystem or lock people
into a narrow subset of it, there is no longer a market or ecosystem. Simple
as.

The same is not true for Apple, who built an ecosystem from nothing. They're
not cutting anyone off.

Most of the MS-oriented development staff I know (100+ people) are starting to
look at exit strategies from the MS ecosystem. Most of them have Apple
machines and/or Linux native machines and VM's on the go. Quite a few have
jumped ship to Java enterprise outfits already.

When the rats start leaving...

~~~
freehunter
_I think the EU might get the nightstick out again if they pull this._

I wouldn't be surprised, but it would also be bullshit.

 _The same is not true for Apple, who built an ecosystem from nothing. They're
not cutting anyone off._

Does WinRT have a history? I think it'd be pretty safe to say that WinRT is an
ecosystem built from nothing in the same way iOS is a ecosystem built from
nothing. It's using base technology from a much older system, but implemented
in a completely different way. There is no current market or ecosystem for
WinRT.

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munin
> Thanks to .NET support, Microsoft does have a measure support for
> alternative languages; it is the Common Language Runtime after all. What
> would be better though would be to support LLVM, as Apple does on iOS

this is super confusing. iOS can run LLVM bitcode? I would link to the "LLVM
IR is a compiler IR" email, but UIUCs email archive server is down ...

~~~
drivebyacct2
That's just wrong anyway. You can't use .NET from RT. You can however provide
new projections for another language though.

(Fun fact, there are now 3 C++ variants in Windows. C++ C++/CX C++/.NET)

~~~
tedunangst
How many variants of C are there in OS X? :)

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freehunter
_Windows 8′s ‘dirty little secret_

A dirty little secret which happens to be common knowledge and is mentioned in
the tech press at least once a week for pretty much the last year. Yet somehow
it still seems to provoke outrage from people who continue to insist that
Microsoft is abusing a non-existent monopoly in a market they have no presence
in.

~~~
hahainternet
I don't think a company needs a monopoly to be rightly slated over their
anticompetitive actions.

~~~
freehunter
Well, I don't want to have to buy a Mac and buy a copy of XCode to make an iOS
app either, but that's pretty much accepted. You can use whatever you want to
create a desktop program. If this decision was about destroying competitive
languages and software, that seems like a pretty big oversight on the behalf
of these evil masterminds.

 __edit - georgemcbay points out that XCode is free. My mistake.

~~~
georgemcbay
Before anyone else jumps in on this one thing... XCode is free. However, the
point is still valid.

Unless you're willing to enter the grey world of hackintoshing, you need a Mac
to develop for iOS (required for code signing step) regardless of how you
build your app, even if you use a third-party compiler like the MonoTouch one.

~~~
kpeel
But Visual Studio Express is also free.

~~~
freehunter
The shame in it all is that you can't just use the computer you already have.
iOS development requires a Mac and Windows RT development requires Windows. It
sucks when any manufacturer locks you in and prevents you from using portable
code. It ups the expense of developing a cross-platform application
significantly.

I guess at least if you own a Mac, you're allowed to run Windows on the
hardware as well. The same can't be said in reverse, due to software licensing
restrictions.

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dragonbonheur
Is it really an issue? WinRt is a new platform and if I remember correctly, in
the beginning you could not code against anything but the Dalvik VM on Android
(that's Java) and iDevices could only be programmed in Objective C. The way I
see technology moving anyway is that with cheap boards like Raspberry Pi and
other cheap hardware like that, within 7 years, people will be able to mix and
match components and build their own tablets just like they build PCs today.
Within 4 years the vast majority of Shanzhai tablets will have more than 7
hours of usable battery life AND will be able to accept alternative operating
systems like Puppy Linux, Debian or Firefox OS. By that time the new frontier
will be wearable smart glasses, but how fancy does humanity need to get for
cheap,ubiquitous portable computing? Windows RT, iOS and to a lesser extent,
Android might be less relevant by then. Especially when you can run an IDE
like GAMBAS on a humble Raspberry Pi with Linux.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Linux fanboy; I like Windows too but the
industry has a better chance of using a commodity OS than paying royalties to
Microsoft for every Android device sold, like some manufacturers are already
doing, or even paying $30 per device as in Apple's wet dreams...

~~~
mrich
But the Android vendors are already using a commodity OS in Linux, but still
have to pay Microsoft patent royalties on it.

~~~
grimboy
It's hard to collect royalties from individual users.

~~~
sseveran
They will charge the manufacturers who in turn will charge you.

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tedunangst
I don't get this at all. You have to link against the same DLLs and you can
only call a subset of system calls, but you can use whatever native code
generator you want. MS isn't hexdumping the binary to see if the instruction
ordering matches what VS generates. And if that's too hard, the tried and true
technique of generating C code in your backend will surely work, as third
party compilers have been doing for decades.

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BudVVeezer
Third-party compilers are already locked out of Win32 development to a large
degree thanks to patents on things like SEH (32-bit) and access to the native
intrinsics. Why people are up in arms over WinRT is beyond me.

~~~
JoshTriplett
MinGW has worked on Windows for years, and has the advantage of working as a
cross-compiler from other platforms, which makes it easier to build releases
for multiple platforms on one system.

