
What happened to Microsoft's Midori operating system project? - rbanffy
http://www.zdnet.com/article/whatever-happened-to-microsofts-midori-operating-system-project/?ftag=YHR05c7fbahttp://www.zdnet.com/article/whatever-happened-to-microsofts-midori-operating-system-project/?ftag=YHR05c7fba
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lobster_johnson
Here's the blog of one of the developers:

[http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-
midori/](http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/)

He is planning a whole series of entries about Midori.

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neogodless
Yes - a lot of this is on the edge of what I understand about low-level
programming, but I find it fascinating!

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vezzy-fnord
He hasn't really gotten into low-level details yet, but rather design
principles along with fault and security models. It should be interesting to
see it unfold.

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neogodless
One man's design principles is another man's low-level :)

But this is one reason it helps to complete your Computer Science degree. A
lot of "operating system" design principles seem low-level to me, as a simple
high-level programmer.

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melted
Midori was Microsoft's version of DEC's "No output division". They basically
shepherded all the super senior people there to fool around with shit and not
impede progress elsewhere. No real product was ever expected.

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AYBABTME
I'm curious why they keep the super senior people if all they can do is:

    
    
        - Produce no output in a no output division, or
        - Impede progress elsewhere.
    

Obviously I'm missing some part of the argument, can you elaborate?

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TheOtherHobbes
DEC had an explicit "never fire anyone if you can possibly avoid it" culture.

There were no significant lay-offs until the last few years.

You might think that's insane, but it created a lot of loyalty. And I'm not
sure it's any less sane than the current religion of cutting head counts at
the first downturn in profitability, losing all the good people (because
they'll be the first through the exits), and crushing the morale of the rest -
never mind other popular stupidities like off-shoring to countries that don't
speak English, or hiring back fired employees for vastly more money as
contractors, because they're the only ones who can make stuff work.

Meanwhile I keep wondering if MS should reinvent itself as a straight R&D
company. The research and blue sky side regularly does supercool stuff. The
management, strategy, and customer satisfaction cadres - maybe not so great,
actually.

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sinhpham
They had a net income of $4.62 billion last quarter, how is that "not so
great"?

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/23/us-microsoft-
resul...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/23/us-microsoft-results-
idUSKCN0SG2M520151023#oAperPSST3TXZy1t.97)

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kagamine
He didn't say they don't make money, he said they don't do supercool stuff.
Money is supercool stuff too, but not in the same way.

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sinhpham
What other cool stuff can "management, strategy, and customer satisfaction
cadres" even do? And if just because "management, strategy, and customer
satisfaction cadres" is not doing "supercool stuff" (whatever it means), the
company should focus on R&D, then the vast majority of companies should cease
to exist. Like it or not, companies are here to make money.

Saying MS should reinvent itself to be a R&D company is like saying Toyota
should stop making cars because their normal cars aren't running by water,
auto driven, and charged by solar panels yet. Ya, what's the point? Use your
money to research on energy, AI and what not. Never mind where that money
comes from.

When I read these absurd statements I think the author is either trolling, has
an agenda, or is living in a bubble.

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TheOtherHobbes
Actually I'm just a typical user - albeit with some coding and product design
experience, which most users don't have - but with opinions ahared by a
significant percentage of other typical users.

Consider:

The Win 10 keylogger/spyware issue Win 10 forced upgrades. The nonsensical
"one OS for all devices" strategy. The Nokia acquisition. Silverlight. Kin.
Zune. IE6, and the disastrous effect it had on the web design industry. Win 8,
and the disastrous effect it had on the PC hardware industry. (Never mind the
fact that MS took a perfectly usable and popular OS - Win 7 - and broke it
almost beyond all imagination.)

That list is nowhere close to being comprehensive. (How many people remember
that MS tried to create a library services and publishing division?)

In what sense were these strategic successes?

Now, a lot of smart people work at MS, and every so often they produce
something that could be a game changer - like the Courier project.

Somehow the game changers never ship. What does ship is - too rarely great.

Where does that disconnect come from, if not in strategic direction and
management?

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PauloManrique
"The nonsensical "one OS for all devices" strategy."

Which will probably make their mobile devices rise from nothing to something
relevant

"IE6"

IS6 was a amazing browser at the time, the most advanced for years. The main
problem was it didn't have a auto updater.

"Win 8, and the disastrous effect it had on the PC hardware industry. (Never
mind the fact that MS took a perfectly usable and popular OS - Win 7 - and
broke it almost beyond all imagination.)"

That's just your opinion.

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anonymfus
R/programming discussion is very interesting, there are ever few Midori
developers in it:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3t50xg/more_in...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3t50xg/more_information_about_microsofts_oncesecret/)

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zmanian
It always seemed like MSFT was about to position M# right into same niche as
Rust. Both languages had the mantra of safety and zero cost abstraction.

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MichaelGG
Didn't they hire the guy from BitC? BitC and ATS looked like the only
interesting safe high perf languages for a while eh? Rust now has all the
interest though.

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aidenn0
Both BitC and ATS are big on formal program verification; rust has the
interest because the number of people outside of academia that are interested
in formal program verification is approximately zero.

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rottyguy
I thought their was some advancements in realtime GC attributed to the Midori
project?

