And now for something completely similar...

This article is a new idea to a lot of people. People in the OSS community, however, have discussed the concept before, and I actually wrote (and never received a response back, BTW) Bill Gates about it in something like 1999 to 2000 -- a long long time ago. Fooey on all of the lame press that panders to idiots that think he answers all of his email (or maybe he doesn't like my opinions -- go figure?!?).

Microsoft doesn't get it. They could publish the Windows API right on top of a bunch of OSes, but refuse.

They actually promised to make something similar happen a few years back. They told all of the CAD/CAM vendors that there would be a windows code porting product that would make porting windows apps to Unix extremely easy (remember Mainsoft? It was either something just like it, or it exactly). The kit was announced, and all of the CAD/CAM vendors decided to code for Windows and use the kit for the Unix stuff, rather than maintain two code bases. It was an obvious business decision -- who would pay for two different development trees when you could just have one?

Odd, when the time came to deliver it was something like "oops", we didn't finish that. It's not a priority. This screwed a bunch of CAD vendors that had plans to release their product on multiple platforms, forced customers into purchasing entirely different computing platforms and sealed Microsoft's dominance of the market -- all at the same time.

The main losers were the customers. Gone was any kind of choice. Gone was any kind of stability too. Gone was support for a lot of things -- the ball was totally in their court. The only lost item in the room for Microsoft -- oh, yeah, that thing called the trust. What's a little trust among friends, eh?

The whole portable API thing is kind of like a Chinese puzzle to them. They're so locked into the idea that they have to own everything, that they can't back off a little and continue to own at least the desktop API. They could sell the Windows API on top of a lot of things and continue some dominance -- but it would require relaxing their mental grip.

That will never happen (IMHO).

Here's to me being wrong :-)
--FeriCyde (is on your side)