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Midori – the post-Windows operating system
By Michael Pietroforte | 3 Comments | Permalink | Trackback | Previous | NextMary Joe Foley and Ed Bott blogged about Midori, which is supposed to be the code name of a new operating system, Microsoft is working on. As I understand their articles, we are not talking about Windows 8 or 9 here, but about something completely new, i.e., an OS built from scratch. Even though both journalists are known to have good connections to Microsoft insiders, they have little information on what Midori is all about:
- Midori is related to Singularity, a Microsoft research project that aims to build an operating system which is mostly written in managed code (C#). Only the lowest-level code is written in assembly language and C, and the hardware abstraction layer is programmed in C++. Singularity is easier to analyze and is supposed to have better performance.
- There is some speculation that Midori could be a revival of Cairo, a research project (1991–1996) into a new distributed and truly object-oriented operating system. To be honest, I have no idea what “distributed” and “object-oriented” could mean here. Perhaps this is just referring to the managed code I mentioned above.
- Midori might also have something to do with WinFS, which was the code name for a new file system based on relational databases. WinFS was one of the new features originally planned for Windows Vista. Maybe the reason why Microsoft had to drop this feature is because too many changes to the core OS would have been necessary.
Well, that is all. Basically, Midori just represents the old theory that Microsoft should start from scratch because Windows is too bloated, and its legacy code and the ecosystem around it make it difficult to add new features. Even though I have been using Windows since it drew its first breath, I do not have the slightest idea whether or not this theory is true. I also believe that there are only a few system engineers on the planet who know enough about Windows to say something reasonable about this topic. As an end user and administrator, I prefer a bloated OS with many features over a slim OS with limited capabilities.
One thing is for sure, though. A newly designed kernel, more object orientation, and a new file system aren’t features that will excite many people. The main reason for Vista’s bad image is that its changes are mostly under hood. Many people don’t understand why they should change the OS if they can’t do new things with it. What would be the big change, if one installed Firefox 6.0 on Midori with its new object-oriented kernel just to work with Google apps 3.0?
In my view, Microsoft should make sure that a newly designed operating system brings fundamental new capabilities. And when I say “fundamental”, I really mean fundamental. The expression “post-Windows” is only justified if it will be an OS that has no windows. That is, I would like to have an OS with a truly new user interface. I am tired of my keyboard, my mouse, and my flat screen. I want new input devices; I want 3D; and I want my desktop to be an integral part of the cloud. Imagine a desktop OS that is nothing else but a client for a Second-Life-like cloud. This is what I would call “post-Windows”.
Perhaps a newly designed kernel is necessary to make this possible. However, if the main purpose of Midori is just to get rid of Windows’ bloated legacy, then Midori bashing will start even before the first alpha version is out. Rest assured that those journalists and bloggers who now criticize Vista for being bloated will be the first to complain that Midori has no new capabilties.
Isn’t it a false dichotomy these days to have to choose between a compatible bloated OS and a slim less capable OS? Wouldn’t a slim OS capable of running older versions of Windows in virtualisation software the ideal solution. Microsoft can’t go on forever keeping 100% backward compatibility all the way back to DOS. Creating a stripped down OS with all previous operating systems available as virtual images would solve a lot of problems for them.
Jack, I am sure that Microsoft will add virtualization technology to the client version of Windows sooner or later. However this dichotomy you mentioned still stands. If you prefer a slim OS, it always means that you prefer an OS with fewer capabilities. Of course, I assume here that the code has been optimized.
@Michael – a slimmed down OS + virtualisation = the features set of any OS you care to run in virtualisation. That’s where the false dichotomy lies: you can have both an OS with fewer innate capabilities ie a slim OS and a fully featured one at the same time.