Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Bob — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 13:45:02 -0000

There is no reason WinFS couldnt be used behind the scenes of a web app as well as a winform app, so I do not necessarilly agree that the web killed WinFS.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

CObject — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 21:52:43 -0000

Let's just roll this back a bit to some more interesting debate like "users don't use files anymore they use websites"

That's partly the problem - security - there is none left. Website are for oozing out opinions that aren't worth the enough to be put into a file stored on a personal drive; unless you're a researcher by trade there isn't much need for putting anything into a documentative format.

Such flame posts as 60% of those above don't add anything to the debate. They simply inflate the value of opinions.

Around the age of 25, a person today, must think of re-investing in personal education which will grow them beyond mere opinions read here and there.

For all the "paperless" technologies we're trying to invent as a society, books are still the #1 source of educative and documentative forms of scholarly knowledge.

It's very very clear by most of the posts here, which of you have classical educations in datastructures and computational theory, since 80% of the data posted contains no information.

[Recommended Reading: Practical File System Design: With The Be File System by Dominic Giampaolo ISBN:1-55860-497-9]

As one of my database design projects in college, I developed a fully functional database using only txt files stored on a FAT12 Bootable Partition which booted directly into the db management environment. It wasn't complex at all since it was mostly batch files that poled for input at the prompt and did a variety of comps, pulls, pushes, and appends +++. I scored 100 on that project because the idea was so unconventional to Prof, but followed perfectly all of the guidelines established in our database design textbook, I simply applied an alternate approach to how we view a database environment should be. We'd all become too accustomed to 'infrastuctures of our generation' lol.

Well, WinFS? Never noticed to begin with... I've been busy engineering custom solutions to real industry problems for the past 10 years without ever noticing that Microsoft's new technologies were going to affect what I did, and still do today.

Boohoo, no WinFS. My real concern is with Tech Companies WoWing the kiddies into believing that "Personal Computers" are not important or relavent anymore because "the web" does it better. Hmm, well my private information and documents are oddly enough... MINE, and not stored on an Internet connected PC.

Ciao.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

CynicalGeek — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 11:08:59 -0000

"None of the people bitching here have stated just what the negative impact to them is going to be."

James,
The added feature of being able to do a "Search" and actually find what we are looking for within a document. We have been waiting for WinFS to help solve this problem, and I've looked at some alternative solutions a small bit. When Microsoft said that they would include WinFS for Windows Longhorn, I almost signed up for Software Assurance in 2002 when they wanted me to. For now, it's back to the drawing board looking at third-party applications.
That's one example of a real world letdown from Microsoft's lack of implementing WinFS.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Surya — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:14:56 -0000

"Well, ReiserFS is better than NFTS anyday " Its true

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

VinceP1974 — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 01:47:42 -0000

Having a superficial understanding of what WinFs was going to be.. and to me that meant some meta-data layer on top of NTFS, i have to wonder what all the fuss is about that it's being dropped or whatnot.

I mean how many people fill out the Metadata options we have now for all the files we can make. I have never once entered document information for Office docs. I simply dont have time. Nor am I going to OCDesquely meta-label every media file I have.

So being the lazy content-creator that I am, what am I missing by WinFs not coming to life?

None of the people bitching here have stated just what the negative impact to them is going to be. They just oppurtunitistically use this to get out one more anti-MS complaint. you people are tiring.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

rei — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:45:58 -0000

You know what? If the Web can kill WinFS just because it's not a web service, the Web can kill Windows and it can kill Microsoft. Will it? No.

Scoble, please investigate why WinFS was abandoned. Please. I can't believe even you don't know the truth.

And its use in SQL and ADO.NET is NOT WinFS.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

David Jacobson — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 20:43:36 -0000

Just a guess. But I doubt the web was the primary issue. Most likely, the needed work was not getting done rapidly enough. Plus the case for developing a relational file system may not be that strong. You can always make SQL Sever Express a standard part of the operating system and develop the tools to make it easy to use for an object relational mapping. That should basically accomplish the same thing without requiring as much new work. It also may take more steps than can be done for Vista. But the Linq project may still make a significant start.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

redfish — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:29:17 -0000

solomonrx,

well, as many people have said, the same winfs database technology that can be used on the desktop can be used on web servers; and it seems microsoft is continuing to develop this path as it is incorporating the winfs technology into server products. my point was there is no reason to divorce it from local storage technology and leave the desktop deprived of this; the implementation of a file store on a local machine isn't the problem delaying WinFS its apparently both implementing network service and creating an intuitive end-user interface for accessing the store.

Whether or not more and more files are on the web, all files will not be on the web; and the amount will differ per user. An home user might have more on the web than a developer, a photographer, a designer, a writer, etc. But most people have some sort of job, or some sort of project they're working on. And like I said, people don't want to be forced to connect to the Internet to do anything.

Even so I still don't agree that as of now people are no longer putting everything online. You really really believe people are no longer using word processors?

A WinFS data store is a great improvement even though, just like Avalon it may not seem like much to an end user who already feels like he can do everything he needs. But development of rich and adaptable user interfaces and controls is leagues easier and things render much smoother with Avalon. We should expect better applications as a result, but users won't really see something in-your-face that on technical terms couldnt have been done in XP. Users don't 'need' WinFS but it is an improvement. It does more than what tagging and indexing alone can do; it makes the metadata for files self-described, so you don't need to have to create a DLL or dowload a programed filter to access the data associated with a file--it also makes the line between file content and header info unimportant. This is a great improvement and there are numerous ways within my personal projects that this would make the OS a bit more helpful.

It would also make it helpful for others who also will continue to work on projects more complex than a PTA flier, letter to the editor, or blog entry---but even if everything is done at work through servers, those servers could use a WinFS file store, ande even if at home done through the web they web servers could use a WinFS file store.

And this hasn't been given up on... as you see Microsoft wants to use WinFS technology in server applications. The implementation of WinFS in servers had been cited as one of the reasons for its delays. So it isn't the web, in that case, that has caused its 'death'. The second reason cited has been problems implementing a good user interface for home users. This will probably mature and there will be no issue adding it later.

Whether people will care when its finally in the OS, as Scoble puts it, maybe isn't the most relevant thing, and it certainly doesn't mean WinFS is 'dead' or that the web killed WinFS. WinFS was always less important than observers made it out to be--people are fine with how they access their files now. It still is important, but in the way Avalon, Indigo, etc. are important; in a less in-your-face way in that they revolutionize the core OS functions--the improvements they make to the end-user experience are substantial but subtle and users should just expect to see a better product. People for some reason seem to expect every major OS release to look completely different from the one before it. Windows will look the same, just better.--- even though one can see a double standard when talking about Apple--because even when they implement very minor things (that Microsoft may implement also), everything is seen as revolutionary whether it is or not.

But anyway, this is why people have reacted the way they did to Scoble's idea. Not everything is an issue of web vs desktop; and I don't believe this is.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

BillyG — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:15:33 -0000

I think a more accurate comment would be:
"Microsoft's incompetence killed WinFS. The Web renders it's death inconsequential".

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

solomonrex — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 11:22:43 -0000

Scoble's right, and I'm glad to see him sticking to it.

Our work stuff is all on servers, our home stuff is all online. I don't need a database to run Warcraft, and I don't need one to organize photos on flickr. People are writing stuff online, not in Word, and Google can find it.

Until someone does real image search (here's a picture of my dog, find all the other pictures with my dog in it) we're not going to get much better locally. What would the database have done that tagging can't do? That folders can't do? That date sorting can't do?

I don't think Picasa can be significantly improved.

I don't think Itunes can be significantly improved.

Oh, eventually, but not in the near future, and not with some database built into an OS.

The real issue is where is MS going to improve Windows? What exactly can they do to challenge the Internet as a platform? And how can they have so many more developers and so much more money than Apple and just be treading water?

1. They're duplicating Unix (Least Privileged Mode) instead of adopting and subverting. Dumb.
2. They're trying to make IE the predominant platform and losing. Dumb.
3. They obsess over backwards compatibility, even in the consumer version of Vista. Dumb.

I mean, what are these people doing?:
http://research.microsoft.c...

Just plan a path, use virtual technology like Apple for compatibility, and move on with life. MS could have created an entirely new OS in the time it's taken Vista to not come out. If you're going to have 9 versions of Windows, quit trying to make them identical underneath. Plenty of companies use Linux and Windows side by side, I'm sure completely different versions of Vista home and business could co-exist.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Andy Simpson — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:21:46 -0000

Personally, and I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want various web silos to be the sole owners of my personal data. Maybe there are some photos I'd rather not have up on Flickr, or my blog or whatever. Maybe I'd rather not have Google as the sole custodian of my spreadsheets and documents.

Some of the arguments here are utterly facetious. I don't want Google while I'm not connected because in that situation being able to search web pages seems pretty redundant. But I sure want to still be able to read and write documents, email (even if I can't send it) read feeds I downloaded while I was online, play games, listen to music etc. while I'm disconnected.

My Xbox 360 works just fine disconnected. Sure, I don't get the value-added stuff that's coming from Live, but you can bet there'd be a hideous outcry if being online was a requirement. People are, mark my words, not going to like the day they wake up and find their computers are little more than dumb terminals to ad infested/supported web apps.

Anyways, personally, I wanted WinFS to be a nice object-orientated relational data model that I could dump data into in fantastic structured ways and they query later. For developers it would be gold dust. Imagine a world in which every program logically connects together every single bit of data in a consistent way. Your instant messenger contacts are connected to your e-mail to your chat logs to the music they've sent you, to the documents you've shared with them. That's really great compelling stuff.

I get your Web 2.0 enthusiasm, but you live in rarefied air. Most of the world doesn't know what RSS/Web 2.0 is, and they care less. Whilst connectivity is important, the really interesting applications in the future are the ones which leverage the client AND the network. I mean, your big HD craze of late is just incompatible with the "web" alone. It's relying on client tech like BitTorrent to get it done.

The future is peer-to-peer, I think, maybe backed up by central services. Think of a vision like WinFS, but one that connects with other people you know. So your queries will touch stuff they have too. Maybe. I don't know. I think the future is in interconnectivity between things out there in the cloud, people out there, and things I have. I want my phone to sync contacts properly with my computer. I want my photos and text messages from my phone to come up to my computer and be associated with the contacts who sent them. I want to not have totally seperate contact lists in Outlook / Windows Live / MySpace / whatever. I want to have stuff that's mine and stuff that's out there seamlessly. So there's a role for the web, there's a role for my own data to be collected and organised.

The value is in the plurality of the experience. It's going to suck if we have to use Google everything to get any value out of it. The only way to make best use of data is if everyone buys into a single way of describing and organising data. I mean, one of my pet peeves at the moment is José González. If I want to find every song on my computer right now that has him in, I have the first problem that not every song with him in is labelled as such, and the second that some of them miss the accents, or spell his surname with an s. If instead they referenced some standard way of representing him as an artist, that'd be better. I don't see how Google is going to go about solving that problem! Are they going to give me a Google music store with non-broken metadata that I can search across? What about the music I've already bought?

With WinFS, this kinda music data would be broken out of the silos it's in currently, then I could use some general-purpose querying tool to go in and fix up that data. It gives the user back ownership of these things. It would mean different programs could all seperately agree on some of these basic concepts, and then start to do some sensible things with them.

WinFS is dead because it was over-ambitious, and they tried to do too much at once. So Microsoft have cut their losses and reassigned the bits that could be salvaged into other other products. It was always a hard proposition. It's hard because it's worth doing. But oh well.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Robert Scoble — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:58:47 -0000

Karim, please warn me when you write something so good and funny. I almost spit Diet Coke all over my monitor.

>This “free world where advertisers foot the bill” didn’t work in 1998 and it isn’t going to work in 2008.

Really? Google came out of that period. If that's "not working" then I wanna "not work" too! :-)

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Kevin Daly — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:01:28 -0000

PS. Karim, that was brilliant.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

John C. Welch — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 15:53:31 -0000

But kevin, if it's part of SQL Server, then they can charge you for what you would have gotten for free.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

John C. Welch — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 15:51:33 -0000

You know, i find it interesting that Robert is saying out of one side that local storage is dead, and it's all about online storage.

But then he says the web can't replace fat client applications. Well, you need local storage for fat client applications, or you need an always on, gig-E level connection with guaranteed uptime no matter where you are in the world.

I don't quite see how one can have both without massive changes somewhere.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Kevin Daly — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 15:43:32 -0000

The whole "it's not dead, it's just rolled into SQL Server" argument is not going to wash unless we see SQL Server appearing as manifestly an integrated part of Windows.
Remember that WinFS was going to change the way we interacted with and organised information on Windows.
That's not going to be achieved by any number of bells and whistles added to SQL Server.
Of course, the rolled-into-SQL-Server excuse might be sustainable from the point of view of whatever the scope of WinFS was reduced to before it was er, not killed - but that's not what we were originally sold. Saying WinFS is not dead on that basis is like saying the Amiga isn't dead because it's name is still used by a company that makes mobile games. Whoopee.
That announcement was, let's face it, creepily disingenuous, and eerily reminiscent of the way the Scientologists spun LRH "not needing his body anymore".

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Christopher Coulter — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:31:33 -0000

Karim bravo. Get that into Final Draft format and sell to Hollywood. :)

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Christopher Coulter — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:26:38 -0000

You’ve been very careful not to hype it up? Man. You live in some alternate universe? You do know blogs have archives, doncha? What 3 months of non-stop PDC 2003 hype and the off-the-chart post hype beyond that, Team 99 and all, until that big brick-wall code redo. The "unlike any event" and "never see another one like it again" was that part of the careful not hype up part? ;)

http://scoble.weblogs.com/2...

Also, keep in mind that this is unlike any event Microsoft has ever done. I've never seen an event like this. We'll probably never see another one like it again. A new OS. A new SQL Server. A new Visual Studio. All being shown off by the techies who are building these things. 15 days and counting.

And Salesforce outages are legendary, and Salesforce is mainly for Small Biz, you think all the Fortune 1000 Oracle and DB2 tables chuck full of proprietary and confidential data is gonna go out on some external web app? Dreaming, bucko. Doncha member the failure of Hailstorm and Passport? As if we don't have enough of a problem already with massive data disclosures. The tech utopia, prodcuing id theft nightmares.

Anyways, end prog.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

CynicalGeek — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 13:22:29 -0000

I have a Mac at home that I tinker with and I love Spotlight. I have users at work who have tinkered with Google Desktop Search and find that it works very well. I just wish that Microsoft would include some useful features (for everyday users) in the new OS rather than just stuffing it with eye candy that eats up RAM. And here I sit with a brand new stack of Software Assurance Agreement Summaries in my inbox. Office Software Assurance yes! Windows Software Assurance no!

LOL @ Karim

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Josh Einstein — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:35:32 -0000

Robert, you think because all the investment in Silicon Valley is going into tiny web startups means that it's the future of computing? Have you not learned your lesson from the last time?

This "free world where advertisers foot the bill" didn't work in 1998 and it isn't going to work in 2008. The investment back then was in companies that did grocery store delivery and scooters that were going to change transportation as we know it.

Why do you web geek types think that it's an all or nothing desktop and web world? Do you remember mainframe computing? Do you remember BBSes? Do you remember CGI-generated web sites loaded with Java applets? This prophecy that the desktop is dead is really getting old. How long will people tolerate being confined to the borders of their browser windows? Or bogged down by standards bodies? How can the web make any progress if Microsoft and Mozilla can't agree on what hot new feature to add to their browser?

The answer is of course that they won't tolerate it. Just like they didn't tolerate the slow feature crawl of terminal emulators and "web 1.0" browser features. Eventually we come back to the client. Let the network be what it was designed for... moving data.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Karim — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:28:47 -0000

The light flickered, went out, plunging the room into inky darkness.

Suddenly, a shot rang out.

The lights came back on.

WinFS was in the middle of the room, lying face down in a pool of its own blood.

A woman screamed. The murmuring crowd instinctively recoiled in horror, backing away from the corpse.

The double doors flew open. A man strode into the room, and locked the doors behind him. "I must ask everyone to remain the room," he exclaimed. "Someone here has committed a murder."

"Who the f--k are you?" asked Tetra.

"My name is Inspector Scoble," he said, doffing his deerstalker hat. With his other hand, he lifted a Meerschaum pipe to his lips, and puffed vigorously.

"Surely I'm not a suspect," Cody said. "I don't even use Windows. I'm a Linux troll!"

"You might have had the motive, but I do not consider you a suspect," Scoble said. "I believe... THE WEB killed WinFS."

A weighty silence hung in the air.

"That is the stupidest f--king g--damned thing I've ever heard in my f--king life," replied Tetra. "You've said some amazingly stupid bulls--t, but that just takes the f--king cake."

Scoble lit a wooden match and relighted his pipe. "It sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays," he said.

"Your hypothesis is nothing but wild speculation," said Christopher Coulter. "I bet all the other Police Inspectors think you're a retard."

"The web couldn't have killed WinFS," said Brian Shapiro. "It was a trendy thing to say a few years back -- the Web killed this, the Web killed that -- but the reality is that desktop file systems are still with us today."

"WinFS wasn't a file system," said a pedant in the back.

Dare Obasanjo crossed the room to a crystal decanter of spirits, uncorked it, and poured a crystal tumbler to the rim. "WinFS had a lot of... shall we say... 'health issues.'" He raised the tumbler to his lips and sipped.

The crowd stared at him.

"Not cryptic enough?" asked Dare, taking another sip.

"Saying the Web killed WinFS is just stupid," said John Welsh. "It's something you'd expect from Inspector Clouseau."

A small, wet cough emanated from the body on the floor. The crowd gasped. WinFS stirred.

"I... I... can't believe you're all so angry at Inspector Scoble and his theory... instead of being angry at... the one who pulled the trigger."

Scoble sprang to the center of the room, and knelt next to WinFS. "Who shot you, WinFS? Who pulled the trigger?"

WinFS made an effort to speak, but could only murmur.

Scoble leaned in closely, placing his ear next to the whispered words.

"I see," Scoble said to WinFS. "Well why don't your developers just put that on their blogs? Why the mystery?"

WinFS coughed, a bright red sputter of arterial blood appearing on its lips... and smiled.

The smile was frozen on its face, as the WinFS process terminated.

Shishir Mehrotra stepped forward and raised his hands delicately. "Do not think of this as the death of WinFS," he said to the crowd. "For this is merely part of the coding cycle. No code ever truly dies. It merely appears in another form."

A woman sobbed quietly.

"The soul of WinFS will appear in other products," Shishir continued. "One day, you may see a database, or an application, or a tree structure, its leaves and nodes glittering in its memory space, and you will know: truly, that is the soul of WinFS, reborn into another product experience, part of the greater Data Platform Vision."

The crowd pondered his words.

"That is the biggest f--king piece of bulls--t I've ever f--king heard in my whole f--king life," said Tetra.

Scoble grinned wryly and puffed on his pipe.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Kent — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:22:44 -0000

Isn't WinFS already here in the form of Google Desktop? Or, Spotlight on that other platform that dare not speak it's name?

Also, most people can find all their pictures by looking in the "My Pictures" folder... :)

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Dopelizer — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:19:23 -0000

The web killed my brain.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

CynicalGeek — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:01:39 -0000

From what my users experience, they tell me that they liked the Windows 98 search feature better because it was more accurate than the Windows XP search (searching for text within documents.) Microsoft approached us like they did everyone else with their vow that they would "surely" release "Longhorn" within three years (3 years from March 2002) and asked us to sign up for Software Assurance. We did not sign up for Software Assurance and I do wonder what happened to those who did? Are they just out of the $$$ that they spent for a "free" upgrade to the next version of Windows? I can't understand why Microsoft realized the importance of finding files quickly, told their users that the next version of Windows would allow them to find files anywhere - that they didn't need to use folders, and then ran off to compete with Google in the web search arena. I guess since we have no alternative, we just buy it at retail price after Vista SP1 is released...along with lots of sticks of RAM.

Re: Has Microsoft changed? WinFS post getting questioned internally

Miles Archer — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:00:52 -0000

I knew you'd give have more interesting Microsoft news once you left the company. You have all the sources and no longer feel any reason to toe the company line.

Yes I know, no one ever told you what to do, but it's a lot easier deciding to write something controversial when you're paycheck isn't on the line. And, I know you took some unpopular positions, but not very many, and only ones you felt strongly about.