Some of the most well-respected software in the world got its start in the academic world. The Mach kernel from Carnegie Mellon University is one example. Microsoft, as I have read, has borrowed a number of technologies from Mach to make Windows 2000 and Windows XP possible. How do the best student programmers protect the originality of their work from Microsoft on a system like Palladium? And how can a new and energetic software developer possibly innovate under a system as closed as Palladium?

David Cutler leaves DEC and joins Microsoft (October 31) to develop Windows NT. Microsoft begins evaluating the Mach Kernel.

Thanks for your response. This makes sense.
Steve I have read "Inside Windows NT" and understood it. It also says in
section 4.2.2. that initializing address spaces is expensive (relatively)
and that is why threads exist and also called "light weight processes"

This concept of scheduling threads is not alien to me. To me it is a copy of
the concepts developed in Mach kernel. [Did Rick Rashid have a say in
design of NT ? [link|http://www.research.microsoft.com/users/rashid/|http://www.research....com/users/rashid/] ]

For further reference see the paper "Mach Threads and the Unix Kernel: The
Battle for Control." at the CMU site.
[link|http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/mach/public/www/doc/publications.html|http://www.cs.cmu.ed...publications.html]

Steve do I really have to forget all these things I did 8 years ago to be a
Windows programmer ? :->

Microsoft has called Windows NT a "multiple-personality operating system," as it was designed to support more than one application programming interface (API). This makes it is easier to provide emulation for older OS environments as well as the ability to more easily add new interfaces without requiring major changes to the system. The technique that Windows NT uses is called a "microkernel" and was influenced by the Mach microkernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University. (The kernel is the central part of operating system.)