On Jul 8, 2011, at 10:44 PM, Sandy Walsh wrote:
> 
> Wow, really? Is EC2 really that sporadic/chaotic? 
> 
> I have to plead ignorance because I don't know where the rubber meets the 
> road, but that kinda surprises me.


I'm not saying that.  In fact let me say that I don't think the Windows API 
itself is sporadic or chaotic. I used to be a Windows dev way back in the day 
and I never got that impression.

The problem is that the Windows API is not open and is not really designed to 
be implemented by others.  The Wine folks (and the ReactOS folks) have been 
working really hard to implement it for a long time.  And with good reason, 
there are  a lot of incentives to have a free Windows compatible  OS.  The task 
the Wine folks have is very hard though. There are no reference implementations 
for the Windows API, so you can't look at the code, you have to replicate bugs 
in the implementation and bugs in client apps etc, oh and do you really think 
MS wants a free Windows compatible OS on the market? -- you have to account for 
them messing with you as well.

Soren was suggesting that supporting EC2 was much like writing an 
implementation of HTTP or SMTP (both open specs with open reference 
implementations).  All I'm saying is that reverse engineering a living, rapidly 
changing, closed system and writing another system that behaves like it exactly 
(bugs and all) is not the same thing as implementing an open spec -- it's 
harder.

-jOrGe W.

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