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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Python (was Re: I did not inhale)
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2024 09:33:08 +0200
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On 23/08/2024 02:15, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Aug 2024 13:30:19 +0200, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>> On 2024-08-22 13:00, David Brown wrote:
>>
>>> Then there are those that - wisely or unwisely - program in C for
>>> Windows, without POSIX.
>>
>> Yes, that is true. There is no reason to use POSIX under Windows,
>> whatsoever.
> 
> That’s strange. Didn’t Microsoft tout the POSIX compatibility of Windows
> to its US Government customers?

Yes - that's /exactly/ why Windows NT was designed with a POSIX subsystem.

The original plan (I remember a fine magazine article about it in the 
mid nineties) was that you'd have the NT kernel and GUI (copied from 
Windows 3 at the time) and multiple "personalities" or interfaces, 
including POSIX, Win32, Win32s, Win16, and OS/2.  Other operating 
systems would have similar possibilities - OS/2 certainly had OS/2, 
Win16 and Win32s.  That way customers could choose there OS and their 
apps independently, there would be no vendor lock-in, and the US 
Government could buy Windows.

Prototypes were made, big contracts were signed, NT was granted the 
required US Government certifications (even security certifications - as 
long as the floppy drive was removed, there was no network port, the 
serial ports were blocked up, and the computer was in a secure room with 
no external connections).

Then the NT POSIX subsystem was minimised and hidden, the OS/2 interface 
was never implemented, and Win32s was changed so that new Win32s apps 
would not run on OS/2.  The Microsoft pretence of compatibility and 
vendor independence let them add new markets to their monopoly.