"Christoph .J Thompson" [off-list ref] writes:

On Sun, 17 May 2009 09:47:04 +0100
Jon Fairbairn [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

the talk Butler Lampson gave for Roger
Needham's 50+5 presentation
<http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/events/needhambook/videos/1032/head.wmv>

Haven't used Windows seriously in over a decade,

I never have, except to look at web pages to check that
they're compatible with the bugs in internet exploiter.

but as far as WiFi drivers I think there is no standards.

That -- more's the pity -- is partly the point of Lampson's
talk. Rather than have standards his claim is that if it
works on Windows it works, by definition, and that that's a
good thing. I don't agree with him about that last, but I
suspect mine is a minority view.

Windows drivers are just like the vendor drivers for
Linux: everyone is doing their own thing.

It would be nicer if they didn't do it that way, but what
would make them change? It's great that a few take notice of
Linux these days, but it'll be a long wait before many of
them develop on Linux and let the Windows community write
their own drivers.

-- 
Jón Fairbairn                                 Jon.Fairbairn@cl.cam.ac.uk