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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news-res.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!netnews.nwnet.net!symiserver2.symantec.com!usenet From: tedm@agora.rdrop.com Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Getting off the stick [was Re: TCP latency] Date: 20 Jul 1996 08:43:37 GMT Organization: Symantec Corporation Lines: 107 Message-ID: <4sq67p$86a@symiserver2.symantec.com> References: <4paedl$4bm@engnews2.eng.sun.com> <4s8rtp$jsh@fido.asd.sgi.com> <4sej3e$155@dworkin.wustl.edu> <4seo88$fqd@fido.asd.sgi.com> <4sesh4$2ls@dworkin.wustl.edu> <31EDBDA2.41C67EA6@FreeBSD.org> Reply-To: tedm%toybox@agora.rdrop.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.6.34.1 X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.2 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.networking:45893 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:24060 In <31EDBDA2.41C67EA6@FreeBSD.org>, "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org> writes: [some deleted] >Chuck has hit the nail precisely on the head, and I'd like to go one >step further with this: > >If UN*X were to do its job properly over the next couple of years >(unlikely, but if) I think it would be increasingly irrelevant just >which variant you chose because the operating system would be little >more than a fairly invisible bit of enabling technology that 99% of its >user base didn't even care about anyway. To grab an analogy out of the [more deleted] >Don't kid yourselves. Linux and *BSD may give us propeller-heads wet >dreams, but in the bigger scheme of things we're not even a blip, nor do [more deleted] >additional edge). Features like transparent clustering, where to >increase your aggregate horsepower you simply drop another PC or >SPARCstation or whatever into your computational cluster and it rolls >into the pool like one blob of mercury joining another. Projects which >allow us to finally throw NFS out on its ear and replace it with a file >sharing protocol which is safe (e.g. actually has industrial strength >locking) and fast. More advanced frameworks which allow us to get away >from the concepts of hosts and client/server relationships and more into >the area of "services" where you don't even need to think about where >something comes from, you just ask for it and the first available >"resource server" with the information you need picks it up or tells you >who to ask in turn. The kind of management tools we need to make >administration of the system something that anyone who could drive NT >(or hell, even simpler) could do. > Believe me, I hear what your saying. Remember that it is always easier to build the foundation than the gingerbread. However, Jordan, I think you are falling into the "Microsoft empire" trap that lots of people have fallen into. The problem is that most people don't realize it but the entire computer industry is operating in a tremendously abnormal manner that started many years ago. What happened is that in the beginning computers were very large, and very expensive, and had value to only a few very speciallized users. This is rather normal for an infant industry, the aerospace business went through this for example. As a result, the IBM corporation managed to get themselves wedged into this massivly dominating position that lasted for many long years. In the beginning, this was normal, but as the years went on and competitors like DEC fumbled around it began to get seriously wrong. Later on, the industry did a flip-flop and now Microsoft is in the top position. This is largely the result on the strength of personality of Bill Gates. You absolutely must understand that in the eyes of most people who know even the least about the business, Bill Gates is literally a living legend, a superman or hero of some kind. This is the normal result of people deifying a person. And, it is very difficult to fight a living hero. Becuase of IBM and Microsoft's domination lasting for as long as it has, it is really easy for folks in the computer business to have tunnel vision and think that just because the business has operated like this, that it will always continue to do so forever. In reality, most other industries do not operate like this, and in fact there is nothing inherent in the computer business that should dictate that it would continue in this manner. In fact, Microsoft is spending many hundreds of millions of dollars in propagating this myth, and holding together the fantasy. Most of us here are on the young side. When we are in our sixties, and hopefully still keying away, we will look back on this time like it was the "Camelot" of the computer business and wonder how it ever held together as long as it did. Bill Gates is probably older than the majority of people here, and so we will be lucky enough to see what happens to the industry after he dies. Once that happens, it won't kill Microsoft, but the company will simply then become "just another software company" much like Apple Computer and numerous other companies. After Rockefeller died, Standard Oil became just another oil company, for example. Sure it didn't happen right away, but it did happen and has happened to every business that ever existed that was founded by a charismatic individual. When that day comes, the software industry will have it's bonds lifted and over a number of years will split apart. By that time if Unix still exists it will be very well positioned to gain market share back. Now, all of the things you talk about are real, live, tangible things. However it will be difficult to do them simply because so much software talent is being sucked into Windows programming today. The best thing to do is simply forget about it. Unix has survived very well on it's own, and it will continue to do so. If that doesen't make you feel better, perhaps this will: The entire issue of clustering, filesharing, and resource providing is an extremely difficult one, probably the greatest challenge to face the computer business. A lot of the choices that need to be made are not technical ones, they are political ones. The commercial software vendors like Microsoft have been pouring millions of dollars of cash and talent into this problem and still haven't come up with anything. If you stop to consider how many man-years of software talent has been dumped into this problem without any decent result, you might just ask the question of is this a solveable problem at all, or just a computational blind alley?