Bob Metcalfe on Open Source, IPv6, IETF 438
prostoalex writes "The inventor of Ethernet Bob Metcalfe is interviewed by AlwaysOn on current issues. Metcalfe is known for challenging commonly accepted wisdom and this time he's quite confrontational. On open source and operating systems: "If you look at Windows and Linux, both are based on 25-year-old technology. Windows is sort of a GUI version of the Mac's operating system, and Linux is of course Unix, which stems from 1968. These are both old clunkers. So the question is, Where are the new operating systems likely to come from?" On IPv6 adoption and IETF: "Back when you attended the IETF, you all looked down your noses at the ITU (or I guess it was called CCITT at the time)--the entrenched, corporately manipulated, corrupt, competent standards being embodied in IT. We were the IETF--the swashbuckling, institution-oriented, open people, the rebels. That's changed now. The Internet has arrived, and all of those people are now just like ITU: IETF has become the ITU.""
Inconsistent Rant (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no doubt that Mr. Metcalfe is quite bright and has contibuted greatly to the IT world, but I don't understand this rant. If he doesn't see the innovation, I guess he's never compared Slackware '96 to today's distros, or Windows 3.1 to WinXP. Apple certainly can't be ignored here either. Where are the new operating systems likely to come from? I'm going to take a wild guess, and say "probably from the OS's of today." They don't need to be completely rewritten every few years to count as progress. Even the emergence of UNIX itself was evolutionary, not revolutionary.
It's also interesting that he clearly shows a lack of faith in the OSS community, but then digs at the IETF for evolving into elitist and monolithic organization.
Re:Inconsistent Rant (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, I think it's just the opposite. He's very consistent: "Everything sucks."
Re:Inconsistent Rant (Score:4, Interesting)
Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people. -- George Bernard Shaw
Re:Inconsistent Rant (Score:5, Funny)
It's been done. The Segway.
Re:Inconsistent Rant (Score:5, Insightful)
NeXT is UNIX; NeXT is the MacOS (Score:3, Informative)
NeXT orignated from a fourth strand of UNIX (not ATT, not BSD, not Linux). Carnegie Mellon wrote a highly layered version of UNIX called the Mach microkernel. Conventional UNIX was sinking under weight of trying to do to much in the kernel.
Re:Plan 9 (Score:3, Interesting)
"all the system objects present themselves as named files that are manipulated by read/write operations; second, all these files may exist either locally or remotely, and respond to a standard protocol; third, the file system name space - the set of objects visible to a program - is dynamically and individually adjustable for each of the programs running on a particular machine."
The result of this is that each app or user session can run on a metacomputer. A CPU here, a CPU there, so
Re:Inconsistent Rant (Score:2)
Re:Inconsistent Rant (Score:2)
Um, and so they should. The automobile is obsolete (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps transport engineers rather than automakers. The automakers have a huge investment in the status quo. You don't need 4 wheels an engine, brakes, throttle or even a driver.
Transport engineers have already designed and built transport systems which don't have any of the above. Starting from scratch in the 1950s they devised a transport system which optimises the mathematics of getting from A -> B. Yes there is mathematics which describe the performance of transport.
It turns out that this is about as close to optimal [personalrapidtransit.com] as you're going to get with current technologies. Computer controlled, linear induction motors, a few rollers rather than wheels and only 16 moving parts. Non stop from A->B, no congestion, no traffic lights, no changing routes, no waiting on schedules.
It's been independantly re-invented a few times over the last few decades but we've now got the computer technology to actually do it [skywebexpress.com].
Re:Um, and so they should. The automobile is obsol (Score:2)
I'm sure I'll still be driving a car then.
Personal Rapid Transit? (Score:3, Informative)
And hey, there's an article [wikipedia.org].
--grendel drago
Noooooo, not run like current public transit. (Score:3, Interesting)
You basically have to subsidise it to around about 50% in order to persuade people to use it. The UK subsidises the rail system to the tune of around £4 billion a year (approx $7 billion). This is largely because all current public transit systems are designed to carry groups of people from A->B.
Re:Um, and so they should. The automobile is obsol (Score:4, Interesting)
Considering suppliers to the automotive industry, the jobs they provide, the petroleum products required to make them run, and that much freight moves by trucks, the investment by society as a whole is huge.
Which is why it's going to be increasingly traumatic as the oil faucet slowly begins to close. Geopolitics surrounding petroleum is already traumatic enough now, thank you.
Re:Um, and so they should. The automobile is obsol (Score:3, Interesting)
They can't even fire it up because the mice have chewed through most of the wiring. Rumor has it the last time they fired it up (5+ years ago) the PRT actually got stuck on the track and the people where left there for 2 hours while they tried to fix it.
On a side note I act
Re:Um, and so they should. The automobile is obsol (Score:3, Informative)
You don't need to. The Taxi2000 system has a reject button. Reject the car and a replacement arrives a few seconds later, the soiled one heads off to the depot for cleaning.
Re:Um, and so they should. The automobile is obsol (Score:3)
Taxi's that go to the depot for cleaning would only be unavailable until the service personnel at the depot had checked it. In the meantime there would be hundreds or thousands of other vehicles available to everyone else on the rest of the network. The only person who'd be inconvenienced is the guy who'd paid to stand and press the reject buttons on the taxis as they arrive.
Re:Um, and so they should. The automobile is obsol (Score:3, Insightful)
Then that malicious guy gets banned from the network, just like you would with a malicious user on your computer network. I just don't understand why people have to constantly think of any possible reason (no matter how trivial or stupid) to reject new technologies that might actually be more sustainable and efficient.
I mean, big fucking deal. How does this inconven
Re:Um, and so they should. The automobile is obsol (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Um, and so they should. The automobile is obsol (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a network transit system, the track is laid out more like a grid than a corridor. It'd get you directly to your destinations because there would be stations nearby.
e.g.
http://www.swedetrack.com/city7.gif [swedetrack.com]
Re:Um, and so they should. The automobile is obsol (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure you answered the GP's question. This was the first thing that occured to me. I buy groceries once a week...I fill up the front seat and floorboard of my car easily...and if I buy charcoal, and a couple of other thing
Bicycles aren't optimal (Score:3)
15 miles/day, 5 days/week. But it's really too slow for most people, the practical limit is about 10 miles. Then there's weather, traffic, sweat, clothing etc. Not exactly non stop either, certainly in UK you are expected to obey road traffic laws, that means traffic lights.
OSes (Score:2)
Re:OSes (Score:2)
Re:Inconsistent Rant (Score:2)
> greatly to the IT world, but I don't understand this rant.
Well, he hasn't contributed much to IT other than rants in a long time. I guess once you get your name out there you create a platform for yourself to rant about other things you may know less about.
Regarding new OSs, I think the time for new successful ones has passed. PCs have surpassed a critical mass worldwide where you can't just yank out its underpinnings every dec
Re:Inconsistent Rant (Score:3, Interesting)
Co
Thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to break it to Mr. Metcalfe, but most entities lack the resources to do a ground up rewrite of a fully featured Operating System. Simply writing a functional OS isn't the hard part. It's just a platform upon which software will be built. There were hundreds of OSes written between 1960 and 1990. During the '90s, however, computing platforms began to stabalize. Software was written that had a greater than 5 year life span, Operating System began to stabalize on a few "standards" (namely Unix/Vax/CPM derivitives), and massive amounts of time and money were invested into developing these platforms. Now we're standing on the 10,000 ft high towers we call Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X(NextSTEP) and we're looking at how difficult it is to replicate the decades of work that has gone into these systems.
Building a more powerful and "correct" system would mean throwing away software such as OpenOffice, Mozilla, Quickbooks, Photoshop, Acrobat, etc. Software that took decades to build! Thus any future solution based on cutting edge CompSci Technology must either bite the bullet and rewrite these complex apps (good luck) or build in a translation layer that allows them to continue working. Neither choice is very appealing.
The "third road" that is currently being explored is the road of running Virtual Machines on top of today's existing infrastructure. Java,
The Virtual Memory swaps more than it should. Object files are not shared. Memory usage is 20% greater than a native program. So on and so forth.
A lot of research has gone into mitigating these issues (with Sun producing some very impressive results!), but it doesn't change the fact that the machine and software are mismatched. That mismatch discourages companies from writing new applications in these managed environments, where they would be free from the bonds of traditional OS designs.
My gut says that a rather major shift in how we use our computer will have to happen before we can truely replace the systems we have today.
I'd like to point out that two major pieces of infrastructure were left out of the Internet when it was being built--largely because it was built by graduate students (and people like graduate students). They left out security and economics. So we have the spam problem (which can be traced directly to the lack of concern for security), and we have IP rules that are in flux because the Internet doesn't have the right tools for monetizing various activities. So we're busily trying to put security and economics into the Internet.
In all honesty, the Internet never would have been as successful as it was if it wasn't for the freedom it provided. Many other networks offered these features, but they were eventually usurped by the Internet.
Hindsight is 20/20. Had the BSD/ARPANET folks attempted to address these issues back when it was created (which would have been ludicrous given its Military intent), their solutions would have likely been wrong. Keep It Simple Stupid. It may not be the best solution, but it's the most effective solution.
P.S. In case of Slashdotting, break glass [nyud.net]
Re:Thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
Err I'd say that less systems written in the 90s lasted over 5 years than the big old monoliths of mainframes and COBOL, which developed in the 70s and 80s gave us Y2K.
Long-life software wasn't new in the 90s, and the old stuff rarely runs on Unix or Windows....
Re:Thoughts (Score:2, Insightful)
Easier answer than all that (Score:3, Insightful)
MVS, which was the original stable OS (not huge changes since the 60s) made it difficult to change out things (and very expensive).
As to the VM world, yeah, that should introduce us to a load of new changes.
Re:Thoughts (Score:2)
At some point you have to accept the limitations of a simple system rather than throwing it all away for a complex system that meets your specific needs but no one else's. Virtual memory is a case in point. The 4k page model is simple and it works. Objects are all of different sizes, moreover, many have dynamic sizes, so that you would a much more complex model for vi
Re:Thoughts (Score:2)
I guess my question is how often can a "new" OS come along and get traction? Was linux a "waste" of a new OS? Yes, linux is great. It certainly fills needs and has even pushed MS to improve its products. I guess I just kind of wonder "what could it have been"?
As it began, it was trying to b
Re:Thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, a massive reimplementation is underway. Software is migrating to VMs at a fairly impressive pace. The only ones who seem to be holding out are the shrinkwrap vendors, but even then are starting to buckle. When Microsoft moves significant code to
Already, custom coded apps are almost always writting in Java, or (shudder) VB and
Copy of Article (Score:3, Informative)
This is the second part of a four-part conversation between AlwaysOn editor-in-chief Tony Perkins, managing editor Rich Seidner, and Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet and former CEO of 3Com who's now a general partner at Polaris Ventures. In Part 1, Mr. Metcalfe talks about the next big thing for the Internet (video); in Part 3, he tells the story behind Metcalfe's Law; and in Part 4 he tackles the blogosphere.
Internet Security and the Threshold of Pain
How bad do things need to get for organizatio
Where? (Score:5, Insightful)
They aren't going to come until we get past "old" technology like monitors, keyboards, and mice.
Re:Where? (Score:3, Insightful)
PHBs, open source and commercial interests (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:PHBs, open source and commercial interests (Score:2)
That's why companies like Red Hat, IBM and Novell can make money 'selling' free software. What they're selling is the support program.
Clunkers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Clunkers? (Score:5, Informative)
On top of everything, the hardware architecture was much faster than contemporary computers due to its LISP oriented design. Apparently, a good portion of the LISP language was able to execute directly in the hardware!
At least, that's how I understood it. Sadly, it didn't get much attention outside of academia.
Re:Clunkers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why should a company spend a massive amount of money on a Lisp-based (ie. at the hardware level) system and developers for it, when they can toss together a ver
Re:Clunkers? (Score:3, Interesting)
its primary strength was exactly that you could toss together something pretty nice in basically no time at all.
dont you think it might have something to do with marketing, barriers to entry, and culture? there is nothing fundamentally economic about the failure of symbolics (except the barrier to entry bit, the volume was so low that they were very expensive machines)
Mach is hardly the future. (Score:3, Informative)
The thing with Mac OS X is that it does not have the cruft of other systems. Hardware wise, Apple is willing to force their consumers to eliminate the old (ie. floppy drives) and to proceed with the more modern (ie. FireWire). But the more modern technology is hardly futuristic.
Re:Clunkers? (Score:3, Insightful)
In love of functional languages (Score:2)
One of the most beautiful things from this kind of languages is the ability to dynamically construct its own code. For instance, Postscript (yes, the thing printers use), which is also a funciontional language, does not have a switc
Lisp (Score:4, Interesting)
Lisp machines failed mostly because Symbolics tried too hard to make money off them. They made them very expensive, so people bought cheaper hardware and lived without Lisp. In the meantime, they protected everything with patents and copyrights, and since Symbolics folded, nobody seems to have been able to re-create the technology.
It is worth knowing that the GNU project was started pretty much as a direct reaction against the Symbolics affair. A certain hacker called Richard Stallman worked at Lisp Machines Inc., the other company that made Lisp machines, and was so upset about the abuse and destruction of this good system for the sake of commercial interests that he decided to build a system that would be Free and remain Free. Indeed, Lisp was mentioned as an official language for the GNU system (the other one being C), although few programs are written in it (Emacs and Sawfish come to mind).
Lisp still survives as a language (I think it's the second oldest programming language), and the community seems to be reviving a bit, although many lispers seem to "make do" with languages like Ruby and Python, that have a somewhat lispy feel to them. And with projects like Movitz, maybe we will have lisp machines again someday.
Re:Lisp (Score:5, Informative)
Genera, unless I'm mistaken, was based on Zetalisp (LispMachine Lisp) with an object system named "Flavors", a message-passing system with mix-ins loosely based on Smalltalk. The GUI was written with this system, and the GUI itself was interesting because its introspective abilities closely mirrored that of the underlying language. The elements of the GUI were all objects that could be manipulated, selected, inspected. Even graphical and text output on the screen could be categorized into classes and later manipulated as objects. This became the basis for CLIM (Common Lisp Interface Manager).
Unfortunately this style of GUI has fallen to the wayside in favor of the simpler but stupider Windows-style one. C and C++ do not have the flexibility that is required, in any case, for a dynamic GUI like that on the Lisp Machine. Look to Smalltalk, Squeak, Slate, or the reinvigorated CLIM projects (McCLIM, FreeCLIM) instead.
Symbolics made bad business decisions, indeed. They still do exist, and even have the oldest
Stallman helped popularize Emacs, along with the free software movement, which developed in parallel with the similar editors of the Lisp machines. The problem with Stallman is that he is incredibly stubborn (no kidding), and made mistakes early on that he was unwilling to fix. Hence FSF Emacs and even XEmacs is crippled as an editor, a language, and a platform, though people who only make simple use of it might not understand why.
It is just as well that Lisp languished in FSF, because it sprouted elsewhere in the open source community, with no philosophical encumbrances which don't necessarily make sense in a dynamic environment like a Lisp.
Over the last five years, I've seen quite a revival of Lisp. The regular programming crowd slowly accepts new ideas; they still insist on making the same mistakes that were already passed by Lisp programmers years ago. Ah well. My job is working on systems in Common Lisp, I am happy.
Re:Clunkers? (Score:3, Funny)
The new OS (Score:3, Informative)
Everybody complains about Linux and Window and all the other operaitng systems about being old an obsolete but I see only a few putting effort in building new operating systems like what Slate [tunes.org] can become (in the long term) or what Movitz [common-lisp.net] is aiming.
Re:The new OS (Score:3, Interesting)
Because Windows comes on pretty much every new PC, and Linux is readily available for download, you will probably never get that money back.
OS/2 was a superior operating system to Windows 95, but people didn't buy it. They bought computers with Windows, or they installed Linux from cheap CDs (downloading it wasn't feasible at the time for most people). Now the superior O/S is being folded up and thrown away.
So what about the hardware qu
Re:The new OS (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, they are still making a superior OS on superior hardware. They didn't go away, they took over Apple from within.
I think it's one of the most fascinating stories of the last 20 years how Steve Jobs somehow managed to steal his old company back.
Re:The new OS (Score:5, Insightful)
That's such a load of bullshit. I take the free enterprise stack. I sell clients on my ability to develop software that will fix their problems using the free enterprise stack as a base. I discover that the free enterprise stack doesn't have some feature I could really use to more effectively service these clients. So I write the new feature. And I deliver a solution to them that works. Now I've got this new feature in the stack, I can't really sell it to anyone on its own, and if I don't roll it back into the main trunk, I'll have to maintain it if I ever wish to use it again. So I give it back to the community because it's in my best interest to do so. This is how the software gets contributed for free. One itch at a time. And you can spout off all your rhetoric about the "open source pipe dream", but that's all it is, spouting off. It exists, it progresses, it takes market share from the most powerful company on earth, and it appears to be gaining momentum. The existance of the thriving community is PROOF that you are wrong.
New OS (Score:2)
Re:New OS (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why you see GCC on mac, win32, bsd, linux, beos, qnx, etc...
This is
Only lame arrogant windows developers think that "linux using folk only write for linux".
Heck some of the places my software has and is being used doesn't even have a proper OS [e.g. PS2 and Gamecube].
On topic again, as the "inventor of ethernet"? What the fuck does that mean? It's not that impressive. I mean it's useful but so is sliced bread and we don't honour that guys name either! He did his part to make the world better. Groovy. Now step aside and stop milking something you did nearly a decade BEFORE I WAS BORN.
Tom
Re:New OS (Score:3, Informative)
The *vast* majority of the software I use runs on at least 2 platforms, one of which is Windows. The exceptions are almost always Windows only.
Re:New OS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:New OS (Score:2)
I'm not sure I want an "exciting" OS. I just want my applications to work - I shouldn't even need to SEE the OS.
Second, what exactly is wrong with Linux that can't possibly be fixed (requiring the entire thing to be scrapped?) What would be sooo great that you are willing to start out fresh with ZERO applications? Would it still run on the crufty PC architecture and interface with existing devices such as printers, scanners, hard drives, au
Oh the irony (Score:5, Funny)
I'd get some better info if I were him (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh?
Since when has the Mac operating system not have a GUI or since when has Windows been more GUI like then the Mac OS.
Also the Mac operating system has a heck of a lot more in common with both Linux and Unix than is does with Windows. In fact if you want to say anything about comparing GUIs, it would be far more accurate to say that the Mac operating system is a GUI version of unix and Windows is a GUI version of DOS.
Re:I'd get some better info if I were him (Score:2)
Re:I'd get some better info if I were him (Score:2)
Re:I'd get some better info if I were him (Score:2)
As opposed to yourself, who has not invented anything "decently cool", yet still feels like they "have license to blather on about the future of technology as if they were suddenly granted some kind of oracular vision"?
Re:I'd get some better info if I were him (Score:2)
Don't forget a midget for the bartender.
Always on is off now... (Score:2)
His comments on open source... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll disagree on "sustainable". (Score:2)
Didn't we just hear about NetWare's final death and the migration to Linux?
Does the name "Stac" ring a bell?
I have a whole cabinet at work filled with software that died or from companies that don't exist any more.
He's looking at the few companies that have survived throughout the years and ignoring the 1000x other companies that have died and left their customers stranded.
With Open Source, at the very worst, you'll still have the code and the right to hire
Re:His comments on open source... (Score:2)
I wonder whether or not he's worked for many modern software corporations.
IETF v ITU (Score:2)
What is much more interesting is the comments about the IETF, which I agree, has been/is being turned into a facilitator for corporate agendas.
Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/ [cyvin.org]
Before OSes can be innovative, languages must be (Score:4, Interesting)
All the language techniques that we use are rooted in old technologies. Its still just as hard to code today as ever, if not harder.
I've been programming since 1980 and back then you wrote everything yourself. It was a lot of work but at least you controlled the quality of the system because you wrote it all.
Today, systems are so complex (unnecessarily so), and the technology hasn't changed enough to keep up with the demand. We still write for loops like we always have.
The spoon is a fine tool when all you dig are holes in ice cream but when you have to dig a trench in the ground, forget it.
Re:Before OSes can be innovative, languages must b (Score:2)
Re:Before OSes can be innovative, languages must b (Score:2)
foreach(ObjectType ot in ObjectCollection)
I think that we've been getting more powerful tools slowly but surely. Like many things in computing, its an incremental improvement rather than a huge change. Its much easier to build a large program in C# or Java then it is in C or C++.
The languages are fine. (Score:2)
But things have changed. Now the hash table is already implemented for you. As a programmer, you must devise systems that aren't so well known. You must now implement the unknown. That is called innovation. You find it "harder" to code today because we're a
Re:Before OSes can be innovative, languages must b (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as languages are concerned, you could implement an object oriented approach to a C program (good design, bad implementation), but it is much easier to design a language that embodies that approach, i.e. C++.
I've spent most of my
1337 (Score:3, Funny)
Until then, I'm just going to go pwn sum nubs.
Welcome to the installed base, Robert (Score:2)
Backwards thinking (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Backwards thinking (Score:2)
Ok, so what's the solution? Not even a real-life solution (there aren't any), but what's your idealistic vision of life without private property? I call "economic justice" people owning what they earned. That's the very definition of modern society: property ownership. If you're suggesting that "economic justice" is taking awa
Old is better (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Old is better (Score:2)
I'm getting the feeling that this will turn into a discussion on the merits of bringing back HyperCard, player/missile graphic programming, and the joys of the SID chip design.
There, I gave plenty of loving references in that to Apple, Commo
Nothing to see here, move along (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nothing to see here, move along (Score:2)
Let's see, we need A to talk to B. We need a medium... mmm computers use electrons
Ok now we need to have a way of sending a message
Ok now we can send data but we can't tell who... let's put a MAC address in the fra
Re:Nothing to see here, move along (Score:2)
Maybe he feels like everyone's forgetting him, just like they do with Dre.
Seriously, where's the love for Nolan Bushnell these days? All we hear about today is that Jobs fellow like he invented the yardstick of civilization: air conditioning.
GUI version of MacOS (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to the non-gui version of Mac's operating system....
Re:GUI version of MacOS (Score:2, Informative)
MECC wrote:
I guess that would be Darwin [apple.com].
What does it take to be sustainable? (Score:2)
Linux: 1991. Slack, April 1993. Debian, August 1993. How long until he would agree that it is sustainable? Is this [polarisventures.com] the same Polaris Ventures? It's a high tech VC. That explains his suspicion of the
Power Mongers Go Where the Power Is. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a big shock... about 15 years ago, the two power centers in BC Politics were the NDP and the Social Credit Party.. The left wing was in the NDP who had power at the time, and the Socreds had pretty much lost favour as the reigning right-wing party (( yeah that belies their name, but having been decades in power, the right wing had taken them over )). Then an upstart Liberal party maaged to worm their way into the leaders debate and caught fire, becomming the official opposition.
By the next election, the formeer Socred political machine had taken over the Liberal Party and kicked out it's leader. These are the people who now run the province.
The problem with our political/media system is that the only people who tend to end up in positions of power are those who really want it (and are willing to do whatever it takes to get that power). Unfortunately, these are precisely the people you don't want in power.
The IETF is no longer an Engineering organization (Score:5, Informative)
AMEN!
As someone who has recent scars (SPF, MARID) [schlitt.net] from dealing with the IETF, it is clear to me that they are no longer an engineering organization, but rather a highly political one. No longer is there much concern about adopting patent encumbered technology into key Internet protocols (MS SenderID) [slashdot.org] like they used to object to things like the RSA patents.
Instead, the IESG is actively working to push through this patented technology by shutting down the MARID WG so that they can advance the SenderID proposal without any public review. More over, the IESG has declared that it is ok for the SenderID spec to re-use SPF records in incompatible ways, that the SPF RFC must be held back until MS is ready ("to be fair to MS"), and the IESG is going to ignore the last 1.5 years of SPF deployment experience and start fresh with collecting data since MS has only recently started doing SenderID checking (again "to be fair to MS").
The IETF needs to take the "E" out of their name and become the Internet Political Task Force.
Stay in the swamp (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't spoil it now by being Dvorak. Please.
Linux is only Unix on the outside. There's scarcely little code on the inside from 1992. And I believe there is none (zero, nada) from before 1975. I know this because I've looked at the early UNIX code at http://tuhs.org/ [tuhs.org] and what little survives is not found in Linux.
Windows a copy of the Mac? In the sense that English is a copy of French, maybe [flames >/dev/null]. Some elements are the same, but how you do things with them is quite different.
Asking what the new OS will be is asking the wrong question. Ask instead what new class of devices will need an OS, and the answer would follow from that. I say "would" because I'm not sure even that question is relevant.
Re:Stay in the swamp (Score:2)
To late. He seems to have a real grudge against open-source. Here's an article where he refers to it as "open-sores software" [infoworld.com] from 1999. Here's a choice quote:
I don't care what he invented decades ago, the guy's an idiot with a chip on his shoulder.
This Doesn't Work (Score:5, Interesting)
If networks were configured so that the "general rule" is NOT to be anonymous, then there is no way you can guarantee true anonymity. The reason being that if someone wantred to be "anonymous", they would have to request that privlege from some kind of "anonymity broker" or... own their own network. And even then, with the ability to track the packets, the only guarantee of anonymity is not technical, but social. The owner of the network that the message originated from would have to be the barrier. And as we all know, the current political climates around the world will be unlikely to respect that anonymity if they decide that your activities are "illegal". If someone wants to send e-mail saying they hope that a certain politician gets assainated, in some locations, that would be "illegal". Even though it's really freedom of speech. So, I don't think his suggestion works because it's not true anonymity unless you are in a very powerful position. Every citizen (from beggar to king) should have access to anonymity.
Different "anonymity". (Score:5, Informative)
These are useless for anything other than a (D)DoS attack. They are useless because a connection cannot be established and no data can travel.
It is easy to have personal anonymity, but still have the first upstream router check the source addresses to make sure they are legit. But it depends upon someone, somewhere being willing to
There is NO reason for the source address to not be confirmed by the upstream router.
There are LOTS of reasons for personal anonymity to be maintained. And we can have personal anonymity even if we confirm the source addresses of packets.
Red Swingline (Score:5, Funny)
Milton was entirely ineffectual. Do IT workers sympathize with him for being victimized or is the red swingline a passive finger to the man?
BeOS was innovative (Score:3, Insightful)
Christ on a bike... (Score:2, Insightful)
VMS and WNT (Score:2)
Windows was also greatly influenced under the skin by Dec VMS-the OS that was previously created by Cutler-the guy that later went to MS.
That said:
I agree with a previous poster that the emergence of good VM's is what really promises to break open OS development again. We already have decent commercial VM's(VMware) and Xen. When Xen supports Windows, there will be a VERY compelling case for larger installations to use it.
Sadly, he's right. (Score:2)
Here's a 1990 paper on Tandem system uptime. [microsoft.com] Unix/Linux data center users, read it and weep. They have systems with MTBFs in measured in years. Sometimes decades.
Where? (Score:3, Interesting)
Where are the new wheels likely to come from? I mean the wheel was invented by the cave man and tires have been around since the 19th century. So who will make a better wheel?
Maybe Unix is still around because back in 1968 those engineers got it right. Maybe there aren't any revolutionary OSes around the corner -- just evolutionary changes to the ones we have.
One Trick Pony (Score:2, Troll)
Re-inventing wheel. (Score:2)
If you could invent a vehicle that floated above the ground, used water as fuel, drove itself, and had a forcefield to prevent crashes and could make it under $1,000 then perhaps they should.
Not that any of is possible in the 21st century, but I feel a problem of many engineers, coders, and thinkers get tunnel vision and think things have to be done just like they have been done before.
I mean maybe sho
Re:WTF is he saying? (Score:2, Insightful)