__/ [ Rex Ballard ] on Thursday 29 June 2006 04:31 \__
That's an excellent post, so I'll comment if you don't mind me doing so.
> Ray Ingles wrote:
>> On 2006-06-27, billwg <billw@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> > So the inspiration for linux was an attempt to take the bread off the
>> > table from my old classmate, Andy Tanenbaum...
>>
>> You don't keep in touch with your old classmate much, do you?
>>
>> "I was getting 200 e-mails a day (at a time when only the chosen few
>> had e-mail at all) saying things like: 'I need pseudoterminals and I
>> need them by Friday.' My answer was generally quick and to the point:
>> 'No.' The reason for my frequent 'no' was that everyone was trying to
>> turn MINIX into a production-quality UNIX system and I didn't want it to
>> get so complicated that it would become useless for my purpose, namely,
>> teaching it to students."
>>
>> http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/
>
> Andy's book became the primary text for those who wanted to learn HOW
> an operating system worked. Prior to that, there had been a version of
> AT&T Version 6, which had been distributed in 1975 (IIRC) and predated
> the copyright license. AT&T donated this code to colleges and
> universities and encouraged students to study the code and use what
> they could. When AT&T was finally allowed to sell UNIX, many of these
> students had graduated and were quite happy to purchase the newer
> versions (Especially AT&T System V) because of their prior experience
> with Version 6, BSD 2.x and BSD 4.x.
>
> The Tannenbaum Minix was pretty much original, it used the fundamental
> principles of early versions of Unix but used much simpler versions
> which were better for teaching the fundamentals to college students.
> The Tannenbaum textbook had some great assignments, and no published
> solutions, which encouraged the student to pretty much "start from
> scratch" and create something original.
>
>> "First, I REALLY am not angry with Linus. HONEST. He's not angry with
>> me either. I am not some kind of 'sore loser' who feels he has been
>> eclipsed by Linus. MINIX was only a kind of fun hobby for me."
>
> The fundamental difference between Andy and Linus, was that Andy was a
> teacher, who simply wanted to make sure that students and readers got
> the fundamentals required to write their own operating systems from
> scratch, or to service and support other operating systems, such as
> UNIX, VMS, RSTS, or any of the other contemporary operating systems.
> Andy didn't have the time, interest, or resources to make requested
> changes.
>
> Linus had read Tannenbaum's book, and had done many of the exercises,
> and ended up coming up with numerous original ideas and concepts. He
> wanted to learn as much as he could, and enjoyed trying to implement
> the suggestions of others. When the load got to be too much for him to
> do alone, he began to encourage others to particpate, and formed a
> rather large organization to coordinate user provided patches and to
> implement customer suggested enhancements.
>
> The irony is that the Linux kernel itself has no AT&T code, but because
> developers of BSD and UNIX software were testing their applications
> with Linux, and they would report when things didn't work, Linus and
> his team were able to come up with some original solutions. Some of
> these are even better than the original UNIX implementations.
>
>> http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/followup/
>>
>> Linux's origins didn't have much to do with MS directly, no (except
>> that their OS just wasn't up to Unix standards and people wanted more)
>> but even when saying something sort-of true, you just can't resist
>> throwing in actual lies, too, can you?
>
> One of the ironies was that Microsoft has sold their rights to Xenix to
> SCO, and had pretty much given up all control and the ability to market
> any UNIX derivative without the permission of SCO. The
> Caldara/SCO/SCOX fiasco has now made it possible for Microsoft to not
> only aquire full nonexclusive rights to deliver their own variant of
> UNIX, but Microsoft was able to purchase these rights for a mere $7
> million in cash (and arranging a $50 million short term investment
> "bail-out" from Bay Star capital. Not sure who the key stakeholders
> are in Bay Star. The irony is that Microsoft GOT several times that
> amount when they sold Xenix to SCO, then purchased it back for pennys
> on the dollar.
>
> If Microsoft had seen X11R3, would they have been so eager to sell of
> UNIX? If they had seen the possibility of a fully configured
> UNIX-compatible system available for less than $300 including hardware,
> operating system, and a robust suite of applications, would they have
> been quite so eager to jump out of UNIX.
>
> Bill Gates made 3 huge mistakes in his career at Microsoft. The first
> was assuming that "no one would ever need more than 1 megabyte of RAM".
> A decision which held MS-DOS technology back for almost 10 years. The
> second was missing the early warning signs and exponential growth of
> the Internet, which eliminated any chance of gaining monopoly control
> of that market. The third was assuming that UNIX was obsolete
> technology that would never really take off, and was completely dead as
> a desktop platform.
>
> Microsoft recovered from the first mistake with Windows 3.1, which made
> extended memory, and with NT/9x which allowed memory to expand to 2
> gigabytes. Ironically, Microsoft technology has hit another wall with
> the 2 gigabyte memory limit, which makes them vulnerable to Linux and
> OS/X.
>From my own perspective (I haven't much hindsight), Mac OS and Linux became a
more appealing option than Windows around 2002-2003. It was then that I
discovered Mac OS 9 and began using it on an almost daily basis (while fully
aware of version 10). It was also then that I began using Linux on the
desktop full time (I used it inexclusively since 2000). I fell in love with
the level of function in KDE and I continue to learn and catch up with its
latest. To one who understands what /else/ is available, the market share of
Windows is incomprehensible.
"Microsoft's biggest and most dangerous contribution to the software industry
may be the degree to which it has lowered user expectations."
-- Esther Schindler, OS/2 Magazine
> Microsoft never fully recovered from the second mistake. They managed
> to become a strong player in that market, and they were able to retain
> control of the desktop, but about 98% of all Windows users access UNIX,
> Linux, and other Non-Microsoft resources as an essential part of their
> work life. Microsoft has been unable to establish monopoly control
> over this market. The best they have been able to do is about 25% of
> the overall Web Server market, and about 40% of the total server
> market. But low-cost Linux servers with huge capacities, and UNIX
> systems that do the work of thousands of windows servers in a single
> server for the price of 10-20 Windows "Enterprise Server" licenses
> makes even these numbers a bit misleading. In terms of actual
> throughput, transactions serviced, and their role in those
> transactions, Microsoft is still a minor player.
The growth of the Internet also involves Web services and applications.
Ironically, Gates realised it was time to change no sonner than last year
(Gates memos, Live initiative, etc.) and the following quote is still a
classic:
"The Internet? We are not interested in it"
-- Bill Gates, 1993
> The third mistake may be Microsoft's biggest mistake. Microsoft has
> tried to maintain control of the desktop, but because of corporate
> experience with UNIX and LInux, and the awareness of the difference in
> capabilities and performance, many larger corporations are becoming
> much less tolarant of Microsoft. Many companies have not renewed their
> service agreements, most have Linux migration strategies that can be
> implemented within 30 to 90 days if necessary. Most have hired system
> administrators and PC administrators with UNIX and/or Linux
> administration experience, and most MCSEs are now starting to get Linux
> certifications to remain marketable.
The evidence is out there. I'm hoping that my frequent news posts somehow
provide a backing to this argument. Here's one which refers to your last
point:
IT skills shortage -- fact or fiction?
"More imported workers will be needed and we'll have to send more work
overseas to outsourcers... Baloney! The software doesn't know, of course,
that someone with good Windows administration skills can learn Linux skills
to become the new Linux administrator who's desperately needed."
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/0/E5F071C651225E16CC257196001A0BF6?OpenDocument
> In 1987, Bill Gates predicted that Windows NT 5.0 (2000) would probably
> be the last time Microsoft could mount a significant radical upgrade in
> operating systems. 5 years later, when they announced LongHorn, they
> decided to take a huge gamble, promising to deliver many of the
> features offered in Linux, but with all of the compatibility of
> Windows. Over the years since that announcement, more and more
> features have been dropped from Longhorn/Vista and in the meantime,
> more and more features have been added to Linux and OS/X.
>
> Most 3rd party vendors are now using "multiplatform" APIs such as Java,
> Qt, GNU, Posix, and OpenGL instead of Microsoft's "single platform,
> single release" offerings. Very few 3rd party vendors have bothered to
> implement MTS, MSMQ, and COM+, and many have relegated .NET to a
> "gateay" function, mostly used to isolate Windows users from
> functionality that can be directly accessed from the "multiplatform"
> APIs.
>
> It's probably a good thing that Bill is retiring now. He can quit a
> winner. It's very questionable that his long-standing resistance to
> things *nix would have helped the company. In fact, this resistance
> was becoming a liability. It's quite possible that the "New Microsoft"
> will be less willing to try and add proprietary extensions to open and
> published standards. It's quite likely that they will want to avoid
> the hassles of having to fight court battles costing $billions over
> disclosure of an "enhancement" that probably took 3 hours to code.
>
> Rex Ballard
> http://www.open4success.org
It's a pleasure being at least an echo to your harp. Keep 'em coming.
--
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