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Bob Metcalfe on Open Source, IPv6, IETF

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.""

9 of 438 comments (clear)

  1. Oh the irony by DarthVeda · · Score: 5, Funny

    That a site called Always On has been slashdotted.

  2. Re:Inconsistent Rant by Qzukk · · Score: 5, Funny

    he doesn't seem to be very consistant with his views.

    Actually, I think it's just the opposite. He's very consistent: "Everything sucks."

    --
    If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  3. 1337 by bellmounte · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think what he is hinting at is computers need to be based on the wonderful new technology known as leet speak. It would make them so much more efficient.

    Until then, I'm just going to go pwn sum nubs.

  4. Re:Inconsistent Rant by OglinTatas · · Score: 4, Funny

    "I guess someone should tell automakers that they should reinvent a mode of transportation from scratch. That four wheels, an engine, and brake and throttle thing is so passé nowadays. "

    It's been done. The Segway.

  5. Nothing to see here, move along by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Funny

    He's just trolling. He has a pathological need to pop up every once in a while and say "You know I invented Ethernet, don't you?"

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  6. Red Swingline by Dolly_Llama · · Score: 4, Funny

    How is the red swingline a symbol for IT? Cubicle farms, office bs in general i see, but how IT?

    Milton was entirely ineffectual. Do IT workers sympathize with him for being victimized or is the red swingline a passive finger to the man?

    --

    Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan

  7. Re:Clunkers? by jacrawf · · Score: 2, Funny

    Because Emacs already is an operating system.

  8. Re:One Trick Pony by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I'll gladly refer to open source as "open whores" and I predict it will spread human diseases by 2010 when the biological computers have conquered the world and Longhorn walks the earth

  9. Re:Um, and so they should. The automobile is obsol by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 2, Funny

    Living in Australia, we wouldn't have that problem. You see someone doing that, you walk up and whack 'em a good one on the ear hole. Problem solved.

    --
    Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear