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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.""

3 of 438 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Inconsistent Rant by FLAGGR · · Score: 0, Troll

    Automakers didn't make the segaway, and the segway wasn't made as a replacment for cars, and no one buys them. If you were trying to be funny, don't quit your day job to become a comedian.

  2. blablabla... lalala... blablabla.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Where are the new operating systems likely to come from?

    From your ass, dude. Like everything you spread.

  3. One Trick Pony by leoc · · Score: 1, Troll

    Metcalfe predicted in 1999 that Linux would disappear when Windows 2000 came out and referred to open source as "open sores". I see no more reason to take anything he says seriously now than I did back then.

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    STFU about slashdot bias.