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20 Network Changing Products
An anonymous reader wrote to mention a Network World piece about products that have changed networking over the last twenty years. From the article: "SendMail 1998 - Sendmail was key to the e-mail revolution because it was how everyone got up and running with e-mail communications over the Internet. Eric Allman wrote the original version of this open source mail-transfer agent while he was at the University of California at Berkeley in 1979. He stopped development on it in 1982, however, and didn't revisit it until 1990. In 1998 he founded SendMail to sell the software's first commercial version, the SendMail switch."
And Sendmail also happens to be one of the absolute worst widely-deployed programs in the history computer software. Man, I despite that program. How could anyone have thought that configuration file format was a good idea? You know it's bad when you have to have a preprocessor to translate something (semi-)tolerable into its syntax.
The e-mail revolution succeeded DESPITE sendmail, not because of it, though I give it some small credit for flexibility. It was just barely adequate enough to keep people from writing a replacement (thought we have some now).
No point to this post, except to voice how much I despise sendmail. :)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
From TFA:
Skype
2003
This proprietary peer-to-peer telephony application provided the first real quality VoIP product (did we mention it's free here?) that has built a cult following and spurred industry questions about why corporations can't move to convergence more quickly. Skype picked up both business clout and deep pockets when eBay bought the company in the fall of 2005
Hello? Asterisk anybody?
Open source? Check
Open standards? Check ( note: skype is not open in this regard )
Quality product? Check check check
Huge business impact? Check
Not to mention asterisk isn't burdened with weird restrictions fueled by marketing concerns. Digium is the company behind it, and they do make hardware that works with it, but it's hardly locked down to *that* specific hardware.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Ok, maybe I'm a Unix guy, but was this really something that changed the network? I know a lot of people have it installed, and run webservers, etc on it (usually because they are forced to or don't know any better), but if you want to put this on there it just seems like there are others that should be there like Solaris, Red Hat, Suze, FreeBSD just to name a few.
No Sigs!
I'll grant them most of these entries, but Apache was clearly not the first free web server. NCSA httpd was the first, and Apache is a derivative of that. The two coexisted for a few years, during which period it was possible to switch between them without even changing the config file. I think NCSA httpd project finally expired around 1996.
2) facebook
3) friendster
4) hi5
these greatly improved my network ;)
Where's SQL server 7.0? It changed the way we thought about worms and default passwords. :-D
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
OK, that was the good things. Now let's remember the bad things and how they started.
- Adware. Ah.... the Gator download manager (TM). Didn't you love this thing? It was free! Only it began displaying some ads in your computer. What could possibly go wrong?
- SPAM. Funny, the other day i began receiving mails about mortgage rates. Idiots, I'm too young for that. I'll ignore it, they're 1 in a 100.
- Popups. OK, this is getting annoying. I'll have to block images from these free websites like XOOM, Geocities, Angelfire and so on.
- Web viruses. The other day something weird went on. I went to a porn website, and the next day my PC began opening popups. WTF?
- Email viruses. Ack! All I did was open my mail on Outlook express!
It's funny. We take these things for granted, but I remember the days when they didn't exist AT ALL. It was a wonderful era. Also worthy of notice is that all of them (except popups) were possible thanks to Microsoft Windows(TM).
I agree with you on something. Remove skype and add MSN/YIM/AIM/ICQ.
These non-anonymous chat services changed the way we relate to people on the web, replacing the untrusty anonymous IRC. It gave the ability to chat to every joe user.
Am I missing something? How did Widows 2000 Server "change" networking? They mention AD, but if that's the case then LDAP could've been listed just as well. Claiming that Windows was susceptible to Code Red is no big deal either. You could claim the Morris internet worm had a longer lasting effect on networking in the long run.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
christ almighty, this article is pure fluff. do the people at network world even *use* networks? christ almighty. "skype was a top 20 network changing product"?
Yes, it is true. Mike Tyson could probably kick
Muhammad Ali's ass. Of course, Mike Tyson is also
nearly 20 years younger. So, who is the better boxer?
For as much email has been run through sendmail in
the last couple decades, I'm always disappointed at how
little respect it receives.
I built my first mail server in 1993 using sendmail.
It brought internet email to my company over a serial
uucp link. By 1996, sendmail was moving nearly 87,000
internet messages a day for our company (not bad for a
486DX4-100 with a whopping 32M RAM (64M?)).
Saying the latest mail software (qmail, postfix, etc.)
is better than something written in 1972 - 27 years ago -
isn't saying much. (Well, maybe: Duh!)
Heck, 27 computing years is like 350 human years.
So, before you complain about security holes (one
in the last two years?) or complexity (like any other
programming language, practice makes perfect), why don't
you tell me which mail transport software you used in
1975, 1985 or 1995. Then, follow that up with which
transports you expect to see a lot of in 2010 and 2020.
Matt
There are a number of things wrong with that article (Sendmail Switch was largely a non-event AFAIK; the original sendmail was the "big moment"). However, Linux being the first (at least first major) fully Open Source system is probably correct.
At the time Linux was started, the BSD code base was still tied up in the AT&T lawsuit. Some parts had to be removed from distribution, leaving an incomplete system. The various BSD based projects had to rewrite some bits to fill in the removed stuff to get a working OS. IIRC Linus has said that if that hadn't been the case (or if GNU Hurd had really come about as planned), he never would have started his own kernel project.
Early Linux distributions pulled in a good bit of GNU, BSD, and X/MIT licensed code and integrated it (at least to some extent). Nobody else had really pulled all the various bits together (and GNU and BSD didn't have a functioning kernel at that point).
This article, like most articles of its type, contains misleading generalities and outright factual errors.
1) Apache was NOT the first free web server. Both CERN httpd and NCSA's httpd predate it, and both were free.
2) Netscape and Spyglass's version of Mosaic were the first commercial WEB BROWSERS. The article states that both were the first commercial GUI's. Last time I checked the first commercial GUI was to be found on the Xerox Star circa 1981. Terminology matters, when you do not use a term correctly you create confusion and/or make yourself look like an arse.
The problem with these sorts of articles, and the magazines in which they appear, is that they're being written by journalists. I can't tell you the number of times over the years that I've had the misfortune of reading something computer related in a magazine or newspaper and discovered multiple serious factual errors. I've come to accept this from periodicals that don't normally deal with computers or technology, but I'm pretty much fed up with finding errors in PC magazine on a regular ongoing basis.
Who are the people who write these articles? There are some people who are interested in computers but aren't quite there yet in terms of their understanding. Many are not blessed with "the knack" (http://home.pcisys.net/~tbc/sounds/dilknack.wav) Others are so blessed, but are still neophytes. Either way they're very good at creating and passing on erroneous information about computers and technology.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Cabletron and Synoptics were the two major leading competitors as proprietary Ethernet over twisted pair moved to 10BaseT. As I recall, Synoptics sold more and innovated more, but Cabletron kept them honest, especially on price. SynOptics did the heavy lifting on the 10BaseT spec.
tom
Sendmail is one of the most successful remote-access programs ever.
Sendmail has provided the essential r00t access for hax0rz to improve their skills in the past. Before Linux was cheap and available, one had to go out, and like a predator, acquire one's operating system privs. Sendmail was teh great enabler. Though I have moved on to better and brighter things, I thank Alman, and Vixie, for their great success in bringing r00t to the large number of adolescents everywhere.
Although there are many others out there, citrix should've at least rated a mention! it has changed the face of many remote connectivity environments all over the place!
----- Concentrate on promoting more than demoting.
The web began with Cern's browser, of course, but it was not the Web as we know it today. More of an improved gopher. NCSA Mosaic was the first graphical browser and that changed everything.
Netscape was just an improved NCSA Mosaic, albiet a hugely popular one. Smoother, faster, but network changing? I think not. Spyglass was an early ancestor of IE and, I think, AOL's browser but as itself it changed nothing.
(Indeed, all of the original Unix tools are written as pipelined utilities. If Sendmail had been written in this manner, you would have had a few hundred executables - BUT they would have been faster, more secure, and much more flexible. Small, modular kits have always been the "accepted" Unix way of Getting Things Right. Large, monolithic lumps have always been disparaged as probably bug-ridden and Bad.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Many elements of *nix systems remained surprisingly unchanged in the last 25 years: /etc/passwd, init scripts, bourne shell, inetd, .... These are inspired for their utility, simplicity, and cleanliness. They endure. You cannot put Sendmail into this group. Why? The input format may be the worst way to configure a program yet devised. It is closely followed in wretchedness by lpd and /etc/printcap. You should not try to obscure these important facts with lame relativism. I am giddy that I don't have to look at them anymore on my machine.
an ill wind that blows no good
I have no sympathy for anyone who whines about port 25 being blocked. Judging from the number of zombied PCs trying to send spam to me, I would say that port 25 should be blocked by default at consumer ISPs.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
20 years ago I remember taking a high school computer class. The teacher showed us, almost reverently, the 300 baud modem hooked up to one of the TRS-80 computers. I can still remember thinking how cool and impressive that was. None of the students were allowed to come near that "powerful" equipment.
Today, I have a 5mbit download cable modem and just finished a work order to have a dedicated, full T1 put into my house for my new company.
Amazing how times have changed. What hasn't changed is how cool it all still is.
Runesabre
Enspira Online
Seriously, anyone who calls themselves an Old-Timer in a field that is barely over 60 years old, is either a former co-worker of Turing or Von Neumann - the only generation with any business adding the word "old" - or they don't have enough understanding of the field to qualify.
Operating Systems in general are relatively new things. MULTICS is "historic", but only in the sense that it isn't in use. It has many ideas I consider valuable today, and I wish it was easier to get hold of MULTICS code, but it is far from ancient.
The odds are fairly high, though, that most "old-timers" on Slashdot are from the Unix or even the CP/M generation. Some might even call themselves "old-timers" when they only really started with DOS 3.1 or even something as modern as Windows 3.0!
I predate CP/M - not by much - but that doesn't matter because I don't claim to be an Old-Timer. Experienced, sure. Aware, certainly. Old-timer? No. I can tell you what I saw - from the control center at Jodrel Bank's Lovell Telescope to Imperial Computer's minis at Daresbury, from dusty Forth manuals to robotics and micromice - the word was Small. Small was good. Small was in. Small made Smartware one of the best damn integrated packages of that era in computing - and it outperformed many later generation systems. Small made Acornsoft's "Elite" the hottest game ever published by any title, as a percentage of the userbase it sold to.
Not sure if PETSpeed was small & unit-based. Wouldn't surprise me. You couldn't fit much even in a 32K machine, so modules would be logical.
As for Linus -- we're talking about Torvalds, right? The one who produced Linux, probably the most modular (and therefore smallest) OS ever released on this planet? The one who gave up on monolithic maintenance because he couldn't scale, so modularized even the maintenance process? You'd use him as an illustration for monolithic design, given that he hasn't used that in Linux in God-lost-count number of years?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Windows 95 was the first OS to make it easy to get on the net. OK, mac system 7.0 circa 1991 had a full ethernet setup and supported tcp/ip which you could change without having to restart(GASP!!!) It took untill XP for windows not to need to be restarted to change tcp/ip settings. Not to mention that dealing with anything network related everything up to windows ME was frustrating and counter intuitive. Any remembersetting up pppoe on those systems? system 7.0 was 32bit set the benchmark for consumer GUI and set the stage for all mac OS's untill the release of osX in 2001. 10 years and the OS was still running strong from a user standpoint (I know the mem codeing was horrid.)
I am not trying to be a Mac fanboy here but, it took untill at least windows 98 and argueably XP for ease of use consumer networking on windows.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.