Metcalfe claims Linux Can't Beat Win2000

Bruce Inglish writes "InfoWorld Pundit (and inventor of Ethernet) Bob Metcalfe just posted his 99/6/19 column entitled: "Linux's '60s technology, open-sores ideology won't beat W2K, but what will?" in which he predicts that "Linux will fizzle against Windows" and compares the Open Source community to communism and the Back-to-the-Earth Movement. "

Comments

Re:extra-ordinary prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, leninist "communism" centered around extreme central planning during the socialist stage (transistion to communism). Many other variations of communism tend to be more moderate in that regard. And none support much central planning once communism is reached, and the state has been abolished.

The main failure of the self proclaimed "communist" and "socialist" states the world has seen so far has been that rather than getting rid of class divisions etc., they have increased them, and enforced an extreme top-down command chain, instead of bottom-up, that is the foundation of marxist political theory.

But I agree with your conclusion: He doesn't understand what went wrong in the states he see as communist (probably because he mixes them up with "proper" marxist theory on communism, and compare the ideals of that, with the result of the flawed implementations of socialism).

Sure, there are elements of the open source movement that are close to the marxist ideals of communism, but the movement has hardly anything in common with the self proclaimed "socialist" states.

If anything, commercial, closed source, software development is what is closest to stalinist economy:

• You are told everything works great.
• You aren't allowed to see what really goes on.
• You can submit suggestions, but they're ignored, unless it is of benefit for the ruling class or the software company to fix it.
• The official view is that there are no real problems, whenever something is "fixed", it means they have made yet another glorious improvement to something that was already perfect, not fixed a problem.
• You're the one who gets to pay for their mistakes, either with more work, or by paying for upgrades...

So, open source may seem like marxism, but then closed source seems like stalinism... If those are the ones I get to choose from, I'd prefer marxism any day...

Old gurus never die, they just bask in obselescene

[substrate]

Bob Metcalfe sounds like one of those National Enquirer prophets: "I correctly predicted that internet stocks would collapse! That proves my track record, now I predict the demise of Linux". Substitute the collapse of internet stocks with the assasination of John Lennon and the demise of Linux with the second coming of Elvis and its virtually identical with supermarket tabloid predictions and backed up by just a valid an analysis.

His first premise: The Open Source Movement's ideology is utopian balderdash. Alright, maybe Richard Stallman is a bit over the top with some of his talk, but he's not the entire Open Source movement. There are other advocates, such as Bruce Perens, who have done work in getting existing companies such as Netscape or Apple to at least test the Open Source waters. Then he goes on to take a Linux Torvalds' quote out of context as proof that the Open Source community is a band of raving pinko commies. Oh, scratch that, it was just hyperbole. However, if Open Source succeeds a quarter billion people will die or some other such drivel. Oh, and the only means of writing a document under Linux is with EMACS doncha know! I guess Applix, Word Perfect etc. are just communist propoganda and don't really exist.

The second premise: Linux is 30 year old technology and as such is senile. It's an interesting sentiment, but not correct. Linux is built up from concepts that are 30 some years old but only because technology often builds up on the past. Pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory are just good ideas, no reason to throw them out. In the mean time the kernel guru's have added in multi threading, multi processor support as well as support for late nineties hardware. On top of that there are a number of decent GUI overlays that can make normal day to day stuff just as easy as it is under NT (as well as some of the more complext administrative tasks as well). NT is no different in that regards, its really built up from thirty year old technology and doesn't really offer any new features. Linux performs well now. If Microsoft gets its act together maybe NT will work well tomorrow. Maybe. If given the choice between shipping something that doesn't works but people will buy or shipping something that works as advertised a little bit late guess which one will win?

In a way this is the biggest evidence that Linux (as well as other operating systems) is relevant. If Microsoft was truly indominatible they could delay their operating system release until it actually worked and not worry about releasing expensive (to the consumer) bug fix patches as Windows 98 or Windows 99 etc.

Is Linux going to kill Windows? No, I don't think so. I do think that things will be a lot closer to how they were in the eighties though. Windows will have the majority, but more like a 60 or 70% majority overall. A bit more on the desktop and a bit less in the server space. Linux and other operating systems will have that 30 to 40% market share segment. It won't dominate but will ensure that applications are ported to capture that segment of the market.

Old gurus never die, their opinions just (in some cases) become obsolete or bought and paid for.