No, he's damn smart. How many people do you know that can write decent kernel code?
100s of people. Literally.
As I said, I think Linus *is* smart, but he's not Tanenbaum smart, or Aho smart, or Sutherland smart. He's smart in that he's way smarter than I'll ever be, but he's not so smart that I'd go "wow, he is smart". There are very few people who are pure genius. Linus is more of a do-er than a think-er. That's not an insult. In a way, it's the best form of compliment.
I honestly don't think Linus would be offended if he read my post (not that he would). He's such a pragmatic personality - a quality that I deeply admire - that he would probably agree that he isn't a genius. He's simply somebody that gets off his butt and does the work. That's as rare a quality as genius.
PS: ever noticed that great computer scientists are referenced by their family name, but great open source developers are referenced by their first?
And you lose his interest right there. What better way to influence a senator than to have him ignore you! Have you never been taught that you'll catch more flies with honey?
PS: What is it with the "You sir" catchphrase that recently has become popular? It's not witty. It's not intelligent. It doesn't add any "zing" to the inevitable insult that follows. I think it looks rather pompous.
A question was asked. I answered. If what I said is so obvious, then why haven't the problems been solved? If you are so fucking smart, then why don't you solve the problems and make the world a better place.
Because it's not about smart. It's about doing the work. That's why Linus is revered. It's not because he's smart. If anything, Linus is only a little above-average in the smarts department. What makes Linus special is that he gets things done. He doesn't lecture or boss people around. He just does it.
By the way, why the personal attack?
Because the "what Linux needs" post is both worthless and arrogant. Worthless because it achieves nothing. Arrogant because it presumes that people can't spot the bleeding obvious. Lots of people know what Linux needs. Strangely they also disagree on the specifics. So what matters is working code; nobody needs yet another list of "what Linux needs".
The problem is that the GPL is not as sensible as you claim. In the scenario you describe, you must not only provide the source to the GPL owners code you must provide the source to your own code. Thus the GPL owner is dicating the terms of what is done with software that he didn't write as well as his own.
Well, actually, the GPL owner is dictating a mutual agreement where both parties benefit. The GPL owner gets to see code he didn't write, and the second author gets to use code that was written by the GPL owner. If the second author isn't happy with these terms then he loses nothing; he simply doesn't distribute. It's not as if the GPL owner has all the cards and dictates all the terms. There's an *agreement* that both parties *agree* to.
The second author still owns the code that he wrote and can re-release it under a different license. This is exactly what TrollTech does with QT; a fairly popular dual-licensed library.
That being said, linux will not go mainstream until...
Wow. I've never before seen anybody list the things that Linux needs to go mainstream! This is certainly a turning-point for Linux. Programmers will flock to your side to implement your vision. Your comments will be written into the history books. I don't know why the 10s of 1000s of Linux developers haven't realised before this day; Linux would dominate the market if only we had a soundcard setup utility! Brilliant. You are truly the smartest person that ever lived.
He released it under the GPL from the start, and that was a large part of his debate with that prick who insisted on using Minix.
Andrew Tanenbaum is not a prick. He is one of the great contributors to computer science. He dedicated a huge amount of effort to creating an easily understood operating system to teach the fundamentals of OS design with a UNIX context. He also made sure it worked on hardware that students could readily afford. So what if he had a disagreement with Linus. Linus gets into flamefests with lots of people. That doesn't automatically mean they are pricks.
Get some historical perspective and cut it out with the revisionism.
This is a troll, but I'll bite. You're just like a friend of mine who does IT knows nothing but Microsoft Windows as a platform. He just has this bullish tactic of telling everyone "Linux is never going mainstream, deal with it. The money is in Windows." It's not about making money, it's about making things better.
The *real* money is in selling drugs. Tell your friend that if he's going to pimp himself out for money then he should at least do it properly.
but I definitely have the same manner as Jobs. I really feel no enmity for the man whatsoever, he's done more to advance the future of computing than most have. He's a strong technology advocate, and I can't recall any behavior of his which I considered to be underhanded.
How about when he screwed Woz on the Atari version of Breakout. Jobs made Woz cry and that's unforgivable. We love you, Woz! You're the hacker's hero. Boo Jobs. Scumbag.
Okay so this lady gets all pissed off and storms out to go piss and moan to our manager. So during our next meeting the boss just slammed her and praised me for going to these meetings and for trying to tell her the actual answer, hooray. This story has a fairly happy ending. But the point is that if I had been nicer about it, I probably could have told her in a way that would not have pissed her off so bad. While I came out ahead because I had been dotting and crossing, and didn't cuss her out or anything, I should have understood then (as I do now) that she would be predisposed to ignore my advice. Similarly, if Jobs wants to change the world, he has to be a little more gentle on occasion.
That's a nice story and illustrates that grokking social standing is important in any field. I've read that IT people tend towards autistic traits which includes social dysfunction. I'm not saying you're autistic or socially dysfunctional! Just that IT people should, more than any other group, make a special effort to learn what you've already learnt. There are certain social interactions that will simply never work.
or YOU and a lot of us Geeks around here (myself included), those are accepted options. But this is about the average Joe Six-Pack home user. They need to easily type up a letter to mail Aunt Sally on her birthday and not have to learn vi. They want to watch movies sent to them. They want eye-candy. They want to stream audio and video.
I dunno. These sound like things that you want to do. I know my grandmother wants to send and receive email and occasionally browse the web for sewing patterns. No joke. She couldn't care less about streaming audio and video or eye-candy or movies.
And yes, the display driver was also moved into kernel land for NT4 and higher. Trust me - you would NOT be happy with 3d game performance or GUI performance if it were not (although some may argue for the server version that would be a better idea, but honestly my servers run headless so I don't care.)
The DRI runs almost entirely in user space and the performance is on-par with NT drivers. Ok, the trick is that there's a tiny kernel module to setup the hardware and allow privileges. Then MMIO takes over allowing userspace DRI drivers to communicate directly with the card, or DMA buffers are provided to userspace and the kernel module will blast the buffers to the card. The kernel module also coordinates locking between multiple DRI "instances". But I'm not trying to discuss the details, I'm just pointing out that you don't need video drivers in the kernel to get good performance.
SGI did the same trick, apparently. I wouldn't know about that but some of the DRI developers had worked for SGI. The NT solution is the way it is because a games-developer designed it. That isn't intended to be an insult or a joke, just a statement of fact. The history of the NT video driver model is fascinating.
A blighted landscape vs. air polution? Imagine how fucked up the outside would look if solar panels produced all our electricity, let alone wind machines or geothermal of biomass production.
The problem with your argument is that fossil fuel power stations also blight the landscape. Consider a coal plant. There's typically an open cut coal mine, a crusher refinery, a tailings dam, a largish plant, and secondary things like the roads required to join them and the storage areas for the trucks and so on. The actual amount of space required for a fossil fuel plant is quite stunning. They're not simple devices.
A wind plant takes up *less* space than just the open cut coal mine whilst producing the same power. The problem is that wind plants tend to go in nice looking valleys where rich people want to put their villas. Coal mines tend to be situated next to poor people (admittedly a causal effect). So want to hazard a guess why you hear stories about the "visual pollution" of wind plants yet hear zilch about the visual pollution of coal mines?
In a literal sense you are right here, but since the license is used to grant rights that are not actually granted under standard copyright laws one can also think of it as a license that is used to provide copy rights.
That's a fair interpretation. It's been nice chatting with you.
The argument you have made is well researched but I fail to see how it makes your point. You are claiming that the GPL destroys copyright and in order for something to be destroyed it must be created first. By reasoning this means your claim is that the GPL is able to remove copyright from a product that is already protected by copyright.
I think you're playing far too literally with my words. The word "destroyed" was used in a figurative sense. The GPL destroys copyright in the same way that peace destroys war.
To make this exceptionally clear, RMS intended to make copyright an irrelevance by creating a bounty of free software available under the GPL. The GPL is a license that effectively negates copyright: an ingenious subversion of the system.
RMS could not destroy copyright literally, nor could he revoke copyright laws, nor could he force the hands of people who were writing copyrighted software. He destroyed copyright in the only way left to him: he writes software and licenses it such that copyright has no relevance.
Why are you so averse to the GPL?
You've read me all wrong. I love the GPL. I'm not adverse to it at all. I have said nothing negative about it. Where did you get the crazy idea that I have?
PS: The GPL isn't a copyright, it's a license. Be careful when trying to explain something that you don't fully understand. I'll argue you three ways from Sunday.
for about four years my parents unplugged the TV. that was basically 8th grade through most of junior year of high school. and to be quite frank those are still my most productive years. i wrote more code and learned more outside of school during those years than i have learned on my own for the last 6...
TV rots the mind... specially in the crucial early years... if your typical day is get home watch 2-4 hours of TV than you are falling behind your potential...
The problem isn't the TV. The problem is what you watched. I like to think of myself as a discerning viewer. This week I watched a cooking show and then made the meal. I learnt more about ancient Egypt. I watched a gardening show and learnt more about caring for my garden. I watched a symphony. I watched the Aust vs England Rugby match. Total TV for the week, maybe 8 hours.
Did I waste my time watching "Big Brother" or "Everyone Loves Raymond"? Hell, no. It's not the TV that sucks. It's what you watch. There's lots of good programming. It's your responsibility to be the discerning viewer.
Correlation and Cause still Confusing?
on
Cable TV Ruins Bhutan
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· Score: 3, Interesting
It has only been legal there for four years. Violence, crime and drug use are on the up. Was this inevitable, and what does it say about the influence of TV on Western cultures?
It says absolutely nothing.
Zimring and Hawkins tested Centerwall's theory more fundamentally by looking at homicide rates in four other industrial democracies - France, Germany, Italy and Japan. They found that the incidence of murder in those countries either remained more or less level (Italy) or actually declined (France, Germany and Japan) with increased television exposure. These counterexamples, they write, "disconfirm the causal linkage between television set ownership and lethal violence for the period 1945-1975."
[http://www.abffe.com/myth2.htm]
The "TV breeds violence" myth is a religious cause. The faithful will repeat the mantra despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.
You forget that the GPL was designed to destroy software copyright.
The GPL is a copyright. It's not designed to destroy copyright but to enhance the rights of the people who use the software.
From the Manifesto:
I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement. For years I worked within the Artificial Intelligence Lab to resist such tendencies and other inhospitalities, but eventually they had gone too far: I could not remain in an institution where such things are done for me against my will.
The intention is very clear. RMS wants a world where he never has to sign an NDA or agree to a software license agreement. He wants a world where he can "share" (aka copy) software to all of his friends. Copyright is the antithesis of what RMS wants. The GPL was written to achieve the world that RMS wants; a world where software can be shared without the constraint of copyright.
Many programmers are unhappy about the commercialization of system software. It may enable them to make more money, but it requires them to feel in conflict with other programmers in general rather than feel as comrades. The fundamental act of friendship among programmers is the sharing of programs;
Once again, RMS expresses his distaste for software that cannot be "shared". Copyright stops you from sharing. RMS wants to share. Therefore RMS does not like copyright. I've been to two of his presentations and on both occasions he has stated that he'd prefer a world without software copyright.
The fact that RMS uses copyright to destroy copyright is simply delicious irony. That's why the GPL is often called an "elegant hack" against the copyright system.
If I place a copy of Linux on the nightstand with a copy of Windows they will both still be there in the morning. I'm not likely to find the Windows box with it's flaps open and it's floppy hanging out.
Of course not, but nobody claimed this would happen. The word we're looking for here is "strawman".
Making this mandatory, in my opinion, goes against everything that open source stands for - choice.
Everything that open source stands for is open source. Choice has nothing to do with it.
You forget that the GPL was designed to destroy software copyright. Read the Manifesto if you doubt this. Open Source is simply the PR friendly name for RMS vision. RMS hated the fact that he was not allowed to get a copy of the code to some printing software. His entire life since that point has basically been revenge. In RMS world you would not have choice; all software would be free.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker?
on
Ageism in IT?
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· Score: 1
Sure, an older person can pick up the ability and wield a certain prowess and even artistry. But no one, to my knowledge, would argue the fact that a person who learns to play the piano in childhood has a certain "feel" for it that people who pick up this ability later in life can never attain. It's not that the older person can't play sonoriously with rhythm and emotion. But the younger player has a certain reach that will never be known to the older guy.
Perhaps, but computers aren't all about "feel" and "artistry". There's a lot of knowledge and experience and personal communication skills. These are things that take decades to properly grok.
I work in a large department and there's a wide distribution of skill. About half the people are crap. About a quarter are competent. The remaining quarter are better than I am. That's my opinion, of course, I know some people who would rank me a lot lower.
But there are perhaps half a dozen people that I truly admire. They are fully in control of everything they do. They have vast knowledge of their field. They are confident in meetings. They know the intricacies of the political system as much as they know the technical systems. They can design large systems that work first time. The kicker is, they are ALL over 50 years of age.
I don't think their mastery of their field is because they are "brilliant" or "artistic". In fact, one of the guys is an ignorant dolt about anything except systems design. I think their mastery is because they've "been there and done that". They are honing their skills with every project. Tiny variations and slight improvements slowly leading to perfection. I look up to these people and try my best to learn what I can from them.
I think it's sad that some managers think IT is a "young person's field". I know that's not true. The people who make great contributions to our department are without exception the OLDER staff members.
Good points, but one has to ask which 'people' were buying CP/M. The answer is businesses--not people. Microsoft didn't invent word processors, nor spreadsheets, nor anything else along those lines. They MAY however (big conditional there!) have been fundamental in the invention of software-as-a-business-model. anything (again, there's an "if" in there), THAT is why MS was instrumental in creating the current computing industry. Software for the masses, software that was (effectively) platform agnostic, and software that was an effective profit model all on its own.
I don't think so. If you look at business software then Microsoft isn't even in the running. If you consider "software for the masses" then Visicalc (1979) predates Multiplan (1982), CP/M (1977) predates MS-DOS (1981), Wordstar (1978) predates Word (1983), and so on. I'm not saying these products were firsts, but they were huge successes in their respective markets and they came before Microsoft.
I personally believe Visicalc was the turning point. Before Visicalc, computers were either expensive toys for hobbyists or expensive tools for big business. With the release of Visicalc the PC market exploded. EVERYBODY bought an AppleII so they could run Visicalc. It was the first killer-app, the first spreadsheet, the first small-business app, and quite possibly the sole reason for the creation of the PC market.
The IBM-PC was nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to the unexpected popularity of personal computers like the AppleII, the Commodore64, the TRS80. IBM even thought that the PC was a fad but in typical IBM fashion they hedged their bets. Seeing as MS-DOS was part of the IBM-PC project and the IBM-PC was a reaction to the explosion of personal computers and software, you can see that Microsoft did not pioneer anything here.
Admittedly Microsoft played an important role in the early PCs as the creators and licensors of embedded firmware (eg, Microsoft Basic in the ROMs of the C64 and AppleII). But Basic is software for hobbyists, not "software for the masses". Microsoft did produce their first product Altair Basic very early (1975) but once again that was software for hobbyists, not "software for the masses".
Bill Gates has been a vicious, tenacious, dangerous, and violent pit bull for his entire career. When people were building a software community of openness and sharing, he came along to poison the well by actually charging MONEY for his pet project--DOS.
Uhhh, people were already paying for CP/M and paying lots. MS-DOS was cheaper and that was one of the (many) reasons for its success. Also DOS wasn't Bill's "pet project". IBM had approached Microsoft for a copy of Basic and idly mentioned they were also going to license CP/M from Digital. Bill saw an opportunity to get into a new market, quickly bought out a cheapo competitor (QDOS) and made the licensing deal of the century with IBM.
Without Bill Gates, where would we be? Not paying $700 for a bloody office productivity suite, that's for sure; but possibly without that suite existing at all.
Shrug. So what. There would be another suite from another company. Microsoft didn't invent word processors. They didn't invent spreadsheets. They didn't invent presentation packages. They didn't invent email clients. I don't know but strongly doubt that Microsoft even invented office suites.
Without the dirt, money-grubbing, and sliminess that MS stands for, we probably wouldn't be nearly as far along on the development curve.
The thing is, we'll never know. You can't say "probably" because you simply don't know. For all we know, Microsoft has held back computing by a decade or more. For all we know, if the spirit of sharing had been allowed to continue then by now we'd have Star Trek interfaces and computers all speaking to us. Who knows. Not me. Not you.
I was under the obviously mistaken impression that Reuters did more than regurgitate press releases.
Be nice. The genealogy of UNIX is so twisted and complicated that even the most learned make the occasional mistake. I didn't think this mistake was all that bad.
Slashdot Mirror
I am writing code. You are the one telling everybody "what Linux needs".
Put your money where your mouth is, or shut your trap.
Sounds like a PERL CHALLENGE!!!
Usage: ./script.pl < code.c
100s of people. Literally.
As I said, I think Linus *is* smart, but he's not Tanenbaum smart, or Aho smart, or Sutherland smart. He's smart in that he's way smarter than I'll ever be, but he's not so smart that I'd go "wow, he is smart". There are very few people who are pure genius. Linus is more of a do-er than a think-er. That's not an insult. In a way, it's the best form of compliment.
I honestly don't think Linus would be offended if he read my post (not that he would). He's such a pragmatic personality - a quality that I deeply admire - that he would probably agree that he isn't a genius. He's simply somebody that gets off his butt and does the work. That's as rare a quality as genius.
PS: ever noticed that great computer scientists are referenced by their family name, but great open source developers are referenced by their first?
And you lose his interest right there. What better way to influence a senator than to have him ignore you! Have you never been taught that you'll catch more flies with honey?
PS: What is it with the "You sir" catchphrase that recently has become popular? It's not witty. It's not intelligent. It doesn't add any "zing" to the inevitable insult that follows. I think it looks rather pompous.
Because it's not about smart. It's about doing the work. That's why Linus is revered. It's not because he's smart. If anything, Linus is only a little above-average in the smarts department. What makes Linus special is that he gets things done. He doesn't lecture or boss people around. He just does it.
Because the "what Linux needs" post is both worthless and arrogant. Worthless because it achieves nothing. Arrogant because it presumes that people can't spot the bleeding obvious. Lots of people know what Linux needs. Strangely they also disagree on the specifics. So what matters is working code; nobody needs yet another list of "what Linux needs".
Short version: nobody likes a back seat driver.
Well, actually, the GPL owner is dictating a mutual agreement where both parties benefit. The GPL owner gets to see code he didn't write, and the second author gets to use code that was written by the GPL owner. If the second author isn't happy with these terms then he loses nothing; he simply doesn't distribute. It's not as if the GPL owner has all the cards and dictates all the terms. There's an *agreement* that both parties *agree* to.
The second author still owns the code that he wrote and can re-release it under a different license. This is exactly what TrollTech does with QT; a fairly popular dual-licensed library.
Wow. I've never before seen anybody list the things that Linux needs to go mainstream! This is certainly a turning-point for Linux. Programmers will flock to your side to implement your vision. Your comments will be written into the history books. I don't know why the 10s of 1000s of Linux developers haven't realised before this day; Linux would dominate the market if only we had a soundcard setup utility! Brilliant. You are truly the smartest person that ever lived.
Andrew Tanenbaum is not a prick. He is one of the great contributors to computer science. He dedicated a huge amount of effort to creating an easily understood operating system to teach the fundamentals of OS design with a UNIX context. He also made sure it worked on hardware that students could readily afford. So what if he had a disagreement with Linus. Linus gets into flamefests with lots of people. That doesn't automatically mean they are pricks.
Get some historical perspective and cut it out with the revisionism.
The *real* money is in selling drugs. Tell your friend that if he's going to pimp himself out for money then he should at least do it properly.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
How about when he screwed Woz on the Atari version of Breakout. Jobs made Woz cry and that's unforgivable. We love you, Woz! You're the hacker's hero. Boo Jobs. Scumbag.
That's a nice story and illustrates that grokking social standing is important in any field. I've read that IT people tend towards autistic traits which includes social dysfunction. I'm not saying you're autistic or socially dysfunctional! Just that IT people should, more than any other group, make a special effort to learn what you've already learnt. There are certain social interactions that will simply never work.
I dunno. These sound like things that you want to do. I know my grandmother wants to send and receive email and occasionally browse the web for sewing patterns. No joke. She couldn't care less about streaming audio and video or eye-candy or movies.
The DRI runs almost entirely in user space and the performance is on-par with NT drivers. Ok, the trick is that there's a tiny kernel module to setup the hardware and allow privileges. Then MMIO takes over allowing userspace DRI drivers to communicate directly with the card, or DMA buffers are provided to userspace and the kernel module will blast the buffers to the card. The kernel module also coordinates locking between multiple DRI "instances". But I'm not trying to discuss the details, I'm just pointing out that you don't need video drivers in the kernel to get good performance.
SGI did the same trick, apparently. I wouldn't know about that but some of the DRI developers had worked for SGI. The NT solution is the way it is because a games-developer designed it. That isn't intended to be an insult or a joke, just a statement of fact. The history of the NT video driver model is fascinating.
The problem with your argument is that fossil fuel power stations also blight the landscape. Consider a coal plant. There's typically an open cut coal mine, a crusher refinery, a tailings dam, a largish plant, and secondary things like the roads required to join them and the storage areas for the trucks and so on. The actual amount of space required for a fossil fuel plant is quite stunning. They're not simple devices.
A wind plant takes up *less* space than just the open cut coal mine whilst producing the same power. The problem is that wind plants tend to go in nice looking valleys where rich people want to put their villas. Coal mines tend to be situated next to poor people (admittedly a causal effect). So want to hazard a guess why you hear stories about the "visual pollution" of wind plants yet hear zilch about the visual pollution of coal mines?
Ahh, isn't it great when the war is over :-)
That's a fair interpretation. It's been nice chatting with you.
I think you're playing far too literally with my words. The word "destroyed" was used in a figurative sense. The GPL destroys copyright in the same way that peace destroys war.
To make this exceptionally clear, RMS intended to make copyright an irrelevance by creating a bounty of free software available under the GPL. The GPL is a license that effectively negates copyright: an ingenious subversion of the system. RMS could not destroy copyright literally, nor could he revoke copyright laws, nor could he force the hands of people who were writing copyrighted software. He destroyed copyright in the only way left to him: he writes software and licenses it such that copyright has no relevance.
You've read me all wrong. I love the GPL. I'm not adverse to it at all. I have said nothing negative about it. Where did you get the crazy idea that I have?
PS: The GPL isn't a copyright, it's a license. Be careful when trying to explain something that you don't fully understand. I'll argue you three ways from Sunday.
The problem isn't the TV. The problem is what you watched. I like to think of myself as a discerning viewer. This week I watched a cooking show and then made the meal. I learnt more about ancient Egypt. I watched a gardening show and learnt more about caring for my garden. I watched a symphony. I watched the Aust vs England Rugby match. Total TV for the week, maybe 8 hours.
Did I waste my time watching "Big Brother" or "Everyone Loves Raymond"? Hell, no. It's not the TV that sucks. It's what you watch. There's lots of good programming. It's your responsibility to be the discerning viewer.
It says absolutely nothing.
The "TV breeds violence" myth is a religious cause. The faithful will repeat the mantra despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.
From the Manifesto:
The intention is very clear. RMS wants a world where he never has to sign an NDA or agree to a software license agreement. He wants a world where he can "share" (aka copy) software to all of his friends. Copyright is the antithesis of what RMS wants. The GPL was written to achieve the world that RMS wants; a world where software can be shared without the constraint of copyright.
Once again, RMS expresses his distaste for software that cannot be "shared". Copyright stops you from sharing. RMS wants to share. Therefore RMS does not like copyright. I've been to two of his presentations and on both occasions he has stated that he'd prefer a world without software copyright.
The fact that RMS uses copyright to destroy copyright is simply delicious irony. That's why the GPL is often called an "elegant hack" against the copyright system.
Of course not, but nobody claimed this would happen. The word we're looking for here is "strawman".
Everything that open source stands for is open source. Choice has nothing to do with it.
You forget that the GPL was designed to destroy software copyright. Read the Manifesto if you doubt this. Open Source is simply the PR friendly name for RMS vision. RMS hated the fact that he was not allowed to get a copy of the code to some printing software. His entire life since that point has basically been revenge. In RMS world you would not have choice; all software would be free.
Perhaps, but computers aren't all about "feel" and "artistry". There's a lot of knowledge and experience and personal communication skills. These are things that take decades to properly grok.
I work in a large department and there's a wide distribution of skill. About half the people are crap. About a quarter are competent. The remaining quarter are better than I am. That's my opinion, of course, I know some people who would rank me a lot lower.
But there are perhaps half a dozen people that I truly admire. They are fully in control of everything they do. They have vast knowledge of their field. They are confident in meetings. They know the intricacies of the political system as much as they know the technical systems. They can design large systems that work first time. The kicker is, they are ALL over 50 years of age.
I don't think their mastery of their field is because they are "brilliant" or "artistic". In fact, one of the guys is an ignorant dolt about anything except systems design. I think their mastery is because they've "been there and done that". They are honing their skills with every project. Tiny variations and slight improvements slowly leading to perfection. I look up to these people and try my best to learn what I can from them.
I think it's sad that some managers think IT is a "young person's field". I know that's not true. The people who make great contributions to our department are without exception the OLDER staff members.
PS: I'm in my late 20s.
I don't think so. If you look at business software then Microsoft isn't even in the running. If you consider "software for the masses" then Visicalc (1979) predates Multiplan (1982), CP/M (1977) predates MS-DOS (1981), Wordstar (1978) predates Word (1983), and so on. I'm not saying these products were firsts, but they were huge successes in their respective markets and they came before Microsoft.
I personally believe Visicalc was the turning point. Before Visicalc, computers were either expensive toys for hobbyists or expensive tools for big business. With the release of Visicalc the PC market exploded. EVERYBODY bought an AppleII so they could run Visicalc. It was the first killer-app, the first spreadsheet, the first small-business app, and quite possibly the sole reason for the creation of the PC market.
The IBM-PC was nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to the unexpected popularity of personal computers like the AppleII, the Commodore64, the TRS80. IBM even thought that the PC was a fad but in typical IBM fashion they hedged their bets. Seeing as MS-DOS was part of the IBM-PC project and the IBM-PC was a reaction to the explosion of personal computers and software, you can see that Microsoft did not pioneer anything here.
Admittedly Microsoft played an important role in the early PCs as the creators and licensors of embedded firmware (eg, Microsoft Basic in the ROMs of the C64 and AppleII). But Basic is software for hobbyists, not "software for the masses". Microsoft did produce their first product Altair Basic very early (1975) but once again that was software for hobbyists, not "software for the masses".
Uhhh, people were already paying for CP/M and paying lots. MS-DOS was cheaper and that was one of the (many) reasons for its success. Also DOS wasn't Bill's "pet project". IBM had approached Microsoft for a copy of Basic and idly mentioned they were also going to license CP/M from Digital. Bill saw an opportunity to get into a new market, quickly bought out a cheapo competitor (QDOS) and made the licensing deal of the century with IBM.
Shrug. So what. There would be another suite from another company. Microsoft didn't invent word processors. They didn't invent spreadsheets. They didn't invent presentation packages. They didn't invent email clients. I don't know but strongly doubt that Microsoft even invented office suites.
The thing is, we'll never know. You can't say "probably" because you simply don't know. For all we know, Microsoft has held back computing by a decade or more. For all we know, if the spirit of sharing had been allowed to continue then by now we'd have Star Trek interfaces and computers all speaking to us. Who knows. Not me. Not you.
Be nice. The genealogy of UNIX is so twisted and complicated that even the most learned make the occasional mistake. I didn't think this mistake was all that bad.
Hahaha... he did... he stuck me in his Foes list. Arrogant and thin-skinned.