IMHO Jim Clark is wrong. More on that in a second.
Maybe, just maybe the point of the MS break-up decision is that operating systems should go back to being operating systems and applications back to being applications.
In other words the OS should be nothing more than a layer of software that talks to the hardware, either directly or by managing drivers and then provides an API to developers for accessing that hardware.
That's all an OS needs to do.
This will reduce the operating system to a commodity. Sold not to consumers, but to OEMs for bundling with their hardware.
This is what the vast majority of users want since they don't know what an operating system is, but they do want their computers to boot.
Operating systems will still be a lucrative business (although admittedly not as lucrative as today), because many devices are paperweights without one.
Application vendors can then go back to doing what they do which is making applications, by writing to the various API's provided by various OS's.
To me that is the point of the court decision and it seems right.
As for what Jim Clark proposes, as well as flying in the face of the above, it simply won't work.
The new MS apps company would just expand Word into a full fledged web browser and nothing has been accomplished. After all what is he saying, that application companies can't write browsers?
Also it has yet to be proven that a web browser will subsume all the functions of an OS. Different people are pushing this type of model, with things like ASP, but it has yet to be proven. Almost any application can add a billion features and claim that is the new "Universal Client". Generally what it will actually be is bloated, "Universal Garbage".
"--and the bottom line is, splitting one ravenous horde into two still leaves you with two ravenous hordes."
Yes and each ravenous horde also has a Khan, a leader, a big kahuna. Each Khan will seek to maximize "the good" for his horde. Since the two hordes will have different interests, they will have different goals and will begin to drift apart.
People who make your "two monopolies" argument always forget this part. As though whoever is in charge of the new company will be just dying to kiss the allmighty Bill's butt.
Didn't you ever see Scarface... "Rule #1, don't ever underestimate the other guys greed."
"You never have to remember obscure names, everything is built out of a small set of simple blocks"
Those "simple blocks" are called letters. To build "everything" you start by building syllables, from those you build words, from those, sentences, etc... until you end up with language. Or you could call the "simple blocks" characters, from which you derive tokens, expressions, statements, etc, etc...
The point is either way you may end up dealing with obscure names.
Also there are people working on many of the OS ideas you mentioned. Yes they are experimental, but given time some will mature.
Has anyone compared one of these things to say WebTV.
I bought a WebTV for my grandmother when they first came out and it has been a big hit.
How does the i-Opener actually stack up? From reading their webPR it is hard to say. Other than the fact that it contains some Open Source code, and or can be hacked to run Linux, what has it got going for it?
Thank you for posting this. Your job gives you a unique perspective on what the near term future will be like. I have to say it is one of the most depressing posts I have read in a long time.
Well, the tour seems like a reasonable first step. The detractor though at the end of the article has a good point as well.
It would be nice if the officials at the lab could reveal some technical information about the fire and the dangers that it posed so that third-party experts could review it and hopefully allay public fears.
The previous post seems like a perfectly valid question to me.
I can't possibly claim to answer it for anyone else, but for myself I feel this way:
If "they" will drop the copyright nonsense, "I" will gladly forget about copyleft.
In other words if they open source the world, there won't be any need for the GPL to make sure that works stay open. I'm not being facetious here. Just pointing out that to me the GPL is purely defensive. If the people trying to hoard knowledge would just knock it off there wouldn't be any need for the GPL.
It is hilarious to see this sort of thing from a rapper. "Rap" isn't that the art form based on SAMPLING! Doh! So now you are going to sue me for dl'ing music that you sampled from somebody else. Too classic.
Whenever I see anything about the Celerons and there purposefully being crippled, i.e. less cache, lower bus speeds, underclocking (look ma' I coined a new word), I always feel like it's a rip off.
In the automobile industry there is certainly a place for both the 4 cylinder and the 8 cylinder and we expect too pay less for the 4 cylinder. After all you get a lot less metal in the average 4 cylinder automobile than you do in the 8, but this analogy just doesn't hold up for me when applied to silicon.
Am I being totally unreasonable here?
BTW, I'm actually hoping somebody will set me straight about this. I've recommended Celerons to a few people but always half-heartedly and for some people it does seem like a lower end machine would suffice.
This is a classic, from the Known Issues/Browser section:
"Strange Waterson attractor: Setting your Navigator preferences (Edit menu: Preferences: Navigator) to "last page visited" may reset your starting page to Chris Watersons' homepage. (bug 29166)"
Hasn't this happened to all of us, at one time or another?
While I agree with the vast majority of what you say, I think you are overstating it here:
"but I finally pinned down what I think is wrong with Wall's initially rather intriguing 'philosophy'"
To me the thing is that in programming languages, both the flexibility of a Perl and the regularity of a Python have their place. Just as in natural languages slang and say "medical terminology" or other highly formalized modes have a place.
It may seem at first that in programming a highly formalized language would always be better, since as you point out many times we are trying to precisely implement some spec or other. That begs the question though 'Which do you write more often, programs or prototypes of programs?' I find that I spend alot of times writing prototypes, in a very loose way, that I later refine into a much more formalized program, often in a much stricter language.
Another thing to think about, is that in natural languages many of these highly formalized modes are subsets of a big mess like say English. Perl and alot of other 'messy' computer languages show some notion of this with their pragmas like 'strict'. Maybe some of these more formal languages like Python need a pragma like 'loose' which says, "Let me indent anyway I want, and shine the type-checking 'cuz I'm just talking to myself"?:)
IMHO more rules, revising the rules, is not the way to go. At least at this time.
If you read what these people have to say, most of them are pissed off, because they feel they do not have a voice (that they are being unfairly moderated).
Maybe they are?
I think a better start would be for a/. "story" about this very topic. So that we can get a real thread going and see what everyone has to say. Maybe a solution will present itself.
For the first time tonight, I had to bump my comment threshold up to get past the noise. That's a drag. One of the things I enjoy the most about/. is reading what everybody has to say.
"There are four computers on Nomad during this expedition. Two PCs running Windows NT control the panoramic camera, perform landmark based navigation, and run the autonomous classification software. A third computer running Red Hat Linux coordinates robot navigation and obstacle avoidance with the stereo cameras and the laser rangefinder. Finally, a VME processor cage with a Motorola 68060 processor controls Nomad's real-time processing, such as translation of driving commands into servo motor movements and the monitoring of all systems on Nomad."
I found the above from following one of the links in the article. Very cool. Nomad is rad! I want one of these.
"And so they would believe that the shadows of the objects we mentioned were in all respects real. Then think what would naturally happen to them if they were released from their bonds and cured of their delusions." The Simile of the cave, Plato
Slashdot Mirror
IMHO Jim Clark is wrong. More on that in a second.
Maybe, just maybe the point of the MS break-up decision is that operating systems should go back to being operating systems and applications back to being applications.
In other words the OS should be nothing more than a layer of software that talks to the hardware, either directly or by managing drivers and then provides an API to developers for accessing that hardware.
That's all an OS needs to do.
This will reduce the operating system to a commodity. Sold not to consumers, but to OEMs for bundling with their hardware.
This is what the vast majority of users want since they don't know what an operating system is, but they do want their computers to boot.
Operating systems will still be a lucrative business (although admittedly not as lucrative as today), because many devices are paperweights without one.
Application vendors can then go back to doing what they do which is making applications, by writing to the various API's provided by various OS's.
To me that is the point of the court decision and it seems right.
As for what Jim Clark proposes, as well as flying in the face of the above, it simply won't work.
The new MS apps company would just expand Word into a full fledged web browser and nothing has been accomplished. After all what is he saying, that application companies can't write browsers?
Also it has yet to be proven that a web browser will subsume all the functions of an OS. Different people are pushing this type of model, with things like ASP, but it has yet to be proven. Almost any application can add a billion features and claim that is the new "Universal Client". Generally what it will actually be is bloated, "Universal Garbage".
Pinball is the last great electromechanical gizmo.
Pinball is a harsh mistress.
Pinball is good.
"--and the bottom line is, splitting one ravenous horde into two still leaves you with two ravenous hordes."
Yes and each ravenous horde also has a Khan, a leader, a big kahuna. Each Khan will seek to maximize "the good" for his horde. Since the two hordes will have different interests, they will have different goals and will begin to drift apart.
People who make your "two monopolies" argument always forget this part. As though whoever is in charge of the new company will be just dying to kiss the allmighty Bill's butt.
Didn't you ever see Scarface... "Rule #1, don't ever underestimate the other guys greed."
"You never have to remember obscure names, everything is built out of a small set of simple blocks"
Those "simple blocks" are called letters. To build "everything" you start by building syllables, from those you build words, from those, sentences, etc... until you end up with language. Or you could call the "simple blocks" characters, from which you derive tokens, expressions, statements, etc, etc...
The point is either way you may end up dealing with obscure names.
Also there are people working on many of the OS ideas you mentioned. Yes they are experimental, but given time some will mature.
Has anyone compared one of these things to say WebTV.
I bought a WebTV for my grandmother when they first came out and it has been a big hit.
How does the i-Opener actually stack up? From reading their webPR it is hard to say. Other than the fact that it contains some Open Source code, and or can be hacked to run Linux, what has it got going for it?
Thanks
Thank you for posting this. Your job gives you a unique perspective on what the near term future will be like. I have to say it is one of the most depressing posts I have read in a long time.
Well, the tour seems like a reasonable first step. The detractor though at the end of the article has a good point as well.
/..
It would be nice if the officials at the lab could reveal some technical information about the fire and the dangers that it posed so that third-party experts could review it and hopefully allay public fears.
BTW, glad to see this on
Can it spread ILOVEU?
;)
I consider this to be the real litmus test for any app claiming to approach MS Outlook/Outlook Express in functionality.
I always enjoy reading what RMS has to say. I applaud his uncompromising defense of the things he believes in, even when I don't agree with him.
We all know about gcc, but I think RMS himself is actually a pretty damn good compiler. Witness:
$cat src.c#define OPEN_SOURCE = FREE_SOFTWARE;
$rms src.c
semantic error:1000:OPEN_SOURCE != FREE_SOFTWARE, refer to the GNU Manifesto.
and in the end don't we all agree:
"Garbage in, garbage out."
The previous post seems like a perfectly valid question to me.
I can't possibly claim to answer it for anyone else, but for myself I feel this way:
If "they" will drop the copyright nonsense, "I" will gladly forget about copyleft.
In other words if they open source the world, there won't be any need for the GPL to make sure that works stay open. I'm not being facetious here. Just pointing out that to me the GPL is purely defensive. If the people trying to hoard knowledge would just knock it off there wouldn't be any need for the GPL.
It is hilarious to see this sort of thing from a rapper. "Rap" isn't that the art form based on SAMPLING! Doh! So now you are going to sue me for dl'ing music that you sampled from somebody else. Too classic.
PKZip is truly a meaningful contribution.
Think of this, did you ever see it crash?
Truly a sad tale.
I take this to mean that writing an httpd in shell script is backing up.
It's actually just the opposite. It's a step up to a higher level language than c, which is what they are most frequently writing them in these days.
Now writing one in PS is just plain wack. :)
One word reply to this post:
Yes
Whenever I see anything about the Celerons and there purposefully being crippled, i.e. less cache, lower bus speeds, underclocking (look ma' I coined a new word), I always feel like it's a rip off.
In the automobile industry there is certainly a place for both the 4 cylinder and the 8 cylinder and we expect too pay less for the 4 cylinder. After all you get a lot less metal in the average 4 cylinder automobile than you do in the 8, but this analogy just doesn't hold up for me when applied to silicon.
Am I being totally unreasonable here?
BTW, I'm actually hoping somebody will set me straight about this. I've recommended Celerons to a few people but always half-heartedly and for some people it does seem like a lower end machine would suffice.
This is a classic, from the Known Issues/Browser section:
"Strange Waterson attractor: Setting your Navigator preferences (Edit menu: Preferences: Navigator) to "last page visited" may reset your starting page to Chris Watersons' homepage. (bug 29166)"
Hasn't this happened to all of us, at one time or another?
While I agree with the vast majority of what you say, I think you are overstating it here:
To me the thing is that in programming languages, both the flexibility of a Perl and the regularity of a Python have their place. Just as in natural languages slang and say "medical terminology" or other highly formalized modes have a place.
It may seem at first that in programming a highly formalized language would always be better, since as you point out many times we are trying to precisely implement some spec or other. That begs the question though 'Which do you write more often, programs or prototypes of programs?' I find that I spend alot of times writing prototypes, in a very loose way, that I later refine into a much more formalized program, often in a much stricter language.
Another thing to think about, is that in natural languages many of these highly formalized modes are subsets of a big mess like say English. Perl and alot of other 'messy' computer languages show some notion of this with their pragmas like 'strict'. Maybe some of these more formal languages like Python need a pragma like 'loose' which says, "Let me indent anyway I want, and shine the type-checking 'cuz I'm just talking to myself"? :)
This story is pure unadulterated vapor.
If it was "leaked", it was leaked by the MS marketing department.
MS may one day ship a console.
In the meantime if you rub the "X-Box" on your chest it might cure a cold.
IMHO more rules, revising the rules, is not the way to go. At least at this time.
/. "story" about this very topic. So that we can get a real thread going and see what everyone has to say. Maybe a solution will present itself.
/. is reading what everybody has to say.
If you read what these people have to say, most of them are pissed off, because they feel they do not have a voice (that they are being unfairly moderated).
Maybe they are?
I think a better start would be for a
For the first time tonight, I had to bump my comment threshold up to get past the noise. That's a drag. One of the things I enjoy the most about
Thank you for posting these links. They were very informative.
"There are four computers on Nomad during this expedition. Two PCs running Windows NT control the panoramic camera, perform landmark based navigation, and run the autonomous classification software. A third computer running Red Hat Linux coordinates robot navigation and obstacle avoidance with the stereo cameras and the laser rangefinder. Finally, a VME processor cage with a Motorola 68060 processor controls Nomad's real-time processing, such as translation of driving commands into servo motor movements and the monitoring of all systems on Nomad."
I found the above from following one of the links in the article. Very cool. Nomad is rad! I want one of these.
Using VC++5.0 I got the dll to build with only a couple of warnings. I was unable to get the exe to load the dll however.
From what a previous poster said though that is probably just a matter of it being in the wrong dir.
There is no Seattle...
"And so they would believe that the shadows of the objects we mentioned were in all respects real. Then think what would naturally happen to them if they were released from their bonds and cured of their delusions."
The Simile of the cave, Plato
What CBS did is not just wrong, it is evil.
For people who don't understand the implications of this sort of thing, read 1984 by George Orwell.
People should take note that it is not NBC that is truly the injured party in this case. The general public is the victim.
Don't be a victim, watch the watchmen.