Re: [tlug] Unix's 40th Birthday

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Curt Sampson writes:
 > On 2009-08-20 22:57 +0900 (Thu), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
 > 
 > > Missing quote: "Unix really *is* the operating system for the
 > > Internet: most of the 'switches' that direct your network connections
 > > to the computer that has the data you need run Unix."
 > 
 > I'm not buying that one without some evidence.

Oh, I'll concede that I don't know what OS the big iron in the Maes
East and West run.  And I suppose there's some big iron in the
basement of most big companies.  But I know that an awful lot (by
model count, can't say about sales) of the consumer and SOHO routers
run some embedded Unix (usually Linux or NetBSD, I guess).  And when
you count the other no-see-um at-the-perimeter boxen like firewall
gateways, mail filters, and other proxies, I bet most of those run
Unix variants except at the most well-heeled Microsoft shops.

 > On 2009-08-20 22:43 +0900 (Thu), Sotaro Kobayashi wrote:
 > 
 > > "It got us away from the total control that businesses
 > > like IBM and DEC had over us."
 > > 
 > > BBC has reminded me that the same fortune could fall upon the current
 > > dinosaurs - MS.
 > 
 > I'd be curious as to why you think so, since Windows did exactly what
 > Unix did to get users away from that total control: let you run your
 > programs on commodity hardware purchased from one of many vendors, all
 > of whom are in cutthroat competition with one another.

In some sense, recent Windows doesn't run on commodity hardware
anymore.  The bottom has dropped out of the commodity market; the
digital technology no longer is the lower limit on size and cost, it's
the analog HCI.  And there's enormous pressure to minimize size, even
at the cost of functionality.  On the other hand, Windows's appetite
for resources continues to increase apparently uncontrollably.  Maybe
WinCE runs on keitai denwa, but XP, Vista, and 7 don't.  All the Eee
PC class machines run XP (Johnny Test to Microsoft: "Woah, didn't see
THAT coming!"), and even with reasonable consumer boxen like my wife's
Vaio (2.5GB RAM) an honest salesman will tell you "max out the memory
and don't upgrade past Vista Home Premium if you want anything
resembling performance".

There's another sense in which Windows doesn't run on commodity
hardware.  As any peripheral vendor will tell you, getting "Windows
compatible" status for your product is pretty much as annoying and
expensive as getting FDA approval for a new drug.  There's very little
money spent by hardware vendors on writing Linux drivers, let alone
qualifying against SuSE and Red Hat ... and Debian?  I don't think so!

I tell you, that's starting to look like a lot of opportunities for
disruptive innovation.  (Actually, keitai has already happened.)