Think outside of the box (Gawd, I hate that term)

[Jerry McAllister]

> 
> Guys (and gals)
> 
> 	As great as the *BSD's are - why are we not thinking ahead of the curve? 
> Outside of the box? What do I mean? Well - why not develope our OS's to run 
> on an arch. that isn't out yet - MAKE that new arch. just like Gates did so 
> many years ago. He defined the x86 market - why can't we do the same?
> 
> 	With all the thinkers out there (Jordan, Theo) wouln't that be thebetter way 
> to go? 
> 
> Just a thought - and willing to confess, I have zero clue how to get there. 
> But, we need to get there.

Wonderful thought, but the thing that made Gates big was clout in
the marketplace that was given to him by sleeping with Big Blue (IBM)
who, at the time was the "undisputed" 10 ton gorilla in the computer
market.   Remember there were no "PCs" up to that point and only a
smattering of microcomputers of various sorts, none with any sales 
power behind it (not even Apple really).  Everyone in the business 
world was waiting to see what IBM was going to do.   

So, when IBM made a deal with Gates and MS to throw together as OS 
for the PC they were long rumored to be coming out with, it made him 
and MS.

That cabal (including Intel, also at the time not the biggest cheese 
in the cooler) was able to take controll of the marketplace because 
of IBMs clout as the main seller of computing for businesses (and 
business managers only cared about business computers).   It had 
little to do with the quality of the thinking, design or implementation 
of machines which have never been the superior technology available 
at any time, although they did tend to be packaged better than any of
the other early microcomputers currently on the market (except the 
Apple but that was much too wimpy and already underpowered at the time).

Although it is possible for genius software developers to work on
a thin budget and get amazing things done, the current state of 
hardware makes it a necessity to invest very large sums of money
(100's of millions of $) to create each next generation (each of which
is a slight evolution of the previous rather than revolutionary).   So 
most brilliant hardware developers are finding it necessary to sell 
their souls to the few hardware development giants.   Or they are 
working in some University research program and having to spend most 
of their creative energy fighting for grants.

It is also, not just the availability of development money.  It is 
also the ability to make an impact in the marketplace.  The current
players are not going to lie down and let some some other product
roll over them merely because it is superior.   The techie burial
grounds are littered with the remains of companies and individuals
who had a better product (in some way or other) but could not work
up enough clout in the marketplace to stay.   A few of those 
products are supporting stacks of books and papers in my house.

So, yup, FreeBSD and the other BSDs have good - brilliant thinkers
but what horse can they ride to significant enough place in the
marketplace to be able to afford the cost of development.   
Gee, it would be wonderful if the next generation could be some sort
of open system project.   I'd probably even buy one myself, but.

////jerry


> Best regards,
>                  Chris