Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

Tue Jul 19 05:50:03 UTC 2011

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:01:20 -0400, Jerry wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 22:31:41 +0200
> Polytropon articulated:
> 
> > Your TV example is very good. I've recently read a text
> > that predicts the future of CDs - a text from the late 80's.
> > When we consider what we are _currently_ using, the text
> > predicting "no important future for CDs" looks quite funny.
> 
> You are undoubtedly familiar with the 1986 quote:
> 
> "I think there is a world market for about five computers" — Remark
> attributed to Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board of International
> Business Machines)

IBM has a tradition in information processing for approx. 100
years today. They've been "playing the game" from its beginning
and have always aimed at the top of the customers - those that
have no problem spending "too much" money on their technology.

But this statement is claimed to be created in 1943, not in
1886; a different article claims about such a statement from
1953. At this time, those numbers sound quite obvious. They
do _not_ sound probable for the 80's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Watson
See section "Famous misquote".

> Now, I know you want to list Bill Gates' famous, "640K ought to be
> enough for anybody." statement in 1981. The only problem with that is:
> 
> 1) He denies it.
> 2) No credible evidence or witness exists to prove he did say it.
> 
> However, he readily admits making this one:
> 
> "I see little commercial potential for the internet for the next 10"
> years." Remarks at COMDEX (November 1994), attributed in Kommunikation
> erstatter transport (2009) by Karl Krarup et al.

questions 19.07.11 jerry malquoted gates; rectify :-)

It's always funny how people predict development. You
traditionally find them among politicians. They know
nothing, but can explain everything. :-)

Who would have thought, in the early days of "Windows", that
this would be a mainstream OS some day? I mean, come on, it
was worth a good laugh, nothing more, if you compared it
to what competitors had to offer: highly superior. And some
features that we take for granted in X, originated from that
"ancient platforms", still have no equivalent in today's
"Windows".

See http://toastytech.com/guis/guitimeline.html - you can
also find detailed screenshots of many GUI systems. And:
You have to move to page 2 to see the first "Windows"
here.

While "Windows" will just be a footnote in IT history (in
long term considerations), UNIX will be a philosophy. It
will probably still run the Internet when users will have
moved on to something different than "Windows"...

This is just _my_ prediction, and time will tell if I'll
have to join Watson, Gates and Torvalds. :-)

> And who can forget the this 2006 beauty by Linus Torvalds:
> 
> "Which mindset is right? Mine, of course. People who disagree with me
> are by definition crazy. (Until I change my mind, when they can
> suddenly become upstanding citizens. I’m flexible, and not
> black-and-white.)"

Sound like "Everyone is free to have his own opinion - as long
as it matches mine." :-)

> Actually, and this is a matter of semantics, I am technically using
> DVDs and not CDs in my machines. And as surely as night follows day,
> even that will be obsoleted soon enough.

Of course it will, like VHS, Betamax, data tape. It's not
a question IF it will. It's just WHEN. The next question
will be: What will be NEXT? Better or worse?

Will newer materials chemically dissolve faster or slower?
Will more precise readers and writers (due to higher information
packing rate) fail more often? Will it be compensated by
cheap pricing?

Home consumers who have precious memories on VHS-C tapes,
on DV tapes or something similar will have to transition
this content to new media. They will _always_ have to do
this as long as no backwards compatibility isn't present.
If they can't do it theirselves... tadaa! Market.

Development is about creating markets, not about solving
present problems, let alone future ones. Just see what
happens in car industry: Fatter cars, more dirt, more
consumption. There's really a market for that! Unbelievable.
But it's also in IT: Fatter PCs, higher energy consumption,
slower "overall usage speed" (see one of my previous posts
for definition), higher TCO, faster "renewal".

I simply can't imagine that this is what customers want.
In many cases, customers do not even _know_ what they
want, let alone what they really NEED. And here marketing
and advertising enters the game: It tells them.

> Heck, Blu-ray is currently
> available and the 5D DVD with 10 terabytes, approximately 2000 times
> the capacity of a standard DVD is on the horizon. It seems like only
> yesterday I was using 5.25" floppies. The whole point being that the
> text you are alluding too may not be that far from the truth.

It's simply a present danger. The question is: How do _YOU_
take care for the future?

Governments, for example, don't have the problem to pay
attention to pricing. Today, they're using tape silos
with "mounting robots", but that's already being obsoleted.
Storage must be accessed faster. Solution? Disks. Many disks.
Problem: Today's disks don't run for 10 years. So what?
Copy data to new disks every two years. And copy them some
more for backup storage (one for working, at least two for
backup and archiving).

But what for the files? Currently, there's a "big problem"
in the banking and insurance sector here in Germany. They
"suddenly" got "surprised" that they can't access some
"important" data anymore. Solution? Hire COBOL programmers.
Problem? COBOL isn't "state of the art" anymore. There are
just a few programmers who are still able to properly use
that language, and _THEY_ can feeely choose their wage.
Why? Because they _CAN_! They are "living dinosaurs",
according to your terminology, and sometimes, you exclusively
need those people to get a job done, because all the modern
script-kiddies, spoiled by the nonsense in their shiny
boxes, can't do it.

And here, FreeBSD states is RELEVANCE: It can be considered
a "living dinosaur" which is quite healthy and powerful for
its age. Because of its proven ability to survive and to
accomodate changings without turning into a music box it
is highly regarded a relevant system for critical areas
where stability and continuity are absolutely required.

-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...