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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!MathWorks.Com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sdl!not-for-mail From: tal@Warren.MENTORG.COM (Tom Limoncelli) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Where do we go from here? Date: 25 Apr 1994 13:12:59 -0400 Organization: Mentor Graphics -- IC Group, Warren, NJ, USA Lines: 51 Sender: tal@Warren.MENTORG.COM Message-ID: <2pgtmr$n1m$1@sdl.Warren.MENTORG.COM> References: <2p9fur$kin@zenos.physci.psu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: sdl.warren.mentorg.com In <2p9fur$kin@zenos.physci.psu.edu> tenser@zenos.physci.psu.edu (Dan Cross) writes: >Now that the UCB has stopped working on BSD, bell labs has discontinued work >on the 10th edition research UNIX, and Novell has bought USL, who is going to >keep UNIX alive? Also, who is going to provide the scientific community with >the top technical operating system in the world? Is UNIX just going to fade >off into oblivion? (heh, sorry if this sounds morbid...) Anyway, how is UNIX >going to keep being advanced if no one but commercial vendors are working on >it? Oh well, just some passing thoughts... Who? Anyone that wants to make money doing that. This is the Reagan Era final kill of another great Berkeley Utopianism. (I should make an analogy between this and when Gov. Reagan closed that park near Berkeley). Sun and HP have forgotten the scientists and people that want cutting edge systems in favor of what they perceive as the "easy money of the businessness and banking segment". Hey, that's their analysis. Others will realize that there is money to be made in both places. COSE, the reorganized and renamed OSF, and POSIX will be the driving forces of innovation for some time to come. (I'm saying this with some sarcasm) However, if you think about it, Scientists and Business need the same things out of Unix. I won't turn down the reliability that business demands, and they won't turn down the high speed that Science demands. Besides, if you want real high speed, you go with a Cray or Convex and how many people really have access to those? The difference is that things will now be packaged a little differently and have a glossier user interface. Neither of those both me. Tom P.S. Another way to think about it is that the role of government funding for scientiffic research is to START new things, not to continue them. Anything else would be socialism (eek! Not that! :-)). Our tax dollars started Unix and TCP/IP, liberal Republicans and conservative Libertarians (as well as government leaches and profiteers) would say that this is where it should end. The Government has done it's job of creating a market, now let the free market take over. The economic benefit of having this new market should be left up to the market economy. (God, I sound like the economists I debated *against* in college). -- Tom Limoncelli -- tal@warren.mentorg.com (work) -- tal@plts.org (play) "Psst! Hey, Anthony! Y'know what I | Disclaimer: I do not like about existing?" "Uh... uh... what?" | speak for Mentor Graphics. "Possessing a physical extension." -TSA |