*BSD News Article 73847


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From: lm@neteng.engr.sgi.com (Larry McVoy)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: TCP latency
Date: 16 Jul 1996 00:37:28 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA
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Chuck Cranor (chuck@ccrc.wustl.edu) wrote:
: >Is it really worthwhile to have these arguments?  Wouldn't it be better
: >if we were all working on the same thing, making one OS the best?  Instead
: >of arguing that your variant is better than their variant?  

: No, I don't think it would be better if we were all working on the same
: thing.    I don't even think it is possible due to logistical, political,
: and philosophical differences.   Also, people tend to generally like having
: alternatives to choose from.   Why should that be taken away?

If you look at the directions of the computer industry, the Unix market
is shrinking (not in real numbers, in percentage), while the Windows
& Windows/NT market is growing.  If you follow that out to its logical
conclusion, at some point in the future, the only "choice" we will have
will be a Microsoft product.  In many ways, we're already there.

The Unix world is fond of letting personalities be more important
than survival.  That's fine if all you want to do is play around, but
what if you would actually like to be able to use Unix technology to
solve problems?  And you need a widely used, supported, understood OS
to do your job?  Suppose Unix goes the way of MVS - do you want to be
one of those MVS dinosaurs that are largely irrelevant?

My premise throughout all of this has been that the smart minds need to
work together to make a good OS.  For whatever reason, the BSD crowds
can't seem to handle more than a handful of smart people working on
their version of their Unix.  That means that BSD Unix will always be a
political thing, a playground for nerds, but never a widely used platform.

I'd like to think that in 10 years, Unix will still be an interesting
platform for technical computing.  How is BSD going to help that be true?
--
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Larry McVoy     lm@sgi.com     http://reality.sgi.com/lm     (415) 933-1804