*BSD News Article 74076


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From: hahn@neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu (Mark Hahn)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Getting off the stick [was Re: TCP latency]
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Date: 18 Jul 1996 06:04:09 GMT
Organization: Learning Research and Development Center at U. of Pittsburgh
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References: <4paedl$4bm@engnews2.eng.sun.com> <4s8rtp$jsh@fido.asd.sgi.com> <4sej3e$155@dworkin.wustl.edu> <4seo88$fqd@fido.asd.sgi.com> <4sesh4$2ls@dworkin.wustl.edu> <31EDBDA2.41C67EA6@FreeBSD.org>
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> ... It'd be like the hull of a ship.  Most
> passengers on a luxury liner don't take trips down to the bilges in
> order to rap on the hull and marvel at the rivets, they're far more
> interested in the swimming pool, the shuffleboard court and the various
> other attractions topside.

and recent history indicates that the plumbing on a cruise ship
can have some pretty unpleasant effects on the passengers.

...
> And then we wonder why people aren't exactly rushing to clamber aboard
> the S.S. UNIX anymore, prefering instead, for some strange reason, the
> Queen Elizabeth II.

sounds like you're advocating Win95.  or maybe MS Bob...
it would sound like the MacOS, except you said QE2 rather than Titanic ;)

> Pride goeth before the fall.  Face it - porting software to new
> platforms is hard, and most companies won't even bother unless they're
> guaranteed a potential customer base far greater than Linux or *BSD
> could muster combined.
...

this used to be true.  these days, all platforms offer the same
basic functionality - heck, everyone's even 32bit now!  the nature
of the market provides a lot of structural security for big, established
apps.  those vendors do indeed have little incentive.  but it's not 
as if there can be only one (heh).

> While it's also certainly true that we're still growing at the moment
> since all this free UN*X stuff is fun and nifty right now and the gloss
> is still on, what about in 5 years?  If this is all going to be down the

why is the freeness relevant?  I mean, it's great, but for getting 
work done, having the source isn't useful except for geek-gratification
(and if something doesn't work.)  the Unix market would exist, 
somewhat smaller and more expensive, if *BSD and Linux evaporated tonight.

> For us to hold our own against Microsoft, much less gain any ground, we

why is Microsoft the opponent?  this is quixotic.  
they dominate; get used to it!  I still write for Unix and X,
because that's the best environment for my apps, which are hardly
targetted at the mass-market.

and unfortunately, the other topic you mention, achieving cooperation
among multiple machines, that's actually a lot harder than merely
writing a cool OS.  yes, our ergs and bits could be better spent writing 
attempts to do clustering, but on the other hand, we do need a fast
foundation to do it on.  and that means sweating things like TCP latency.  
yes, even loaded TCP latency.

regards, mark hahn.
--
operator may differ from spokesperson.	hahn@neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu
					http://neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu/~hahn/