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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!zombie.ncsc.mil!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!inXS.uu.net!newsfeed.pitt.edu!neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu!hahn 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 Lines: 56 Message-ID: <4skk4p$273@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu> 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> NNTP-Posting-Host: neurocog.lrdc.pitt.edu Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.networking:45624 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:23883 > ... 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/