True, but the "status quo" isn't going to just roll over and die. If they don't "get a mit and get in the game" they'll vanish. A couple of years ago Apple nearly folded up. What pulled them back from the edge of oblivion? Jobs and some new designs. We see it often, superior products that can't crack the status quo. Tell me. What killer app, what "must have" will any new OS bring that won't be ported by Gates and others within weeks as they did with browsers, e-mail, servers etc.? But with one HUGE difference. The new OS starts off with 0% of the market share, while the others, 100 %. I remember poking around with OS/2 when it came out. If I recall, multi-tasking was it's big feature, until the competition came along and BAM, your Amiga Toast(er). I'm not a Microsoft pundit, I don't like monopolies and will drop them in a moment when a POPULAR, SUPERIOR product comes along. The Microsoft/Intel dynamic duo has had this advantage - cheap. And nothing puts you into the status quo faster than that. Imagine if Rebol/Core came out at $99 with no demo software. A bargain no doubt. But I dare say this list would be a lot thinner. It's not the tools, but what you do with them. It's about ideas. What can you do with Rebol that you can't do with the language it's layered on? But the idea is great. Rebol allows those that have ideas, but not the 5 years to learning C (or whatever) bring those ideas to fruition. T Brownell --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] said at �[REBOL] Re: Over 40 > Platforms make for > good press, but.... Re:(2)�. > [Sep/24/2000Sun 00:56] > ... > ... > -> Gotta go with the status quo. > ... > ... > -That's an attitude that might make sense if you > believe the future > -will just be like the present, and I'd probably > agree with you if the > -roads were still full of black Model Ts, but > they're not and so I > won't. > > I also don't believe Winxx, Macxx, and *nix are the > OS's that will be > used by most people 10 years from now. They won't be > able to compete > with the new generation of OS's, of which BeOS, QNX > and Amiga/Elate > are examples. Even these will probably be surpassed > in a few years. > We probably won't even call them OS's anymore, but > distributed agent/ > objects or something. They will have > multi-dimensional unbreakable > links, automatic version archiving and comparison, > no configuration > problems, be multi and distributed processing, and > will adapt to the > user instead of forcing the opposite. They will > provide for automatic > or easy payments of royalties, allow simple comment > adding to any > document, and won't require years of study to be > able to produce an > interactive document-program. And your whole work > setup and all files > will be securely and instantly at your service from > any computer on > the net. Every computer will be both server and > client without > requiring a computer science degree to configure and > protect. You > can't do all this using the status quo, but it can > all be done, and > is in development right now. > > -I don't see a future with just a few OSs having 90% > of the market, > but > -dozens of them and in every device imaginable. And > of course, > -they'll all be chattering to each other over the > Net. This is why > -cross-platform matters. The future is probably no > OS with more than > -20% of the market - when you include phones in the > market... > > This will make cross-platform languages and data the > norm. > > -Like you I also drooled over an Atari 800, but > bought a ZX81 > instead. > -Had two Commodore 64s since then, three Amigas... > And you know what? > - I'm sick of leaving my programs behind with each > change of platform, > -or having them become useless because of an OS > upgrade. I'm also > -sick of having to learn new programming languages > with every switch > -of platform. REBOL's probably a nice language, > (give me time:), but > -if it wasn't cross-platform I wouldn't be here. > > My computer history is almost identical to yours: > ZX81, C64, 4 > Amigas, and 2 Mac laptops. In the future, I also > want to have data > and programs that will follow me to my next system, > or I should say > follow me around. > ------------------ > > Jack Seay [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://home.earthlink.net/~jackseay/jack > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/
