> -> The *reason* that so many things happened on Unix was <-
> -> that we had the source code. <-
> Thanks to the way AT&T and then UCB licensed it, we could modify
> anything from device drivers to the scheduler to the mail program
> to the shell...*anything*. And we did.
> So we did it ourselves, for the joy of creating something. For
> the challenge. For the hope that we were making the world a better
The second reason, was that the bricks you build were small enough for
one man to build them!!!
And with that, you could build them for YOURSELF. You were playing
with software Lego Blocks.
> would outlive all of us. Because nobody stopped us. Because nobody
> *could* stop us.
Yes!
When I was dying in the mid 80's of a fungal infection, I had this
neato techno gadget idea, TabTalk, my computer browser idea. I was barely
able to walk across the house, but I would sit there trying to get it to
work the way I wanted it to. I know the feeling, it was to be the last
thing I did. And I HAD to finish it before I died! NOTHING else
mattered. Not pain, not seizures, not the hopeless prognosis, NOTHING!
> of what's happening now. For all the time that I spend thinking about it,
> I think whatever grandiose ideas I have about the impact of the 'net
> are probably far too conservative to be accurate.
I had a glimmer of it. More than a glimmer, actually. But I fell
short. I was not connected to anyone who would help guide it. No BBS's,
nothing in my neck of the woods to give me any guidance.
> And if you wonder why I lash out at Microsoft, it's because
> I see them as opposed to everything I stand for. They'd rip out half
> the road out to make a buck, or steal others' bricks and claim them
> for their own, or try to block off the road and charge a toll. Pick
> your analogy: the point is, they're in it ONLY for the money and would
> tear the whole thing out if they could profit from it. I find that
> unethical and unacceptable.
EXACTLY!!! Rich, that is the best one paragraph analogy I have read
of what MS is all about.
> If I had a trillion dollars, I'd buy them and burn the place to the ground,
> and stick Gates' head atop a post outside the ruins as a warning to others.
In my dreams... All you need is an old guy with a biplane and a few
sharpened telephone poles strapped underneath. (Insane laughter. You
know, like the guy who use to say "Very Interesting" on some show or
other. Smiling, long aviator's scarf waving in the wind, leather helmet,
etc. as he dives, letting them go poking through Unkle Billy's roof. Sad
part is, Billy wouldn't understand. Not even if the names of all the
companies and people he destroyed were emblazoned on those poles in gold
leaf! To him, it would be just another insane old guy who should be fed a
shovel full of prozac. And what is the use of anything, if you can't get
the guy to learn something about what his behavior has done to the
computer community? It isn't Billy I hate, it is the way he acts. He did
some good in the beginning. He is doing a lot of harm now, making people
shrug and say, "what is the use of trying". And with that, losing out on
the greatest adventures of life.)
> But I don't. So I do what I can: keep cranking out the bricks, one by
> one...along with a few million others, a nice increase from what was
> once a few hundred.
The thing about Lego, isn't the bricks, it is that they have a
uniform, stackable and extensible interface. (And the problem with their
competitors, is that the competitors don't hold the same size tolerances.)
THAT is also Unix/Linux's strength, not the parts themselves. Just try
doing that with gooey gui!
> I won't get rich doing that: but then again, I'm not trying to get rich...
> because even if money mattered to me a lot, it would dissipate soon
> enough after I'm gone. But this, I think, will outlive me by quite a bit.
That was going to be my TabTalk. Instead, all it did was to keep me
from giving up and dying. And the really maddening thing was, after I
came out to California for treatment, my folks absolutely refused to send
me that computer or any of the source lest I work on it instead of my
health. There was almost nothing left to live for! So Andreeson and co,
coming much later, won their billions. Won it fair and square, I might
add.
But the important thing was that WE GOT THE WEB!!! (Even if I still
can't search the patents on-line like I dreamed of in the mid 60's. The
USPTO site is an abomination! And it looks like the pages I used at
cnidr.org are down or something.)
It does not really matter who's idea it was. History forgets names;
in the end, the names are unimportant. Civilization is built on the bricks
we leave behind.
(As I wrote some time ago...)
To souls, Life is but a game we can not long win at. Sooner or later,
the cold winds of death will sweep our souls yet again from these
transient bones; and soon, our names shall join the legion of the
forgotten. All we may do, is to play this game with honor, and leave the
playing field better for our having partaken in this great game of Life.
And with that, perhaps we shall be invited to play this game of Life
again.
Unix/Linux is a System, a Standard, and a Philosophy, not unlike
Lego, by which we can build bricks that can be built with and upon,
reused, replaced, and rebuilt as civilization grows; a way of leaving the
playing field better and larger.
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