> Remember Netscape? A browser company? They sold their browser for $40. A lot
> of people claim that they really supported Netscape and that they really
> hated Microsoft, yet those same people never paid for their browsers.
Their terms did not require payment if you were not a business. They
made their money on site licenses and server licenses. That's how they
could afford all those buildings in Mountain View, California. And there
are a lot of Netscape buildings there!
> The same with Linux: if it's free, there's not much basis for running a
> business on it. Red Hat can't exist in an environment where they are
> competing against free.
Have you tried to download Linux? How many days? It is cheaper to
buy a CD-ROM from them, than to waste time downloading. It was marginal
with Netscape at five meg. It is just one heck of a lot more convenient
to get a CD-ROM set with a whole operating system.
> At some point, volunteers will get tired of developing something for free
> and they'll go on to other things. Linux will be abandoned.
When there is a better operating system, yes. Till then, no. It
isn't volunteers doing it "for the good of humanity". It is people who
like to tinker doing it for themselves.
Remember Heathkit? Electronics kits of short wave radios, hi fi
sets, voltmeters, oscilloscopes that you could buy and put together
yourself, back before massive VLSI made things really cheap? I grew up
on Heathkits. I didn't do it because I wanted to support anyone, I wanted
the gadget, liked to do the work, liked to be able to say that it was
MINE! Nothing is really yours till you build it out of parts yourself.
When you do, you are not afraid to take the thing apart, tinker with it,
etc. In your heart and in your mind, you own it. And you are not afraid
to see what it can do, to use it for things it was not intended for, and
to learn what there is that can be learned through your own initiative and
curiosity. THAT was what Heathkit was really about to me. That is why I
went out and bought an IMSAI 8080 computer and built it myself, and why I
build a word processor and sold it long before the PC was a gleam in some
IBM Engineer's eye.
That is the same mentality of those who tinker with Linux. It is
their own toy. A useful toy that does real work in a real world, but
basically, more of a toy, like than the old car they like to tinker with,
or the old IMSAI they still have in the workshop that they power up once
in a while. It is theirs. All theirs. just like their garage and their
back yard. It is the difference between renting and owning.
And that is the stuff that builds the basic entrepreneurial mentality
-- I built it, I understand it, and I can do ANYTHING!
Time and time again, in my profession I walk in to a project where I
have absolutely no idea what they really want, how we are going to do it,
or what it is going to take. Can I do it? Sure. Let's sit down and look
it over. And soon, I am helping them refine what is reasonable from what
is unreasonable, and making it happen. I can do it because I have done
things like that before, starting with picking up a soldering iron as a
six year old kid, and soldering some switches together. At eight, I
soldered some pinball machine parts together to make a spacecraft console.
At twelve, it was Heathkits. At sixteen, it was a biological oscilloscope
to look at electrocardiograms and electrical propagation in nerves and
some long stranded algae that behaved somewhat like nerves. At 21, it was
a 3/4 foot thick printout of a huge computer program. At 26, it was my
second computer, a then new IMSAI 8080.
Tomorrow's software engineers are starting to learn their trade by
tinkering with Linux.
> Just set your mama down in front of a UNIX machine and see if she can figure
> it out. Forget it.
With X, it is simple enough.
> Anyone who has done training knows that one can put a total newbie in front
> of a Mac or a Win95 machine and in ten minutes, they can open programs,
> write files, save, and print.
No. With those machines, you are teaching applications, not operating
systems.
> Nonsense. I've worked at both SUN and Silicon Graphics. Not a single
> engineer would be caught dead using something that's "easy-to-use."
BS! We need to get things done. Ease is important. Our idiot
employers often don't think of it that way, though. Engineers use things
that are powerful and reconfigurable. Woodnose95 isn't!
Reconfigurability often seems more complex. Compared to some of the
applications menu systems, it really isn't!
> Windows/Mac. I can't imagine that any sysadmin would seriously convert an
> office of 100 users from Win95 or Mac to UNIX. The training, support, and
> trouble-shooting would be phenomenal.
I can't imagine a sysadmin being so stupid as to try to convert a
bunch of people to a new platform unless he was ordered to from the top,
and even then, only under protest. People want to use what they have used
before. Engineers want power to make new things. There is a difference.
> But this story has already been told. Silicon Graphics' engineers insisted
> that its workstations were the best and that it had to be UNIX. They ignored
Try IBM in the 70's and early 80's. same story at many, many
companies. Like the Railroads not understanding they were in the same
business as the Airlines. Till it was too late.
> fired thousands of workers, their new building has not yet been completed,
> thousands more abandoned SGI. Now, SGI is an NT company. Yep. They develop
> for Windows NT. They've given up their own chips too.
Sorry to say, but they have NOT given up on their own chips, or other
machines, at least not from what I heard. SGI does not deal just with the
micro desktop market. They recognize there is a layering of the market.
Some things can be done by Intel platforms, other things require a lot
more power. They remain ahead of the Wintel power curve on a lot of
products. On some applications, they are well worth the extra cost! It
just depends on what you are trying to do.
> SGI won't be able to do another Apple: they don't have Apple's customer
> loyalty. SGI customers were engineers and they only care about speed. They
> were not brand loyal.
Obviously, you have not hung around much with SGI customers. I am
one. I like my machine, even if it is a tad obsolete. I drool over some
of the more powerful machines they have. But for my immediate needs, a few
Linux boxes strung together seem to manage, even if some of the batch
files take a few hours to run while I am asleep. When my project mix
favors it, I will buy another SGI box, or a SUN box, or whatever is
reasonably cost effective for what I need to do, and has power and tools
left over for other things I would like to try.
As to their neglecting their customers, I don't think so. (Though
market change is another matter.) I got very good service from them. (Not
that I needed much...) If you want to fight, you can pick a fight with
anyone. If you treat them right, they will treat you right. That applies
to almost any service organization that I have dealt with, IBM, HP, SGI,
etc.
As for market change... reality is. Some things you can fight, some
things you have to look at, and just accept. A good friend use to run
major antiques shows. That market folded. He hung on for a few years too
long, investing more money in his shows than he made. Eventually, he shut
them down. Times change. The imitations, quality imitations, are now
often better than the originals. Even the dealers know that.
(Ah, but nothing will match Laleque, DeVesz, or Tiffany glassware...
in little black velvet display cases with little lights glinting...
Sigh... They grow more and more beautiful in my mind every year... Sunday
evening... closing music at the show as I make my rounds, making sure the
crowd is leaving as the exhibitors begin to pack up... chatting with
exhibitors about how well they did, summoning "stage hands" and stevadors
to this or that booth, helping keep the final... exodus orderly...
Helping the show owner direct the final cars and vans out of the rear exit
of the exhibit hall. Those were Great shows with some Really Really nice
people! How I miss it all! As does he! Times change...)
Sometimes, we forget the values that made things the way they were,
forget that... what changes is more the degree of contrast between the
good, the affordable, and the fantastic. Today is incredibly better than
the days gone by. We just haven't forgotten the nitty gritty yet, nor
showcased the icons of the best yet.
Help your kids flex their mental muscles building Linux, and take
them to an antiques show. They more than you, will appreciate how rickety
that old stuff was, for unlike you, they compare it to the bounty of
today. ...Even if they miss the glint of your youth reflected in the
tokens of the past...
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