Note: This content is accessible to all versions of every browser. However, this browser may not support basic Web standards, preventing the display of our site's design details. We support the mission of the Web Standards Project in the campaign encouraging users to upgrade their browsers.
Thursday, September 02, 2004 18:10 // SUCON'04, Technopark, Zurich, Switzerland // href
by Poul-Henning Kamp
Compters are now 50 years old. Unix is 30 years old.
We write code on the screen and not on paper. but thats about it.
Unix has blown more chances at being a big success than any other operating system. It's about making the same mistakes again.
The problem
Programming happens in the brain and not in the computer. Throw your thinking at problems not more hardware. Programmers should have slow machines.
Instead of baking a bigger cake. Unix companies fight about the same piece.
The state today
Uncountable Linux distros, a handfull of BSDs, IBM AIX - IBM the Unix way, Sun Solaris - Unix the Sun Way, HP-UX - Unix cul de sac, Mac OS X - yea, its Unix, but don't worry about it.
Unix Standards
Very weak, Incomplete, Ambigous,
POSIX. Everybody made sure that their product was covered by it. Its not a standard but rather a panorama of things to-do. MVS is POSIX compliant, and so is Windows.
The one good standard is the "POSIX 1E" security extension. Which was never formally adopted, but everybody sticks to it religiously.
The Linux Standards Base will fail because it defines what we have today. It repeats the mistakes of POSIX. Its not about how Unix should be.
Should we save Unix
_No_
Architectural mess.
No significant invention in the last 20 years
Everybody thinks in his box.
_Yes_
You get the source
The only alternative is LongHorn
Can Unix be saved - No
no market model
no cooperation to generate a market
too much politics
Can Unix be saved - Yes
Start thinking outside your box
Stop bickering about irrelevant details (BSD/Linux, Gnome/KDE)
Work on the real problems. Fight for open data. Fight the software patent mafia.
Invent things! Plan9 (namespaces), Sun (Java), Apple (User Interfaces), Your Name could be here,
Find the next Web.
Quotes
The only thing Unix has invented is Unix.
The KDE people sit in the KDE box. They have a little hole in their box to see the GNOME people.
I don't care about your license as long I get your source. I even wrote a license for it.
Content © by Tobias Oetiker