From: "S. M. Halloran" <mitch@duzen.com.tr>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 15:01:58 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Is Unix dying--or even dead?
Message-ID: <199712220655.IAA25801@ankara.duzen.com.tr>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




On 19 Dec 97, Bill Stewart was found to have commented thusly:

> At 12:08 PM 12/19/1997 GMT, phelix@vallnet.com wrote:
> >>Silicon Graphics Inc.'s plan .... Windows NT 
> 
> >Does this mean that Unix is dying?
> >No, it means that graphics professionals are buying Wintel boxes 
> >instead of SGI's expensive workstations. ( a shame really,
> > SGI make some damn nice workstations, but that 
> >pesky price/performance ratio is pushing people into
> >high end Wintel boxes)
> 
> It's not just price/performance ratio - 
> it's affordable price for adequate performance.
> Now that Wintel boxes can crunch integers as well as a Cray-1,
> a $2K box has enough horsepower for all but really cutting-edge graphics,
> and you're going to buy the same monitor regardless of CPU.
> Sure, a $10K SGI probably has far more than 5x the performance,
> but not many people need it, especially if they're developing 
> applications for other people to use on cheaper boxes (games...)
> as opposed to producing TV shows, music videos, or running
> scientific visualization.
> 
> That's been a problem for the accounting and office-work for years
> - while Microsoft can bloat away any CPU you've got,
> an 8086 or 286 box could run spreadsheets, simple chart graphics,
> WordStar, a database, BASIC, and Flight Simulator as fast as a PDP-11
> for a lot less money, letting the business bootstrap itself
> in spite of the ugly excuse for a program loader MS sold for it,
> because any developer could afford the $5K (1982) or $2K (1997) box
> it takes to develop cool commercially viable applications
> (and, yes, you can use a $500 box today, but you wouldn't.)
> 
[....]
> 
> If you must run MSware, NT is at least an operating system.
> And it's easier to get graphics board manufacturers to write
> their drivers for Windows than Linux.

Assuming developers and users of "alternative" systems (including 
Unix family) are concerned about how MS is consolidating its 
position as the complete manager of the business/academic affairs of 
the entire globe,  I suggest to the members of the free Unix groups 
(developers, administrators/superusers) that they develop their own 
turnkey "office suite" and try to give MS a run for its money.  There 
is no time like now to get the X-Windows (or GUI-free-from-copyright) 
Complete Office bundled together and have a media gathering to make 
sure that all the important news organizations are informed.  You 
should get decent press exposure, since MS-bashing seems to be in 
vogue.  The Linux or FreeBSD people should select a mediagenic 
spokesperson from the group--one with fire in the belly--and then do 
the hard work of putting something together that a 25-year old 
free-Unix developer's 72-year old grandmother can install to a x86 
box.  In fact, your press conference would have real pinache if, in 
fact, you put someone's 72-year old grandmother before a PC with an 
empty disk drive, run the install, then type a short letter on the 
fancy word processer, addressed to Bill G., with the message "Up 
yours!"

By attacking Bill G. from the flank in this matter, you may possibly 
take his mind off his successful campaign to own the Internet.  I 
admire BillG, really.  He was rather late in anticipating how a 
network developed largely by universities and their students could be 
a medium that intruded upon the everyday world, and yet despite the 
efforts of well-meaning individuals and not-for-profit groups to keep 
the Internet from being owned, Bill G. just has too much savvy not to 
be able to own the important parts of the Internet too--not the 
cables and wires, of course, but the content as well as the software 
that drives it. And soon.  (Look for the next version of TCPIP, if it 
is called that, to be a copyright of Microsoft.  After all, Microsoft 
has its roots in writing OSes.)

Mitch Halloran
Research (Bio)chemist
Duzen Laboratories Group
Ankara   TURKEY
mitch@duzen.com.tr

other job title:  Sequoia's (dob 12-20-95) daddy

Mitch Halloran
Research (Bio)chemist
Duzen Laboratories Group
Ankara   TURKEY
mitch@duzen.com.tr

other job title:  Sequoia's (dob 12-20-95) daddy