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BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish)
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BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) |
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Subject: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: Midchuck Date: 03 Jun 01 - 07:22 AM My son sent me this, and the "Format C" thread brought it to mind. Peter. ********************************************* Imagine a crossroads where four competing auto dealerships are situated. One of them (Microsoft) is much, much bigger than the others. It started out years ago selling three-speed bicycles (MS-DOS); these were not perfect, but they worked, and when they broke you could easily fix them. There was a competing bicycle dealership next door (Apple) that one day began selling motorized vehicles--expensive but attractively styled cars with their innards hermetically sealed, so that how they worked was something of a mystery. The big dealership responded by rushing a moped upgrade kit (the original Windows) onto the market. This was a Rube Goldberg contraption that, when bolted onto a three-speed bicycle, enabled it to keep up, just barely, with Apple-cars. The users had to wear goggles and were always picking bugs out of their teeth while Apple owners sped along in hermetically sealed comfort, sneering out the windows. But the Micro-mopeds were cheap, and easy to fix compared with the Apple-cars, and their market share waxed. Eventually the big dealership came out with a full-fledged car: a colossal station wagon (Windows 95). It had all the aesthetic appeal of a Soviet worker housing block, it leaked oil and blew gaskets, and it was an enormous success. A little later, they also came out with a hulking off-road vehicle intended for industrial users (Windows NT) which was no more beautiful than the station wagon, and only a little more reliable. Since then there has been a lot of noise and shouting, but little has changed. The smaller dealership continues to sell sleek Euro-styled sedans and to spend a lot of money on advertising campaigns. They have had GOING OUT OF BUSINESS! signs taped up in their windows for so long that they have gotten all yellow and curly. The big one keeps making bigger and bigger station wagons and ORVs. On the other side of the road are two competitors that have come along more recently. One of them (Be, Inc.) is selling fully operational Batmobiles (the BeOS). They are more beautiful and stylish even than the Euro-sedans, better designed, more technologically advanced, and at least as reliable as anything else on the market--and yet cheaper than the others. With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free. Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership and buy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships. Of the remaining ten percent, most go and buy a sleek Euro-sedan, pausing only to turn up their noses at the philistines going to buy the station wagons and ORVs. If they even notice the people on the opposite side of the road, selling the cheaper, technically superior vehicles, these customers deride them cranks and half-wits. The Batmobile outlet sells a few vehicles to the ocasional car nut who wants a second vehicle to go with his station wagon, but seems to accept, at least for now, that it's a fringe player. The group giving away the free tanks only stays alive because it is staffed by volunteers, who are lined up at the edge of the street with bullhorns, trying to draw customers' attention to this incredible situation. A typical conversation goes something like this: Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!" Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!" Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!" Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music." Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!" Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!" Bullhorn: "But..." Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: Amergin Date: 03 Jun 01 - 12:22 PM lol, mc....and spot on.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: hesperis Date: 03 Jun 01 - 02:54 PM And I heard that now, the only business that sells linux and does a good job of it, is being sued over something pathetic... *sigh* Anyone have more details on that? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: Mark Clark Date: 03 Jun 01 - 03:54 PM Clever metaphor with a lot of good insight. Things aren't quite that bad though. The biggest dealership in the universe (IBM)—way bigger than Microsoft—is betting the farm and their future on the free high-tech tank. The free tank is both the present and future of electronic business. IBM employes something like 4000 engineers just developing more free code to increase the power and usefulness of the free tank. Check out the Netcraft survey and you'll see that Microsoft has never captured more than about 24% of Internet sites and is currently at 21% and falling. On the other hand the free and wonderful tanks of the world serve over 62% of the world's Internet sites and the share is rising. People who buy station wagons only use them to shuffle kids around. People with real business to do go for the tanks most of the time. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: enkd Date: 04 Jun 01 - 01:03 PM Just to give proper credit where due: this was an excerpt from an essay called "In the Beginning was the Command Line", by Neal Stephenson. The full text is available here. enkd |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: enkd Date: 04 Jun 01 - 01:26 PM In re: Linux lawsuit - Yes, there is a class action suit ending against Red Hat, Inc., probably the best-known Linux value-add company. (Basically, they take the free Linux kernel, add a bunch of other software, and sell it on a CD along with a nice install program, documentation, and support, for a very reasonable price. This makes it possible for some people to use Linux who don't have the time or interest to learn the arcane incantations otherwise required to perform a UNIX installation...) The lawsuit claims that Red Hat did some not-so-legal stuff when they first issued stock in 1999... Something called "laddering" where they sold shares to some people at $14 a share, but required them to buy more after it went public... This drove the price artifically high so that the initial investors & underwriters could sell the $14 stock for lots of cash really quick. Also, some sort of "secret commisions" were apparently required to get in on the deal... I have no idea if these claims are valid or not. More about the lawsuit here. Red Hat was one of the more rediculous examples of the technology stock speculation of 1999-2000... IPO was at $14, first day it was over $56, got as high as about $275 within 5 months. Now trading at five bucks and change. And they've never made a dime of profit. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: Midchuck Date: 04 Jun 01 - 01:34 PM Sorry to have omitted proper attribution. Flushed a lurker, though. P. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 04 Jun 01 - 04:14 PM More's the pity, your excellent metaphor had no place for that wonderful IBM system, OS2. As far as I know, it's dead now, but it was the fraternal twin of Windows, and was much better--and stable, stable, stable! Unfortunately, IBM is not the merchandiser MacroHype is, and OS2 lost out. I was a very happy camper operating on OS2, but vendors didn't support it. If I had problems with say a printer, the printer's support function would say, Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: Bill D Date: 04 Jun 01 - 07:57 PM Linux based systems are getting cleverer everyday, and installation seems to be gradually approaching something even I can understand...I sure hope I can switch...(or at least run both) before I die. There ARE programs which allow you to run multiple OS on one machine..(Partition Manager...System Commander)..and if I ever get a little time to experiment....... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: Amos Date: 04 Jun 01 - 08:33 PM Until recently the only thing wrong with the Linux tanks is that to operate them you had to stand on your head on the floor, do several yogi contortions, grab the pedals with one hand and the steering bars with your toes while hanging your other foot out the window in order to operate it successfullly -- aside from that it was a wonder!!! But this is all relative to user learning curves. Its amazing how easy it is to remember "ls-l" and "grep ../" and "ps -ef" once you know them -0- and how absolutely, mind-bogglingly incomprehensible and unimpenetrable they are when you do not!!! It's a real wall, from the outside. One thing I don't know is where BeOS stands in term of HW compatability. Anyone know what it runs on besides Nexts? A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: Chocolate Pi Date: 04 Jun 01 - 10:33 PM Well, besides BeBoxes, which have a truly lovely array of blinkenlights, click here. NeXTSTEP is beautiful too, sadly fallen by the wayside but revived in OSX, and my black magnesium cube looks more futuristic than anything besides the new Macs. Chocolate Pi (proud owner of a mac-car outfitted with tank gear in the form of LinuxPPC) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: Mark Clark Date: 05 Jun 01 - 11:15 AM Ah, NeXTSTEP. I used a NeXTstation for many years, still have fond memories. It's still the best computer anyone has come up with. WinTel system are only now starting to match the performance of the Mach kernel on a 33 MHz Motorola processor. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: Jon Freeman Date: 05 Jun 01 - 11:24 AM I have a dual boot PC. I have one hard disk for Windows and one for Linux. The Corel Linux setup did it for me. I rarely use Linux though as I can't be bothered with the hassle of learning the commands (at least not at the moment). It came in handy the other day after I had fitted a new motherboard. Windows refused to recognise me CD until the new motherboard drivers (conveniently located on CD) were installed. Nice simple fix - load Linux, copy files needed over to Windows and install from hard disk. Jon |
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Subject: RE: BS: Computer OS Metaphor (longish) From: Jon Freeman Date: 05 Jun 01 - 12:15 PM On the hardware, what about the Acorn Archemedes? I believe they were pretty quick, very reliable and were the first RISC based computer available - apparently beating the Power Mac by 7 years. Jon |