From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Sat Nov 16 2002 - 06:30:36 MST
On Fri, 15 Nov 2002, Noah Horton wrote:
> I hate Henry Ford. That moron created a form of transportation based
> on archaic fossil fuels that will ultimately doom the world to
> pollution and dependance on the mid-east, etc. If it weren't for his
> capitalist behaviors, superior alternatives like alcohol fuels and
(I'm just commenting on facts in your analogy, we'll address BillG below.)
Alcohol is not a superior fuel, unless you mean onboard methanol
reforming. While the fuel cell was invented in 1839 (by Sir William Grove,
the "Father of the Fuel Cell") and the term "fuel cell" was coined in 1889
by Ludwig Mond and Charles Langer, who attempted to use air and coal gas
to generate electricity, and successful electric automobiles were being
produced as early as the 1880's, they lost the battle to early ICUs,
because early instances of ICUs were superior to early instances of the
alternatives. Engineers coming from steam engines (1% efficiency)
understood the slightly varied problem of handling fuel/air combustion
instead of steam expansion as driving fluid. They didn't understand
Carnot's process, electrochemistry (lead-acid was all they had at that
time), electrical motors and they didn't have power semiconductor
electronics back then.
It was a mistake on the long run, which we've only slowly and laborously
have started to rectify. But it was an understandable mistake, given the
then-environment. If we look back at more than two decades of personal
computing the analogy you've drafted breaks down completely. There were no
technical reasons for choosing this idiotic reality branch.
> electric motors would have thrived. He was a criminal and a con-man.
>
> I consider that rant to be basically equivalent to what Bill Gates is
> being charged with here. Yeah, in retrospect, we could have come up
BZZZT. The claims are that Bill Gates of Microsoft invented the PC. The
PCs existed before IBM PC appeared on the scene. Microsoft is not a
hardware company. In fact, Microsoft does not have a history of
innovation, not exactly.
It does really fill me with frustration that most people in this thread
are incapable to visualize a variety of alternative histories which the
software and hardware world could have taken since 1978, or so. It is
really not that hard. Shall I paint you a few alternative, better
scenarios?
> with a better design for cars than what Ford popularized. Yeah, in
> retrospect, we could have come up with a better design for an OS than
> what Gates popularized. Yes, the infastructure of gas stations that
Alas, better designs for an OS than what you're most likely running now go
back more than three decades. The only significant advantage of MS DOS
over CP/M was IBM's backing, and an end to a tower of babel of floppy
formats. The first IBM hardware was a crock in comparison with what
already existed on the market. I laughed in derision as I've read the
first specs of IBM PC. The hottest machine on the block it was not. And
somebody else wrotte a shitty OS which Microsoft bought, and then peddled
to IBM.
Since then MS has not created a single instance of innovation I can think
of. The OS architecture sucks, the products running on it suck, the
hardware it perpetuates suck.
> Ford caused has been an impediment to cars that use other fuels.
> Yes, the infastructure of software that Gates caused has been an
> impediment to computers that use other OS's.
Is this the "market knows best" nonsense again? Sure, if you define it
that way.
> I can already hear people flaming back regarding how Windows only
> succeeded because of illegal practices. Well, let me point out something.
Windows succeeded because of illegal and business practises. It's a
question of being at the right time and the right place, and playing the
cards right, and keep playing, without making any major mistakes. This has
zero to do with technology.
> Up until (roughly) five years ago, MS had very little of the server market
> share. Most common types of server software ran on the various flavors of
> Unix, and most companies had a big installed base of those Unix boxes.
> Yet Microsoft's market share has steadily risen despite that installed
> base that was working against it. Companies had no reason to install
> Microsoft boxes other than the merits of the OS.
I can tell you a lot about this, because a company I'm currently with is
doing it. They are installing Microsoft OS on servers for reasons which
has nothing to do with merits of the OS, or, rather, lack thereof.
The company is doing it because they don't understand Unix, they develop
on MS platforms for MS platforms, and then port it to Unix. So the reason
they use Windows on places it wasn't meant to go because they're already
using Windows. The competition is not yet cut-throat enough that the
hardware overhead and the license costs appear as a big issue on the
budget, and the mission is not business critical.
Basically, they're slowly phasing out the Sun boxes (with the exception of
modern small stuff like Netras, which is only twice the price of Lintel
for industry customers) with their proprietary sofware on it substituting
them with custom software running on Wintel (1U rackmount Dells/Win2k).
They'd do much better with going Lintel, but they're hooked on proprietary
Sun and Wintel stuff (it's the fax effect, and the "we've always done it
that way" and "nobody got fired by buying industry standard" effect).
It's not really that hard to get as to why this happens, and why this
hasn't got anything to do with technical merits, isolately considered.
However, nowadays most people seem to assemble their reality from today's
press releases.
> Everyone loves the underdog, but that does not make the big players like
> Microsoft evil.
Actually, you get big by being evil. Marketplace rewards evil practises
and shitty products. Which is why I've given up on commercial software,
and going with open source. I would go with open hardware as well, except
it's not there yet.
> I also have to just toss out that it is difficult to accuse Gates of such
Difficult for you, maybe. If a mafia don donates some of his wealth to a
local charity, shall we conveniently ignore all the people he whacked? And
where would that money be, if he wasn't there to steal it?
Both issues are orthogonal to each other.
> unmitigated evil as some are trying when he also founded and endowed the
> largest charitable organization in the world.
If you look at it close, it's not much of a charity. You might be
surprised as to why Bill recently visited India, and spent 100 M$ there on
helping to combat AIDS, and 400 M$ to combat open source.
Again, it's his money to spend. Business is business, cement boots, or no.
But please don't entertain any romantic notions about the great
philantropist, and the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation.
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