Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 22:49:43 -0800 From: Robert Clark <res03db2@gte.net> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, jgrosch@mooseriver.com, Joey Garcia <bear@unix.homeip.net>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Anyone going to Comdex next week? Message-ID: <20011112224943.K69342@darkstar.gte.net> In-Reply-To: <3BF04D57.3D67D78C@mindspring.com>; from tlambert2@mindspring.com on Mon, Nov 12, 2001 at 02:29:43PM -0800 References: <009301c16b5c$91458460$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> <3BF04D57.3D67D78C@mindspring.com>
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On Mon, Nov 12, 2001 at 02:29:43PM -0800, Terry Lambert wrote: > Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > Today, the existing hardware is so good that there's not the drive to > > upgrade as soon as the new stuff is available, so that removes a lot of > > the reason of attending these trade shows for hardware people. > > I think this is false. There have always been two tiers of > technology: heroic and mortal. It's only interesting when > something slips from the former category to the latter. > > Right now, for example, there is a lot of hardware that I > would put in the "heroic" category. Processors that need > incredible cooling technology, etc.. And then there's the > other end of the spectrum, where ther are no moving parts. > > Plotting on other scales works for this, as well: many of > the "cool" technologies aren't useful, until you can deal > with the battery life issue: they don't -- they can't -- > become everyday objects until it's possible to integrate > them into your life without heroic effort (ask yourself: > why isn't every desktop computer a laptop? Why hasn't > laptop technology totally displaced desktop technology?). Why isn't anyone making a 300$ laptop? Why do the really nice laptops always cost 2500$? With memory getting so cheap, why aren't we seeing a computer-in-an-flatscreen with gigabit over fibre to the backend? No moving parts, etc. While we're at it, make them edge mateable, and put a GPU and CPU in each. > > So there is huge room for improvement in hardware technology > still, and I'd certainly pay to go see someone doing it, > only no one seems to be doing it these days. > > > > And, also today, GNU and Free software is more and more important, and > > Windows and other commercial software is getting less important, and > > the new cool things in software aren't being introduced by people like > > Apple, Microsoft and IBM anymore. Instead they are being introduced by > > user communities around FreeBSD and Linux. > > I really think this is wrong. It's a nice bit of hedonism, > but the cool things aren't happening in user communities; for > the most part, they are still happening in industry and in the > academic sector. There's just less money to pursue things > deemed "impractical" these days: people are increasingly > focussed on short term goals. There is less margin for having > the ability to pursue long term visions and carry them into > reality. > Hardware is evolving faster than open source can keep up with. There isn't any progress in getting hardware makers to get docs to the community faster. 3d game tech is not passing into the open source community fast enough, etc. > > > It would be even more interesting to plot a graph of Comdex attendance and > > overlay it with a graph of Linuxworld (or whatever the big Linux tradeshow > > is) I wonder if there would be an inverse relationship there? > > I can telly you have your tongue in your cheek here, but for > those people who might not get that, let's make sure they see > it being put there... > > There is not a direct inverse relationship. You have to realize > that what attendence at these shows measures is on different, > almost orthogonal, axis from each other. The user group pushed > shows have a high "geek factor"; I include Usenix, and any other > nominally legitimate academic organization that has had to add > a "freenix" or similar set of tracks to keep the attendance up > by pandering to "geekdom". The market matures from avid homebrewer, to small systems proponent, to ooh-look-its-got-a-GUI, to "I can't do anything without Windows", to "nothing is a serious competitor to MS", to look how powerful this Unix-like thing is, to "I just don't care anymore, and MS is what they run at work.". How long before people get disillusioned, and the renaissance is over? > > I could also plot the stock market vs. LinuxWorld attendance; > that would naeievely lead me to believe that the economy is > going to hell because of the inverse relationship there, and > that therefore banning such shows would be a good thing. We > both know this isn't true. > Will MS ever bee in a bad enough situation that they are a lower state of energy than Linux? If they get into this state, won't a big part of the reason to stay with Linux dissapear? > THe fallacy in implying inverse relationships is that it > implies that we are playing a zero sum, not a positive sum, game; > that thinking is incredibly limiting for anyone caught up in it. > How much drag can MS introduce into the world before the Universe contracts? > -- Terry > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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