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17-11-01, 10:35 AM | #1 |
Fatter Git
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Northampton
Posts: 913
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Off topic but...
...possibly of some interest to someone.
This is one of the replies recieved to a question I asked about the effect of a recession on the Operating System markets on the comp.os.linux.advocacy newsgroup. BILL DOOR wrote: > > Just wondering if any of you guys had any thoughts on the effects that a > recession in america (and maybe a large portion of the world) would have on > the OS market. In many ways, the recession of 1983, the recession of 1987, and the recession of 1992 were all closely tied to Open Source. And Open Source software played a key role in the recovery. In 1983, we were recovering from interest rates that had soared to nearly 20%, inflation was also insane, and government spending had run amok. The Reagan administration tried to cool the economy off, and tax simplification had people trying to shift spending, and save money. Also in 1983, AT&T was allowed to sell UNIX, but BSD 4.x had already raised the bar to a height that could only be met with BSD software. Open Source became a critical component in systems used for telecommunications, power grid control, military, and any near real-time mission-critical applications. Open Source officially started in 1984, with the drafting of the first "General Public License", it protected authors and contributors from predatory competitors who would try to make proprietary products out of software which had been contributed to the public domain in good faith. Ironically, it increased the interest of corporations, who quickly saw that they could collaborate on key software, while developing their strategic software "in house". In 1987, DEC and a number of other minicomputer makers had "pulled out all the stops" to sell their proprietary operating systems (VMS, VRTX, OS/400,...) while UNIX literally sucked the wind out of their markets. The trigger event was that oil wells in the persion gulf had been bombed. The fear of oil prices doubling sent the market into a dive, the failure of proprietary X.25 switching systems used to distribute news wire services became overloaded and this triggered a deeper panic. The sudden drop in price triggered programmed trading, with dropped prices even further. And the inadaquate clearing systems made the market even more jittery. Ironically, the one source of information that DID work was the network of UNIX systems connected via TCP/IP links. Very quickly, the NASD decided to standardize on UNIX as their system for trading stocks. Before long, more and more companies were adding UNIX to their list of "must have" systems. In many cases, UNIX was used to integrate the other systems, to provide a "front end" that could make Mainframe data available to the minicomputers, and minicomputer information available to the mainframe. In 1991, IBM had literally "Bet the Farm" on MVS 4.0 and OS/2 2.0. They assumed "If you build it, they will buy". Unfortunately, the cost of the software and hardware upgrades exceeded the cost of the original hardware. In additon, OS/2 2.0 was having reliability problems. Many IT managers were being pressed for $5 million per mainframe, and had to upgrade 5-10 mainframes. Meanwhile, Oracle and Sybase were touting "mainframe class" databases available on UNIX systems. The market was very competitive. UNIX administrators sheepishly suggested that a Pyramid with 16 processors might be able to take some of the load off the mainframe, but it would cost nearly $250,000 (a very high price for UNIX systems in those days). Even if it would only save them from having to upgrade ONE mainframe, or at least delay the upgrade, the machine would pay for itself nearly 20 times compared to the MVS upgrade. (If this is sounding a bit like Microsoft's XP upgrades, keep reading). IBM's stock fell, and UNIX stocks started moving up. Administration costs were surprisingly low, the UNIX teams were remarkably responsive (largely due to their large cache of Open Source tools - courtesy of BSD and GNU). Very quickly, UNIX got very popular. Microsoft and IBM went their separate ways, OS/2 going to IBM, and Windows 3.1 going to Microsoft. Microsoft decided to strike early and hard, before IBM could establish it's OS/2 market. And IBM's competitors were more worried about IBM controlling the market than Microsoft. The fact that Windows 3.1 was bundle-priced with Word, Excel, and Powerpoint (not quite the whole office), was inconvenient, but necessary since Lotus, WordPerfect, and Borland were intent on supporting BOTH Windows and OS/2. By 1993, Open Source was already having an impact on the economy. UNIX systems were being used to provide e-mail and newsgroup services to millions of PC users. Many of these users actually accessed the "Internet" via BBS systems such as FIDO and Wildcat. They would dial-in, pull down their mail, and disconnect. Often, users would pay $20 to get set-up, and then after a few months, would stop paying, but would keep downloading. By early late 1993, the BBS operators had begun to offer "real-time" services, such as access to web browsers. But since the users would be tying up phone lines for longer times, they were more strict about collecting their access fees. Most of these early POPS charged a flat rate of $20-$30/month. Every user after the first 20 was pure profit, they used SLIP or POP to their Linux box, and connected to the net via X.25 TCP/IP connections. Open Source was crucial to the success of the internet, and the economy that began booming shortly after. Most of the eariest sites were old Windows 3.1 PC's, 80386 machines mostly, with Linux, and maybe an extra hard drive (made swap faster). They could download the system over a week or two, and could get the whole thing installed in a few days. Eventually, they grew enough, and generated enough income to fund Sun SparcServers, then E-450s, and many eventually grew into E-10,000 servers. Ironically, in an interesting twist, many of them are switching to Linux on Z-900 mainframes. > It seems to me that when recession hits, corporations > are going to try to cut costs. One of the ways to do this > is obvious to you and me but is it to them? 4 years ago, most CIOs didn't even know they had Linux systems in house. The Linux systems were so cheap, and most of the machines were running reliably, that they never had to sign any purchase orders. In many cases, the Linux license was charged as "Office supplies", or "petty cash software". The server was usually a machine that couldn't run Windows NT. In some cases, it was a minitower that wouldn't run Windows 95. About the only time the were even noticed, was when the CIO would come down to tour the computer room. He'd go to the very back of the room, notice a few very old minitowers sitting under a table, and ask "What are THOSE" (astonished that anything that old was still running). When he was told that these were Linux machines, he said "get rid of them". When he was told that these little Linux machines had been providing e-mail, firewall, and intranet web serivices for the last 2 years, he said, "put them on better hardware". After all, if you had a winning solution and it failed, it was going to be a bit hard to explain that they needed to find an 80486 chip at a hobby shop. One year later, 17% of the CIOs surveyed, said they were using Linux, but not for "mission critical systems" (Oracle databases and such), the fact that Linux was providing firewalls, DNS, POP mail, and the local mirror to the company web site (via rsync) wasn't considered "Mission Critical" while Oracle databases running on Sun E-450's were considered Mission Critical. The following year 24% of the CIOs surveyed said they were using Linux for numerous utility tasks. In fact, many times these Linux servers were even providing fault tolerance componants for other systems (Dynamic DNS, Web Browser load balancing, SOCKS...). > Being that Linux is a child of the internet If you are referring to the combinition of TCP/IP Arpanet and Usenet that became known as "the internet" back in 1984, you're correct, Linux is a child of the internet. If you are referring to the World Wide Web, E-commerce, business-to-business communications, real-time streaming, and the $1 Trillion industry, then Linux is the MOTHER of the Internet (And UNIX is the father). Linux created internet access for more corporations, created more first websites, and created more first Intranet servers for more corporations, than ANY other operating system. Time after time, corporate leaders who couldn't even see the possibilities of millions of customers ordering products via the internet, would deny a request for a $25,000 SparcServer as "rediculous nonsense". But any good manager knew a good "scrounger" who could find out where the PC that had been replaced by the VP's newest PC was buried. Usually, the machines were so old that the biggest challenge was making sure it didn't get tossed out as garbage. In many cases, the guy who put together that first Linux server eventually ran the company's web site. Today, many of these guys are CTOs, or will be soon. This year, nearly all companies are using Linux in some capacity. Nearly 60% plan on using even more Linux next year. And this survey was conducted before Microsoft's "upgrade to XP or Die" ultimatum. Many are even exploring the possibility of Linux on the Desktop. Some managers are even adjusting corporate policy to make it more "Linux Friendly". > there is'nt afaik a precedent for this kind of situation. As you can see above, there are precedents. And yes, when money gets tight, and the next round of cuts is going to be in management, the managers get very interested in switching to Open Source solutions where they can see a fit. More importantly, the seeds for recovery are often found in the unconventional solution (such as Open Source). Other precedents of this broader "breakthrough thinking" concept include: In 1974-5, the country was threatened with a terrible gas shortage (it hit Colorado first, other states much later), the guys driving volkswagons, civics, and corollas were laughing at the guys driving the huge GM Muscle cars. A guy came up with a way to get "200 miles per gallon" from a car. It was essentially a fuel injector. There are portions of his patent which could be implemented later, if the country's fuel needs required it. In 1980, the economy was a mess, and Personal Computers were just "toys". But companies who couldn't afford to keep upgrading their "big iron" began to experiment with CP/M and MP/M systems. Very quickly the Z-80 based CP/M system was threatening to wipe out the PDP-11 and Series 1 markets. One of IBM's key concerns in 1982 was that they didn't want MS-DOS to be a multi-user operating system. They really wanted it to be just a bit smarter than a dumb terminal (the original PCs didn't even have hard drives, they were loaded from audio-cassettes). Those early CP/M programmers got the preview of MS-DOS. By the time MS-DOS came out, they had the tools, and the skills to write very good MS-DOS software. They created a market that threatened IBM itself, from "toy computers". > Your thoughts please. Perhaps times have changed. Those of us who grew up with Howdy Doody (born 1950-1955) were active participants in some of the most radical changes in history. In 1959, we did duck-and-cover drills, so that we knew what to do when the A-bombs hit. In 1963, we watched the first news coverage of JFK's murder (where you could easily see that multiple shots were fired from different directions), we watched brothers and older friends go to Vietnam, we watched day after day of REAL people suffering from REAL wounds, and REAL prisoners being killed by REAL soldiers with REAL pistols. And then we'd watch Elmer Fud blow Daffy Ducks beak off, 20-30 times an hour. And many of our schoolmates came in the next day with bruises all over their bodies, where their drunken fathers or step-fathers had beaten them, with belts, boards, or electrical cords. And the teacher would say nothing. We watched sisters get sexually molested (or hear about it), the school would warn us that there were "bad people", and not to get into their cars. In many cases, these "bad people were stepfathers, "uncles" and other friends of mom. The boy scout leaders were gay, but since they were married, and good friends with the preacher, no one would believe you. Girls wore dresses and skirts, boys wore long baggy wool pants. We protested the war, we disobeyed laws, we challenged authority. Some of us rioted in the streets, we had been "waiting for the bomb" for so long that death was no longer something we feared. We knew we were going to die, the question was "When". Some of our friends used drugs, we drank even though we were too young, and we eventually learned that even the other protestors couldn't be trusted. We lived through the "Me Decade", with everyone so busy trying to find the meaning of life, trying to get what they wanted, trying to get paid, get laid, and not get caught. We listened to Rock Music when it wasn't cool, and we had 4 channels on TV, and one of them was "educational programming". The Television told you what to think, when to think, and how to think it. We watched as we learned that the President of the United States had tried to cover up the fact that his aides had hired thieves to alter an election. He ended the war, opened the door to china, made friends with the Russians, but the Congress made it look like he was trying to overthrow the government. We watched a remarkably successful President, resign in disgrace. Then we watched the next President, a really honest fellow, speak of the "Malaise", he talked us into a recession, we watched interest rates soar, housing costs soar, and saleries and wages stayed flat as a pancake. Much of this was because we were shifting from a War-based economy to a peace-time economy, and we watched as the economy threatened to collapse. We even watched Iran take our embassy hostage. We watched as Ronald Reagan spoke, we didn't know if he was senile or crazy, but everyone was afraid that he would "push the button". The economy improved as we went from being "Hippies", to being "Yuppies". We started having children and became parents to the second largest "baby boom" in U.S. history. We earned, we worked, we created the computer industry, the PC industry, the Cable TV industry, our rebel nature enabled us to challenge the norms of corporate executives who assumed there was only one way to do things. We made millions, even billions by outmaneuvering the "command and control" organizations where initiative was punished, and conformity (Blue Suit, White shirt, Red Tie, black leather shoes, the "corporate uniform") was rewarded. We bought our own PCs and brought them to work with us. We created spreadsheets, charts, diagrams, and prose in various fonts, and each report and presentation looked like it had been prepared by a madison avenue marketing firm. You didn't even have to know what you were talking about, if you could "make it look good", there was always some executive who would tell you what to say. We took the internet, which we used mainly to discuss sex and politics while we were in college, and turned it into a way of doing business. We redefined business completely. Those of us with families spent more time working from home. Those of us without families, (divorced) spent more time travelling and visiting customers. We even watched as world political and economic policy was formed in internet discussions. We saw the emergence of a whole new form of democracy, in which those who really cared about an issue, could get directly and actively involved is solving the problems and getting the solution implemented. And today, we have Bill Gates, one of our own generation, attempting to try and get us back to the "good old days" of "Ma Bell", "3 networks, all alike", and total conformity, and thinking that he should BE the monopoly power that Ma Bell, Big Blue, and NBC/ABC/CBS used to be. He wants to remove the choices. And he want to do it when budgets are tight, and he offers nothing in return. Do you really think that our generation would let him do that? -- Rex Ballard IT Architect Leader in commercial use of the Internet and Open Source. http://www.open4success.com
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