Having been in the industry a number of years now, it’s interesting to watch the trends repeat.
Back in the 70’s and 80’s everything was on a central server (usually big IBM iron like the 3080’s, 3090’s, etc) with “thin clients” aka terminals.
Then came the “Workgroup computing” concept of DEC’s PDPs and VAX. These machines allowed workgroups with a a couple hundred thousand dollars to escape from the Big Brother and get specialized computing needs satisfied.
Then came the PC revolution in the early 90’s and suddenly everyone had the power on their own desktop. Then came management nightmares and Windows (not necessarily in that order).
In the late 90’s early 2000’s everyone started looking at centralized disk/database servers and 3-tier architectures to solve the data protection and security needs. This rather quickly evolved into application servers and so-called “thin clients” that were every bit as powerful as the workgroup computers of the early 80’s and PCs of the early 90’s!
All along the way the cost point shifted from hardware to software to mangement. Initially, software was considered throw-away and the hardware was all important. Then when hardware got less expensive, everyone realized the software was where the revenue stream was generated. The Open Source concept started as early as the 80’s (maybe earlier, but that is the first recollection I have). Back then it was a few hackers that shared their sources. That grew and was helped tremendously, in my opinion only, by the popularity of Linux among the Altair types that revelled in building it themselves. Without the GPL concept (and it’s predecessors) this open-source movement would probably have died out.
Is Open Source/GPK a good thing or a bad thing? I think it is just a thing. It’s another tool in the toolbox. In the hands of someone who truly understands its power and its limits and used in the appropriate situation, it can be extremely powerful. It allows someone to concentrate on the areas of their greatest contribution. In the wrong hands applied in incompatible situations, it can be cumbersome and a complete failure.
Even with Open Source, there are still costs. The costs are in different ways and in sometimes unsuspecting places, but there are costs. Not alays is the cost in money. Sometimes you have to give up some proprietary technology in order to use someone else’s complimentary technology to create something bigger/better/faster. When these new cost structures are understood better by all, Open Source *can* be a revenue enhancer.
What was this rambling post trying to say?
- Watch the trends. If mohawks and bell bottoms can come back into fashion, so can dumb terminals.
- If your only tool is a hammer, all the world looks like a nail. Use the screwdriver or wrench when you’re trying to turn something.
Greg
— xxxxx@hotmail.com wrote:
From: xxxxx@hotmail.com
To: “Windows System Software Devs Interest List”
Subject: RE:[ntdev] Kernel C++ runtime for x64
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 06:28:13 -0400 (EDT)
> It’s a great idea for those who don’t like closed source, commercial applications; it’s frustrating for those
> of us who are trying to make a living making such applications!
The only thing I can say to that is “try to find some other way of making a living then - in the long run, you are on the way to the middle of nowhere”…
The problem is that the concept of desktop PC that stores all its apps and data on its hard disk seems to be living its last days, and, hence, the business model that relies upon selling apps is threatened by the concept of delivering subscription-based services across the net much more than it is threatened by GPL.
If you take into account rapidly-growing computing power of various smartphones, PDAs and other handheld devices and combine it with with advances in wireless technology, the future we are heading to becomes pretty obvious - all your actual stuff is on the server and is accessible to you via a thin client. As a result, you can access your “virtual computer” from any geographical location and without having to worry about data loss in case your thin client gets broken/lost/stolen/etc.
The whole model does not seem to leave much room for proprietary commercial apps that get purchased and installed by the end user, don’t you think…
Anton Bassov
—
NTDEV is sponsored by OSR
For our schedule of WDF, WDM, debugging and other seminars visit:
http://www.osr.com/seminars
To unsubscribe, visit the List Server section of OSR Online at http://www.osronline.com/page.cfm?name=ListServer