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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John F. Dowd who wrote (59883)	7/15/2001 10:34:06 PM
From: Bill Fischofer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

Actually, it's more subtle than that. My experience is that the profit motive is necessary for programming-in-the-large while individual creative expression is more than adequate (indeed vastly superior) for programming-in-the-small. The dividing line is really very simple. Once a program is larger than can fit inside a single programmer's head the nature of programming changes from an exercise in creative expression to one of sociological organization. By this measure Linux is at a critical juncture and as it continues to grow the logistics of testing, integration, documentation, and support will inexorably dominate its evolution. This has two effects. First, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain any semblance of schedule in regard to releases and second, it becomes harder and harder to make "big" changes to the existing code base. The inevitable result will either be that Linux's evolution grinds to a halt or else it will fracture into multiple dialects which will slowly drift apart. This is exactly what happened to UNIX as it evolved from a simple and elegant OS from the minds of Ritchie and Thompson to the various incompatible proprietary versions championed by SUNW, HWP, CPQ, and IBM (among others). Linux holds forth the promise of reunifying UNIX back into a single system and clearly that is IBM's intent in its embrace of Linux. It would be ironic indeed if system software came full circle and once again became a stale vehicle whose only purpose was to push IBM hardware sales.