i take it you know there is now a Halloween II and III (II is the followup to I, and III is the Micro$ response). check out http://slashdot.org for pointers to the whole mess.
i owe you a response on the I2O stuff. i'll get to it early this week.
Les
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Yes, I went over them, but only downloaded Halloween I. What a fabulous insight into the corporate mind--its egotism, its presumption of an absolute grasp of reality, and of course its universal arrogance. It renders Gates, the Saddam Hussein of cyberspace.
After reading it and going back over pieces of it, I had the oddest thought. They are already dead. Not really in concrete terms, but it was as if MS had its head cut off so cleanly, it was just standing there, afraid to move.
I blew off several days talking about this memo at work which moved the conversations into all the problems most of these guys had about three or four years ago trying to get themselves connected to the internet under Win3.1. That process was such bullshit, that I started paying a lot more attention to my kid's computer buddies and downloaded the Berkeley Internet Kit. BIK was a bundle of freeware to substitute for all the broken pieces of Dos, Win3.x and Win95 required just to call up, login, and take off. At the time, I couldn't understand how MS expected it to work or what kind of twisted mind made it so confusing and difficult, when it should have been a completely scripted, fill-in the blanks sort of process.
Now, I sort of understand. It was broken and confusing on purpose. However I still don't quite grasp that purpose. To mystify something that was pretty straight forward? About the only purpose that makes sense was to break Win3.1 so that Win95 would look even better, in other words a strange marketing ploy.
After remembering that silliness, and then thinking again of Halloween, I think I now see what evil Bill's response will be to Linux and other OSS. Basically, MS will re-enact the Win3.1-meets-Internet scenario* with all sorts of network interfaces in NT, from DNS authentication to client-server directory/file sharing routines, to TCP/IP.
In a sense this 'embrace and extend' tactic is already in place with a focus on what I gather are the obnoxious problems associated with MSOffice9x versions of e-mail, fax, addressbook, and the mini-database. What are these pieces called--Exchange?
After looking at an ad in PC Connection, I see that in order to make NT actually work as network server you need to buy several other pieces that have been artificially separated out into supposedly 'separate' nuggets. Amazing crap. Their ad-speak is interesting. It keeps using the same words in a different word order, 'in order' to make it appear that these are separate pieces and of course require different licenses. For example:
1. Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition is required to host
Terminal Server Sessions.
2. Windows NT Server 4.0 Client Access License (CAL) is required to
access Terminal Server Services and file and print resources on the
Server.
3. Window NT Workstation 4.0 License is required to run a remote
Windows NT-based desktop and Windows-based applications.
The ad above is interesting in all sorts of ways. For example, it literally deconstructs the whole concept of a server-client relationship into a permutation on X and Y: X=>Y, Y=>X, X=>X, Y=>Y. So, for any binary relationship (X <=> Y), you need four pieces! and luckily Microsoft will sell you all four in separate boxes--oh, yeah, and with permissions (sold separately) to actually use them together too. How wonderful. Those boys at MS are real geniuses, aren't they.
Pat Ellis wrote me off list and corrected some of my mistaken impressions about networks and multiple processors. He also noted that mainstream business and institutions were going to stay in the MS world no matter what, leaving the unix world to either the giants or freaks--something I am afraid he is right about.
But then I got to thinking. So much the worse for 'mainstream' business. You know, what the fuck to I care what those pigs spend on broken software? On the other hand, this collective 'mainstream' business/institution does form what most people go to work to do all day long, so that environment in turn constructs the their perception of what a computer is and what it can do. Which, considering the way MS goes about things, leads to the equivalence relation:
computer <=> enslavement
Chuck Grimes
*This is just one of many past versions of the same 'embrace and
extend' tactic that has been used from the beginning of MS. I
recognize it in the many commerical software wars of the past--all
wars I spent money on for the privilage of being a participant: the
font war, spread sheet/database war, the GUI war, the OS utilities
war, the wordprocessor war, the graphics war, and now---the current
network-internet war.