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An odd take on history. Evidently history began when the author started experiencing it. It doesn't mention anything about how so much of what software we have

by bregma 6y ago

An odd take on history. Evidently history began when the author started experiencing it. It doesn't mention anything about how so much of what software we have to day is descended from the DECUS tapes and BSD tapes that were circulating the 1980s and 1990s in addition to the FSF tape you could get. I used archie to download uuencded source archives of all kinds of "open source" development tools (the name hadn't been published and monetized yet, but the concept was in common use). I think the post open source era started some time in the late 1980s when the internet started creeping into peoples homes.

Lammy 6y ago
It's hard to learn about things nobody discusses. I've been around for a while and can't say I've ever noticed those being mentioned anywhere. If you wanted to write something longer about it I'd really love to read it :)
- prepend 6y ago
  There’s books and web sites and stuff. Learning doesn’t just come from discussion, but research. (Edit to change “learning” to “research” because autocorrect changed it and I didn’t notice until now) If you haven’t read ESR’s Cathedral and the Bazaar, it’s pretty good and will go into some of the background.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    The stories that get repeated are the ones that get remembered. Even if the information is out there for those who dig, I believe that storage and recall are fundamentally the same thing when it comes to our human memory :)
  - zepto 6y ago
    To be fair, we used to have search engines that were good for exploring all kinds of history, but not so much anymore.
    - prepend 6y ago
      Yeah, but all the sites that had this info are all around now. I like the book recommendation threads on HN for learning stuff. What’s funny to me is that some of this history is so ingrained that it doesn’t make sense to discuss it. It would be like talking about how great George Washington is all the time.
ashtonkem 6y ago
> Evidently history began when the author started experiencing it. If you pay enough attention, this is usually the failing of most non-historian takes on history. “Normal” is usually better replaced in such articles with “whatever was in place when I was born”.
vaxman 6y ago
Yep, I’m on DECUS tapes from ‘82…spoke in front of darkness filled with 6,000 people reacting to every one of my jokes many years before I could shave (and also before I worked for DEC). In the old days, pear shaped bearded gurus ruled —from 2000 until recently that was frowned on, but you can bet I gotta beard now lol..totally resisting the pear shape tho) ;)

by bregma 6y ago

Lammy 6y ago

It's hard to learn about things nobody discusses. I've been around for a while and can't say I've ever noticed those being mentioned anywhere. If you wanted to write something longer about it I'd really love to read it :)

prepend 6y ago
There’s books and web sites and stuff. Learning doesn’t just come from discussion, but research. (Edit to change “learning” to “research” because autocorrect changed it and I didn’t notice until now) If you haven’t read ESR’s Cathedral and the Bazaar, it’s pretty good and will go into some of the background.
- Lammy 6y ago
  The stories that get repeated are the ones that get remembered. Even if the information is out there for those who dig, I believe that storage and recall are fundamentally the same thing when it comes to our human memory :)
- zepto 6y ago
  To be fair, we used to have search engines that were good for exploring all kinds of history, but not so much anymore.
  - prepend 6y ago
    Yeah, but all the sites that had this info are all around now. I like the book recommendation threads on HN for learning stuff. What’s funny to me is that some of this history is so ingrained that it doesn’t make sense to discuss it. It would be like talking about how great George Washington is all the time.

ashtonkem 6y ago

> Evidently history began when the author started experiencing it. If you pay enough attention, this is usually the failing of most non-historian takes on history. “Normal” is usually better replaced in such articles with “whatever was in place when I was born”.

vaxman 6y ago

Yep, I’m on DECUS tapes from ‘82…spoke in front of darkness filled with 6,000 people reacting to every one of my jokes many years before I could shave (and also before I worked for DEC). In the old days, pear shaped bearded gurus ruled —from 2000 until recently that was frowned on, but you can bet I gotta beard now lol..totally resisting the pear shape tho) ;)