4 ms·

Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning Was the Command Line speaks quite favorably of BeOS. He described the Windows world as being a kind of car dealership that so

Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning Was the Command Line speaks quite favorably of BeOS. He described the Windows world as being a kind of car dealership that sold clunkers, Linux as a place where anyone could walk in and buy a US Army M1 Tank, and BeOS as fully operational Batmobiles. https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt

lproven 4y ago
You missed the point. You could buy a Ferrari or a Ford, but an M1 Tank that ran for 1000 miles on a cup of fuel was for free. Keys in, sitting there. Get in, drive off.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  On the whole tanks don't have keys. Similar reason to airliners.
  - lproven 4y ago
    :-D Fair point. I merely quoted -- or at least paraphrased -- the original essay itself: « They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free. » https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt This essay is so important, so valuable, and so blasted insightful, that even though I read it more than 20 years ago, I can still remember key phrases, and search for it, find it, and quote from it in seconds. It should be one of the seminal texts of the FOSS movement. And yet most people don't know it, or if they do, they don't get it and misquote it or misinterpret important points... such as here, claiming that people were trying to sell Linux up against BeOS and MacOS and Windows, when the real point was that although it was better than all the commercial competition in important ways, it was FREE and yet the people that developed it literally could not GIVE IT AWAY for nothing, up against inferior commercial OSes. And they still can't. Everyone has probably also forgotten by now that Sun bought StarOffice and tried to give it away, and nobody cared. So some forgotten Sun exec, who actually understood how businesspeople's minds work, made a discount version. It was $89.95 or something, alongside and as well as the free version. The result was a modest explosion in business uptake. A free office suite? Must be junk. But a bargain basement full-function office suite, for eighty bucks when MS Office costs a few hundreds? That's a steal! Great -- I will have that and push it out across my business! It worked. And now, Linux is on the desktop and it's a roaring success, selling hundreds of millions of units, and outselling Macs. It's called ChromeOS, and when I point this out, the geeks of HN get very angry at me, and complain, and say that I'm moving the goalposts, that ChromeOS doesn't count, that it's not really Linux. They accuse me of "bad faith": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925697 They call my argument "BS": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34928295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34928295 Even one specific commenter I really respect and whose posts I find richly informative and learn from, flat out deny that it is Linux: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971384 Ah well. We all know Linux runs servers, routers, and most smartphones, but if it's on the desktop, and it costs money, then it's obviously not Linux. If it's a successful desktop that people like, it clearly can't really be Linux, right? Shakes head, walks away. Anyway, for better context, here's the whole passage from ITBWTCL: « With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free. Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership and buy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships. Of the remaining ten percent, most go and buy a sleek Euro-sedan, pausing only to turn up their noses at the philistines going to buy the station wagons and ORVs. If they even notice the people on the opposite side of the road, selling the cheaper, technically superior vehicles, these customers deride them cranks and half-wits. The Batmobile outlet sells a few vehicles to the occasional car nut who wants a second vehicle to go with his station wagon, but seems to accept, at least for now, that it's a fringe player. The group giving away the free tanks only stays alive because it is staffed by volunteers, who are lined up at the edge of the street with bullhorns, trying to draw customers' attention to this incredible situation. A typical conversation goes something like this: Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!" Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!" Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!" Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music." Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!" Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!" Bullhorn: "But..." Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?" »
- ofalkaed 4y ago
  In those days Linux was an M1 that sort of but not quite ran on your local fuel and was 1/2" wider than your garage. The fuel problem would be sorted out just as soon as the engineers can get your city to admit what they added to the fuel but they won't even admit having knowledge of anything called "fuel." Eventually you get the new part that will make your M1 run on your local fuel but you need to rebuild the engine to install it, you don't really have any clue of how to do that but you have been talking to some vague personas in an alley for the past 3 nights and you are fairly certain you can do it. All seems to go well until you try and reinstall the engine, somehow it has gotten considerably larger than it had been and no longer fits in the engine compartment. So you rebuild it again, and again, and again, finally it works but now the glove compartment light is flashing error codes in Morse and the radio constantly drifts out tune. Repeat once or twice a year until about 2005 or so. But you have your M1, you can not buy ammunition for its guns or drive it on any roads because the tracks will eat up the pavement but it is your M1.
- Eric_WVGG 4y ago
  yeah sorry it's been twenty years since this was published
  - lproven 4y ago
    Yeah, true, it is, but still... I'm probably within 20y of death from old age, if I make it -- I'm now the age my dad was when he died. Has your memory suffered worse than mine over that time? Not trying to be nasty but I mean, come on, it was THE key point of the essay.
    - blincoln 4y ago
      I think there are a lot of valuable insights one can take away from Stephenson's essay (it's a favourite of mine as well), and one person's key point may be another person's side discussion. Stephenson did compare Linux to a tank, but he also compared it to the Milwaukee Hole Hawg drill, and that analogy (rather than the tank, which I'd forgotten about entirely) was more memorable for me personally. His argument was that Linux was a very powerful tool for people who know what they're doing. The Hole Hawg has a motor that's so powerful, if the bit gets stuck, the body of the drill will spin in the other direction with enough force to spin the operator around (if they manage to hold on) or break their arm(s) if they lose their grip. People doing certain kinds of serious work want that level of power, but everyone else would most likely be happier with a regular power drill. Not only are they safer, they're a lot smaller and weigh a lot less. Similarly, getting a tank with great gas mileage for free sounds pretty neat at first glance. On the other hand, if someone used to driving a sedan tries to use a tank as a drop-in replacement, the regrets are going to pile up pretty quickly. They might collapse some structures designed for regular vehicles just by driving over them, because tanks weigh so much more. They'll most likely tear up dirt and gravel driveways. They probably won't be able to park it in the places they'd park their car, because the tank is so much bigger. Getting in and out of the vehicle is more of an adventure. There are definitely folks who would love their own tank - I know in Australia there are people that converted surplus WWII tanks into farming equipment - but most non-specialists would be unhappy with one, just like they'd have been unhappy trying to use Linux as a desktop OS in the era when In the Beginning was the Command Line was written, regardless of the price.

lproven 4y ago

You missed the point. You could buy a Ferrari or a Ford, but an M1 Tank that ran for 1000 miles on a cup of fuel was for free. Keys in, sitting there. Get in, drive off.

tialaramex 4y ago
On the whole tanks don't have keys. Similar reason to airliners.
- lproven 4y ago
  :-D Fair point. I merely quoted -- or at least paraphrased -- the original essay itself: « They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free. » https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs81n/command.txt This essay is so important, so valuable, and so blasted insightful, that even though I read it more than 20 years ago, I can still remember key phrases, and search for it, find it, and quote from it in seconds. It should be one of the seminal texts of the FOSS movement. And yet most people don't know it, or if they do, they don't get it and misquote it or misinterpret important points... such as here, claiming that people were trying to sell Linux up against BeOS and MacOS and Windows, when the real point was that although it was better than all the commercial competition in important ways, it was FREE and yet the people that developed it literally could not GIVE IT AWAY for nothing, up against inferior commercial OSes. And they still can't. Everyone has probably also forgotten by now that Sun bought StarOffice and tried to give it away, and nobody cared. So some forgotten Sun exec, who actually understood how businesspeople's minds work, made a discount version. It was $89.95 or something, alongside and as well as the free version. The result was a modest explosion in business uptake. A free office suite? Must be junk. But a bargain basement full-function office suite, for eighty bucks when MS Office costs a few hundreds? That's a steal! Great -- I will have that and push it out across my business! It worked. And now, Linux is on the desktop and it's a roaring success, selling hundreds of millions of units, and outselling Macs. It's called ChromeOS, and when I point this out, the geeks of HN get very angry at me, and complain, and say that I'm moving the goalposts, that ChromeOS doesn't count, that it's not really Linux. They accuse me of "bad faith": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925697 They call my argument "BS": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34928295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34928295 Even one specific commenter I really respect and whose posts I find richly informative and learn from, flat out deny that it is Linux: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34971384 Ah well. We all know Linux runs servers, routers, and most smartphones, but if it's on the desktop, and it costs money, then it's obviously not Linux. If it's a successful desktop that people like, it clearly can't really be Linux, right? Shakes head, walks away. Anyway, for better context, here's the whole passage from ITBWTCL: « With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free. Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership and buy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships. Of the remaining ten percent, most go and buy a sleek Euro-sedan, pausing only to turn up their noses at the philistines going to buy the station wagons and ORVs. If they even notice the people on the opposite side of the road, selling the cheaper, technically superior vehicles, these customers deride them cranks and half-wits. The Batmobile outlet sells a few vehicles to the occasional car nut who wants a second vehicle to go with his station wagon, but seems to accept, at least for now, that it's a fringe player. The group giving away the free tanks only stays alive because it is staffed by volunteers, who are lined up at the edge of the street with bullhorns, trying to draw customers' attention to this incredible situation. A typical conversation goes something like this: Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!" Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!" Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!" Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music." Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!" Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!" Bullhorn: "But..." Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?" »
ofalkaed 4y ago
In those days Linux was an M1 that sort of but not quite ran on your local fuel and was 1/2" wider than your garage. The fuel problem would be sorted out just as soon as the engineers can get your city to admit what they added to the fuel but they won't even admit having knowledge of anything called "fuel." Eventually you get the new part that will make your M1 run on your local fuel but you need to rebuild the engine to install it, you don't really have any clue of how to do that but you have been talking to some vague personas in an alley for the past 3 nights and you are fairly certain you can do it. All seems to go well until you try and reinstall the engine, somehow it has gotten considerably larger than it had been and no longer fits in the engine compartment. So you rebuild it again, and again, and again, finally it works but now the glove compartment light is flashing error codes in Morse and the radio constantly drifts out tune. Repeat once or twice a year until about 2005 or so. But you have your M1, you can not buy ammunition for its guns or drive it on any roads because the tracks will eat up the pavement but it is your M1.
Eric_WVGG 4y ago
yeah sorry it's been twenty years since this was published
- lproven 4y ago
  Yeah, true, it is, but still... I'm probably within 20y of death from old age, if I make it -- I'm now the age my dad was when he died. Has your memory suffered worse than mine over that time? Not trying to be nasty but I mean, come on, it was THE key point of the essay.
  - blincoln 4y ago
    I think there are a lot of valuable insights one can take away from Stephenson's essay (it's a favourite of mine as well), and one person's key point may be another person's side discussion. Stephenson did compare Linux to a tank, but he also compared it to the Milwaukee Hole Hawg drill, and that analogy (rather than the tank, which I'd forgotten about entirely) was more memorable for me personally. His argument was that Linux was a very powerful tool for people who know what they're doing. The Hole Hawg has a motor that's so powerful, if the bit gets stuck, the body of the drill will spin in the other direction with enough force to spin the operator around (if they manage to hold on) or break their arm(s) if they lose their grip. People doing certain kinds of serious work want that level of power, but everyone else would most likely be happier with a regular power drill. Not only are they safer, they're a lot smaller and weigh a lot less. Similarly, getting a tank with great gas mileage for free sounds pretty neat at first glance. On the other hand, if someone used to driving a sedan tries to use a tank as a drop-in replacement, the regrets are going to pile up pretty quickly. They might collapse some structures designed for regular vehicles just by driving over them, because tanks weigh so much more. They'll most likely tear up dirt and gravel driveways. They probably won't be able to park it in the places they'd park their car, because the tank is so much bigger. Getting in and out of the vehicle is more of an adventure. There are definitely folks who would love their own tank - I know in Australia there are people that converted surplus WWII tanks into farming equipment - but most non-specialists would be unhappy with one, just like they'd have been unhappy trying to use Linux as a desktop OS in the era when In the Beginning was the Command Line was written, regardless of the price.