From: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: Re: Yet another bot
Date: 15 Jun 2000 09:46:29 -0000
John Conover writes:
>
> BTW, its kind of dirty linen, the history of the way Unix is so
> fragmented. Its actually worse than that-I didn't mention anything
> about BSD, which is more complicated in itself. The first Unix for the
> PC, circa mid 80's, was from none other than Microsoft-it was called
> Xenix, which was still retailed under the SCO brand name until a few
> years ago, when SCO bought Rel. 4.0 from Novell. SCO's pricing in
> Europe is outrages, and always has been. That is why Linux exists.
> L. Torvalds didn't want to pay their ridiculous prices, and hacked a
> university teaching course project-from Andrew Tannenbaum in the
> Netherlands-called Minix into Linux in 1990. Capitalism works. Just
> not immediately. SCO Linux will undoubtedly be very inexpensive.
>
See, the entropic stuff works. See:
http://www.johncon.com/john/correspondence/981014184454.18095.html
http://www.johncon.com/john/correspondence/981014210544.18525.html
http://www.johncon.com/john/correspondence/981014222823.18931.html
which shows there are paradigms at all time scales, (an enigmatic
concept of fractals if there ever was one,) and particularly:
http://www.johncon.com/john/correspondence/981014233807.19309.html
which is a graph of the duration of paradigms in several electronic
markets, (information systems is the one L. Torvalds was tinking
with-but it doesn't make any difference; they are all about the same.)
Note that half of the paradigms last less than 4.3 years, half
more. SCO's high price paradigm lasted from the time LT got PO'ed, in
late 1991/early 1992 when Linux hit the BBSs, to when Linux made the
big time, in February of 1997-call it 5 years. Close enough to 4.3
years.
Thus the statement "capitalism works, just not immediately."
John
BTW, but look at how sluggish the tails of those graphs are beyond 4.3
years. They just don't move much, so the probabilities don't decrease
as much as time progresses. Will Linux be a long duration? Since it
became popular, (at least that perception in the media,) in February
of 1997, it will take until mid 2002 to tell. However, it has already
asserted its self as a winner with the geeks-1994 is the year that
started, and it will probably make that market stick. So what should
one bet on Linux making 2002? Since the probability is 1 / sqrt (t),
almost, (just like it should be, according to theory,) there is a 58%
chance of it continuing, or the Shannon entropy is .58, or one should
have 16% of one's portfolio invested in Linux stuff.
--
John Conover, john@email.johncon.com, http://www.johncon.com/