Adam, the war metaphors are really getting weak.
We've got some older people who are refusing to grow up. They still think
they can dominate. Some of the press people think that's some kind of story.
In fact the warriors are routed around. Independent developers have more and
more power every time we iterate.
Did you see David Stutz's responses to Joy's taunts. He basically said "We
have more work to do, Windows could be much better." I was blown away by
that. I doubt that Solaris has any protection from the kind of viruses that
are traveling around the Net now. Can I send a script as an enclosure to a
Solaris user? Can the Solaris user run it? If so, well how did Sun's
security expertise protect me? These are all things that Stutz could have
countered with. Instead he took the high road, and said something that's
obviously true. Of course Microsoft can do better. And so can Sun. That's
true of everyone, it's not a profound statement. ;->
I talked with Ann Thomas Manes after that session, and played 20 Questions
on their JXTA plan. It's open. Just like .NET. It threatens no one and
nothing. That's good. Yet old habits die slowly.
I've been waiting for this moment for a long time. I guess peace is always
fragile, but now it seems so strong, no matter what they concoct, or how
much they try to ignore SOAP or Java, they're still there, Java is
unplugged, so is Microsoft's complicated maze of language products. We're
still climbing Moore's curve, so there should be plenty of growth for
everyone, for Sun, Microsoft and independent companies like yours and mine.
Following this logic, I'm gratified that both parties ignore XML-RPC. That
can be the pillar of independent developers, if you want it. Our guarantee
that no matter how much the gorillas try to fight it out, we still have the
power to be compatibile, without worrying about their little war games.
Dave
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 27 2001 - 23:17:49 PDT