[CentOS] Ken Olsen od DEC, 1927-2011

Wed Feb 9 01:21:38 UTC 2011
Jay Leafey <jay.leafey at mindless.com>

Les Bell wrote:
> Raymond Lillard <ryl at sonic.net> wrote:
> 
> The statement is generally quoted without context as it is here.
> <<
> 
> Correct. Olsen is also famous for saying "People will get tired of managing
> personal computers and will want instead terminals, maybe with windows."
> (by which he meant, a windowing graphical terminal, a la X). He was right
> about that; witness the popular disenchantment with MS Windows and its
> endless cycle of patching, upgrades, malware removal and registry cleanup,
> and the fascination with cloud services accessed by lightweight clients
> like netbooks, tablets and phones. That's been good for the Linux and
> Centos communities, who have provided low-maintenance services for clients
> both on the desktop and in the cloud.
> 

I worked for Digital from 1984 to 1998 (a little after Compaq bought 
DEC) and I heartily agree that Ken had a massive impact on the face of 
computing today.  The engineering and technical folks absolutely loved 
him.

OTOH, it was my impression that the sales and marketing folks frequently 
cringed when he spoke in public.  In addition to the quote above, he 
also declared that "UNIX is snake oil".  He later claimed to have been 
misquoted, but given the state of UNIX at the time I can't say I 
disagree entirely!

Much as I love Linux, I'd still prefer to be running VMS on an x86 
desktop box!
-- 
Jay Leafey - jay.leafey at mindless.com
Memphis, TN
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