BT pull out of Phorm

[Peter Fairbrother]

Ray.Bellis at nominet.org.uk wrote:
> 
>  > {BTW: this ties in with Clayton's law of RADIUS servers; that every ISP
>  > runs the version of RADIUS one after the version that was current when
>  > they first went into business -- after one upgrade cycle, everyone in
>  > the department swears never again!}
> 
> That's an interesting law.
> 
> At the ISP I worked at ISTR that we went through three.
> 
> First, the one supplied by US Robotics to go with their TotalControl racks.
> 
> Then I think we went to stock Livingston RADIUS.
> 
> Then I wrote my own.  *That* one is still in use. :)
> 
> Ray


It'll never work!

(
I have an idea for an overall theme for this post, but it may not get as 
far as my intended end .. beer at -1.8 C is maybe 1 degree too cold for 
many, but by the time it's drunk ... perfect!
)

Anyway, Google are making a new "popular" OS, open-source, called 
"Chrome", after their browser. Or maybe it's just meant to be a step up 
from the brushed aluminium theme in earlier versions of MacOS?


To Challenge Microsoft? , maybe. Ubuntu has done a "popular" OS already, 
so it's not really news, but Google ain't Ubuntu/Mark Shuttleworth,

Apple might also successfully release MacOS for i386 at any time - but 
they haven't so far, and maybe now is their last chance, while Apple 
still (just) have the best desktop user experience.





Whatever, in general we're all just re-grinding the same stuff again 
when we write OS's (I assume Google's new OS isn't radically different - 
maybe if Ben Laurie got his way it might have been [1], but I doubt it)

(and that's not a Royal "we", yes, I do write lots of OS's for different 
purposes, eg m-o-o-t (you can't have a copy now though, but maybe later))




What does the user need from an OS?  Note I said the user, maybe some 
geek wants to commune with a terminal, but the user wants a desktop, or 
at least a GUI, even in a webserver/server/filestore -   but they may 
well want a GUI/desktop in a printer too, and why not?.

So, .... what? Normally in Linux/MacOS there would be a single program, 
init, operating at all times, scheduling processes of various types, I 
dunno about Windows, at all.

And we have that idea from Berkley (ish ...), and the desktop from Rank 
Xerox, and email and later other webcomms, and the www browser, and the 
stuff that frengly years ago people thought you might need a computer to 
do  - mostly spreadsheets - and word processing and printing - and 
games, and

That's about it.


It's about time however that we made an OS (and I think it'll have to be 
an open-source OS, and maybe a free OS too) that's more than just an OS, 
but which does all the usual stuff. Desktop, email, browser, viewers - 
and that's _all_ that most people need.



No new flash player this year, or next, the benefits are almost 
non-existant, and we've already got a flash player. We've got a 
computer, had it for 10 years. Don't need any new stuff. Don't need any 
updates, it's already been updated five years ago.

did I get close?

-- Peter Fairbrother



[1] maybe Ben did! - but it's not likely. I'd guess someone else said " 
I'm paying for it, it does this (= works this way)" - "but working this 
way" doesn't, and all is lost. Or maybe not.