[TUHS] What UNIX Artifacts Are Still Missing?

[jon@fourwinds.com (Jon Steinhart)]

Robert Brockway writes:
> On Thu, 7 Dec 2017, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> 
> > Call me a cynical old bastard (which I am), but I can't see M$ raising a flag 
> > for Unix...  Wasn't it Billy Gates who reportedly said that any PC running 
> > Linux is one not running Windoze, and did his best to discredit it?
> 
> Microsoft today is not the company of old.  In recent years Microsoft has 
> participated in standards bodies and worked on interoperability with other 
> browser vendors.  They even joined the Linux Foundation last year.
> 
> https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/16/microsoft-joins-the-linux-foundation/
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Rob

Don't know how much time you've spent on standards committees; I've done my
time.  Standards committees are not filled with altruistic folks working to
make something great.  Much of the time people are there to prevent a standard
from interfering with their market, or to prevent a good standard from being
adopted.  The examples of the NSA participating on crypto committees to weaken
the standards got a lot of press and is emblematic of what happens.  Microsoft
has a well documented record of using standards to screw the competition so I
didn't read any goodness into their joining up.  I would agree that they're not
the company of old in that they got themselves trounced by Apple and are no
longer top dog and able to tell others what they're allowed to do.

Jon