"of which the worst is that AT&T has never threatened to sue anyone over the patent"
Earlier in the piece it describes AT&T sending off demands to prospective licensees, and then those licenses being "politely" returned. Is Mr. Pike really so naive that he doesn't understand that the demand for a license is entirely backed by the implicit threat of a lawsuit to force the same? If that weren't the case the participation level would be 0%.
This comment stood out for me as well, and strikes me as extremely disingenuous.
Another that caught my eye was "Free Software is
like Free Love, a hippie pipe dream in which computing is free from venality, commercial interests, even capitalism"
I was upset that Pike could write such things in 2006 as this is demonstrably untrue -- contrary to being a pipe dream, Free Software has completely replaced the space previously occupied by ATT unix. But, then I realized this piece was authored in 1991, which makes this opinion merely lacking in foresight.
>>Free Software has completely replaced the space previously occupied by ATT unix. But, then I realized this piece was authored in 1991, which makes this opinion merely lacking in foresight.
I think it would difficult for anybody to predict how things would pan out. Linux wasn't yet there. Perl was still just the sysadmin's tool, yet and extremely powerful one though but still looked like a little advanced awk. Not until a couple of years later, when Linux was everywhere. Perl had eaten severely in most languages share.
No body could have predicted somebody could co ordinate an effort like building of a language or kernel from distributed locations, yet managing to build high quality software that would go on to rule the world.
And also look at the kind of people who built it. Although I agree that Linus Torvalds and Larry Wall had strong university background. Development of things like Linux and Perl happened in the most unconventional environments, to solve the most unexpected problems. Software design was taken over by hackers from academics and researches in big labs run by corporates.
For most talented people who didn't participate in those movements at that time, they basically a lost a shot at making their mark in history. Rob Pike is just one of such many smart people who missed the boat. That fact will always remain.
Rob Pike might be a genius. But the future generations of software won't seem him in the same light as RMS, Linus or Larry Wall.
Well, I don't agree with your assessment of Rob Pike. As far as I know he worked with Thompson and Ritchie (who unfortunately passed away last year) and I regard all three of them as one of the most important figures with regards to Unix and systems programming. And they marked the history quite significantly, in my opinion. At least as important as RMS or Linus.
I was told
that among MIT undergraduates a bizarre form of political correctness
had developed, putting Stallman in charge of a pack of eager
misguided nerds who in a healthier environment would probably
be protesting the killing of rats in biology class.
Earlier in the piece it describes AT&T sending off demands to prospective licensees, and then those licenses being "politely" returned. Is Mr. Pike really so naive that he doesn't understand that the demand for a license is entirely backed by the implicit threat of a lawsuit to force the same? If that weren't the case the participation level would be 0%.