Don't you think it's a bit insightful that the two most sophisticated OSs widely available are either direct descendents of or largely inspired by AT&T 60's technology?
That these technologies were highly modular, focused on a simple core, emerged as an independent (an unauthorized) side project at AT&T, and were immediately adapted and extended by the academic and research communities?
The principle change that's come about in the descendant / inspired instances present today is that there's a strong assurance that the license of these projects is and will remain free, allowing, say, independent entities, individuals, and organizations to try new ideas, prove them with a large audience, and see what you can get from them.
There will be an idea that replaces Unix. I don't know what it will be. However, it will be called Unix.
> Don't you think it's a bit insightful that the two most sophisticated OSs widely available are either direct descendents of or largely inspired by AT&T 60's technology?
It's meaningful, I agree, but I get the same feeling when I drive my car running on an internal combustion engine (although my car runs on ethanol) that my grandfather would easily recognize and, quite possibly, be able to repair.
Technology is iterative and incremental, not revolutionary.
Most of what's happening on the Web right now (as cool as it is) is enabled more from increases in compute power, speed, interconnects, bandwidth (rate/volume of access), and connectivity (persistence/ease of access), but not from any inherent lack of vision in a prior age.
And when I say "a prior age", I'm not talking about the 90s, 80s, or 50s. Try 19th century (Jeremy Bentham, Jules Verne). Or the 10th century (1001 Arabian Nights has some cool stuff in it). Or Roman, Greek, Biblical, or Egyptian eras.
Drag yourself off to an ancient history museum sometime. You'll find items there that you use daily, or at least are very, very familiar with, from literally thousands of years ago: tweezers, dice, mirrors, bracelets, Egyptian sand toilets (a large stone seat over a box in the ground).
"Old" isn't synonymous with "tired" in technology. Particularly for tools which are in continuous use and evolution, it means "tried, true, tested, and refined". There's a law of diminishing returns, and of asymptotic convergence on an ideal.
I'd love to see the ICE replaced by something cleaner, more energy efficient, and more sustainable. People have tried for nearly 150 years, and I've been a fan of several alternatives (alternate fuel, Wankel, gas turbine, steam, electric) at various times. With the exception of the Wankel, all of those were present at the time the ICE emerged.
We kept the four wheels, steering, and even the dashboard (you know where that term comes from, right?). The only thing replaced was the prime mover.
That's admittedly an oversimplification, but if you look at early cars, the were called ... what was it again? Oh yeah: horseless carriages.
Neat stuff: rack and pinion, you know, we use it for steering? Leonardi da Vinci used it, though it dates from far before then.
The real innovations for the car were incremental increases in metalurgy (allowing creation of efficient engines), machining, and the availability of cheap, plentiful, portable, and dense energy sources (petroleum).
Much of the advances of the 19th and 20th century is attributable to increased available energy, compounded and confounded with technological increases allowing better and more useful use of that energy.
That these technologies were highly modular, focused on a simple core, emerged as an independent (an unauthorized) side project at AT&T, and were immediately adapted and extended by the academic and research communities?
The principle change that's come about in the descendant / inspired instances present today is that there's a strong assurance that the license of these projects is and will remain free, allowing, say, independent entities, individuals, and organizations to try new ideas, prove them with a large audience, and see what you can get from them.
There will be an idea that replaces Unix. I don't know what it will be. However, it will be called Unix.