The future of the future

[John Chambers,,,781-647-1813]

John Abreau ruminated:
	On Wed, 16 Feb 2000, Ron Peterson wrote:

	> So I'm sitting at home with the flu and decided to write a little
	> doodle...
	[deleted] 
	> What do you think?  Will the profession of managing computers blossom? 
	> Or wither?

	I'd say that depends on the outcome of our struggle against corporate
	hogogenization. In a world of free individuals, I'd expect it to blossom.
	In a world locked up under corporate control, where independent thought is
	considered a threat to the status quo, it's bound to wither.

Hmmm ... I'd think the opposite conclusion should follow. Most of our
experience  so  far  is  that  computer  system designed to corporate
standards require a great many people around to administer  to  them.
This  includes  Microsoft systems, whose users generally are helpless
when they get flakey, and thus we have  lots  of  corporate  customer
support to fix all the typical administrative problems. If you want a
machine that can be managed by its users, you need a system that  was
developed  by the users, not by corporate designers.  So our world of
free individuals would be expected to turn out systems that just work
and  have lots of HOWTO files to help you do the admin work yourself,
and there will be no need of professional managers.

If a world of corporate homogenization, we  wouldn't  even  have  had
Windoze  to kick around.  We'd all be fighting to make MVS and CMS do
the job for us, because there wouldn't be anything else, and we'd all
be  programming  in  PL/I.   (Those  who have never worked with these
things have no idea how well off you really are.  They make Microsoft
look cooperative and helpful.)

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