On Sat, 22 Sep 2001, Thilo Manske wrote:
> From: Thilo Manske <Thilo.Manske@HEH.Uni-Oldenburg.DE>

> On Fri, Sep 21 2001 at 20:59:27 -0700, Mike Cheponis wrote:
> > This paper is very interesting (mentioned on slashdot today) and is, I
> > hope, the direction that NetBSD will also go over this coming decade.  -Mike
> >
> > http://research.microsoft.com/research/sn/Millennium/mgoals.html
> [under "Goals":]

> "New machines, network links, and resources should be automatically
> assimilated."
>
> Borg, Borg, Borg - I can't get it out of my head...

I did notice this, and chuckled myself.

However, if we look at what they are proposing, we realize that NetBSD
already has a head start on them!  That's because NetBSD is mult-arch,
and an important part of their idea is to be able to run computations
anywhere they are permitted to run; and to have high enough levels of
abstraction so that the underlying archs don't matter!

Sound like they've glommed on to some NetBSD thinking?

----

Also, it would be sortta cool if people could look at the proposal in
a non-emotional way, that is, in a cooly professional way.  I happen to
personally know Rick Rashid, for example, and he is anything but the
Borg prince.

These ideas are, I believe, extremely powerful and timely.  (Never mind that
a few years ago I strongly argued for some of them on -tech and got flamed
to a crisp.  The point is: do we stagnate, or do we innovate?)

-Mike