> Looking back, it was inevitable that Unix would become less and less a sale-able commodity and more and more a free standard that hackers would just ... assume.
I wonder if the operating system[1] has turned out to be the ultimate expression of Steve Jobs's quote about Dropbox: "feature, not a product". A means to an end, with the end being where all the value is.
Everyone talks about Microsoft retaining the rights to market DOS independent of the IBM license being the most important business deal of all time, but Microsoft producing its own applications may be even more important in retrospect.
[1] I wrote "Unix", but of course Windows has been de facto free, even when not purchased with a computer, for some time
> Microsoft producing its own applications may be even more important in retrospect.
I remain convinced that Microsoft Excel is the most important thing they ever built. You could replace Windows for Linux or vice versa and the world would hum along more or less the same. But entire economies are essentially running on what people do with Excel.
I wonder if the operating system[1] has turned out to be the ultimate expression of Steve Jobs's quote about Dropbox: "feature, not a product". A means to an end, with the end being where all the value is.
Everyone talks about Microsoft retaining the rights to market DOS independent of the IBM license being the most important business deal of all time, but Microsoft producing its own applications may be even more important in retrospect.
[1] I wrote "Unix", but of course Windows has been de facto free, even when not purchased with a computer, for some time