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From: ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth)
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.realtime,comp.arch,comp.os.misc,comp.misc
Subject: Re: TRON (a little long)
Keywords: Japan, TRON, standards, networks, operating systems
Message-ID: <25518@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 16 Jun 89 05:32:25 GMT
References: <382@h.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu> <4567@ficc.uu.net>
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Reply-To: ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth)
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In article <4567@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <382@h.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu>, jdm@a.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu (James D Mooney) writes:
>> *WHY DOESN'T ANYONE SEEM TO CARE?*
>
>> I do have some theories.  Which one do you think is right?
>
>> 1. It's a Japanese project, not relevant outside Japan.
>
>I think that's a relevant factor, but it's not the whole story by any means.
>
>Japan Incs "we will bury you" attitude with the 5th generation project really
>doesn't help any, either.

The "we will bury you" attitude, if it ever existed, was a figment of
Feigenbaum's (or that air-head female collaborator's) imagination. The
Japanese are hardly above criticism, but they don't deserve to be
blamed for the machinations of an academic scam artist like Feigenbaum.

>> 2. It's not needed; there are enough standards.
>
>That depends on the area. I think people in the US *are* getting tired of
>standards... there are so many of them. Maybe there's a bit of baby-and-
>bathwater stuff going on here. But just a bit.

Maybe the hackers and the adepts are getting tired of standards because
standards decrease the demand for the services of high priced anal
retentives who get off on knowing the arbitrary and often assine
distinctions between various systems, releases, etc. I've not seen any
evidence that ordinary users or corporate purchasers are tired of
standards.

>
>> 3.  Only single-company de facto standards (like IBM) are practical.
>>     Companies won't cooperate.
>
>This is a good point. Not only don't companies tend to co-operate, but
>in the US there are laws that restrict companies from co-operating.

Apparently you haven't been reading either the (computer) trade papers
or such general items as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times,
etc. As part of an attempt to meet Japanese competition (real or
imagined) by using Japanese techniques (real or imagined), the
RayGun/Bush administrations and the Justice Department have been
encouraging "corporate research cooperation" by a variety of means:
interpretation of anti-trust laws, specific legislation, subsidies,
etc.

The historical fact that ~American~ companies have not chosen to
cooperate on basic research does not in and of itself determine what is
efficient, morally correct, or whatever. For better or worse, the day
when American patterns would be assumed to be best is rapidly waning.
(This is not to say that Japanese patterns are better. Rather, there
are more heavy weights in the ring today than there were a couple of
decades ago. US firms cannot assume that American ways are
automatically the best the way they could and did through most of the
post world war II period.)

>> 4.  It's interesting, but will have no effect on me.

This sounds rather like Detroit's observations concerning Japanese
automobile engineering in the 1960s. It would be naive to assume that
history will repeat itself in computing; it would be equally navie to
assume that it will not.

>For me, here's the main reason: it completely ignores the standards
>work that *has* been going on in the US. Basically, no part of TRON is
>based in any way on the UNIX system call interface. What I've heard of
>it bears a strong resemblance to the messed-up massive-shared-library
>interfaces common to both '60s operating systems and (more recently)
>things like OS/2 and X. And, at least in the US, it doesn't have either
>a 500-pound-gorilla (IBM) or the virtue of public domain status (thanks
>to the X consortium) behind it.

Here, I think you're on reasonably solid ground, but I'm not sure this
is the basis for writing off Japanese efforts. Although my period of
specialization is Japanese history of the 1930s and 1940s, I've read
enough of the 1950s and 1960s to have some sense of how Japanese firms
have operated. Following obsolete or unproductive American || European
lines has actually been fairly common in industries that later became
successful. To a degree Japanese firms seem to learn from this process
or are driven to make breakthroughs by the frustation of trying to
develop what they thought were good (foreign) ideas.

False starts, dead ends, and general confusion have been a large part
of Japanese efforts in other areas. They may fall flat on TRON, but I
would not be banking that a failure on this project will set the
pattern for everything the Japanese do in this area.