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From: casey@gauss.llnl.gov (Casey Leedom)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: X-terms v. PCs v. Workstations
Message-ID: <40009@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 30 Nov 89 05:08:22 GMT
References: <1989Nov28.125728.6774@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: casey@gauss.llnl.gov (Casey Leedom)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 68


  I'm sorry I just can't stay out of this.

| From: jdd@db.toronto.edu (John DiMarco)
| 
| Power isn't necessarily a bad thing. If those with power (i.e. control
| over the computing resources) use this power to serve the users' needs,
| then everybody is happy. If a centralized computing authority does not
| serve the users' needs, then it is not fulfilling its intended role.
| Unless the members of this authority use their 'power' for the good of
| their users, THEY ARE NOT DOING THEIR JOBS. Judging from some of these
| postings, there seems to be quite a few centralized computing authorities
| who are not doing their jobs.

  Listen to yourself.  Think carefully about the words.  Perform some
semantic analysis.  Figure it out.

  In answer to your implied question:  Yes.  There are a lot of badly run
Central Computing Services.  In fact, I have yet to run into one that is
run Well.  ("Well" == I can get a job done without having to spend a large
percentage of my time fighting a petty bureaucrat.)

  Your trite answer of ``Fix the bureaucracy'' is totally worthless and
naive.  It just doesn't happen.  Bureaucracies must be worked with and
around, but you don't try to change them in order to do your work.
You'll never get anything done if you wait till the bureaucracy is fixed.

  I really have very few arguments with your points about the advantages
of Centrally Provided Services.  It would have been a hell of a lot more
powerful argument if you'd painted in the other side of the picture.
Nothing is all roses.

  What you, and many others, seem to be missing is that Centralized
versus Anarchy is not a black and white issue.  There are a lot of grey
levels in between the [non-existent] extremes.  And there are levels of
bureaucracy at all levels.  Even the lowly desk top PC suffers the
bureaucracy of it's single owner.

  Why should we search for a single uniform solution to a problem (user
needs) that is multifaceted and non-uniform?

  There are some users who just want to be able to send mail and do word
processing.  For those users a nice terminal and some good software on a
centrally provided service is fine (note that I'm not saying centrally
located).

  Other users want facilities which would be difficult to integrate or
justify for a centrally maintained resource, but don't want to or can't
administer the facilities themselves.  For those users buying the
hardware they need and hiring the time from a central pool of operators
is probably the answer.

  Finally, other users have very special needs (or just a bad case of
wanting their own ball and able to aford it).  These users will buy their
own hardware and support personnel.  The only centrally provided services
these users will need are access to the network and local software archive.

  And this basically points out one of the biggest fallacies of the TOTAL
CENTRALIZED SERVICE argument and the implementations thereof: you're
trying to tell everyone that your hammer makes you see every problem as a
nail and why the hell can't the stupid users see their problems as nails
for your hammer too?

  Any good computing environment will be a mixture of various kinds and
levels of services.  Any attempt to smash every user's needs into a
single mold will just create petty bureaucracies and unhappy users.

Casey


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