All computers do is “numbers”

(but, you can store anything in numbers;

more on this in a few weeks)

All computers do is follow a very

precise list of instructions that one or

more people wrote.

that i made up this morning.

- the Hobbyist era

- the Office era (Microsoft)

- enter the Internet (Google, Amazon)

- the "Phone" era (Apple, again)

- the "Social Media" era (Facebook et al)

You find two things:

Free and Open Source software (esp Linux)

AND

Text

(these two things are STRONGLY related)

“You’re ripping us off!” Steve Jobs shouted. “I trusted you, and now you’re stealing from us!” Gates just sat there coolly, looking Steve in the eye….

“Well, Steve, I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”

Steve Wozniak, aka

The Steve at Apple who REALLY mattered?

(also, the one who's still alive)

(1977-1984ish)

Apple dominates.

Keeps EXCLUSIVE right to make

“Apple” Machines

But through a series of fights, other companies got the right

to license IBM's Operating System to Other Manufacturers

Also: Steve Jobs is FIRED from Apple by John Sculley (1985) :

“Overpriced Mac is a toy, and dropping prices won't help”

IBM makes the unfortunate mistake of keeping this guy around to write it, since his people wrote the old one. It was

”MS-DOS” after all.)

So they do both OS/2 and this other side project you may have heard of...

Convinces developers

(and the world)

“SOFTWARE IS A PRODUCT”

(please appreciate how weird this is)

Convinces developers

(and the world)

“SOFTWARE IS A PRODUCT”

(please appreciate how weird this is)

Is Math? is Science? Also?..

Standalone * office appliances running proprietary software.

*infrequently connected or networked.

“Sneakernet!”

Direct competition?

Government Intervention?

(I didn't make this up, they used it INTERNALLY)

Either BUY OUT your competition, or E,E,E.

(e.g.)

.Net

ActiveX

DirectX vs. OpenGL

Attempted with odt.

This prevents you from having to competitively innovate.

(and is kind of understandable.)

“ "One thing we have got to change in our strategy— allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities. Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destory [sic] Windows."

United States v. Microsoft, 253 F.3d 34 (2001)(mostly over IE.)

Europe did, but without much consequence...except that you can legally now say "Convicted Monopolist, Microsoft"

The argument:

Monopoly Leveraging – not that MS had an impermissible monopoly, but that it would use that monopoly to take over the internet, with that AMAZING browser….

Internet Explorer.

(ps, EU courts Europe basically won this same case, the crazy result being that when you installed Windows, over there you could pick a browser.

(instead of using IE to install Firefox like we did here)

Home Computer as Household Appliance(running proprietary/closed source software)...

but what about those other big computers and networks and stuff...old school?

"Sometimes we do get taken by surprise. For example, when the Internet came along, we had it as a fifth or sixth priority." - Bill Gates

SLOWLY.

With The Internet

+

With Non Computer Devices

Both of which run on:

Free Software

mostly just to understand the goofy names, a way to do the robot

In computers, it's actually okay to define something with itself.

Richard Stallman, 1983ish

“complete Unix-compatible software system”

The GNU Manifesto → Golden Rule → GPL

But..no kernel...

Weird picky guy who says outrageous things about technology

THAT END UP BEING TRUE*

*definitely not an endorsement of his non-tech ideas

Weird picky guy who says outrageous things about technology

THAT END UP BEING TRUE

DON'T call it Linux. Call it GNU/Linux!!!

and

They're going to go into your home

and burn your books!!

..I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu..

“Sadly, a kernel by itself gets you nowhere”

• Linus Torvalds

GNU shells, compilers, userspace system tools, libraries. are added.

Also, most importantly:

GNU GPL is adopted for Linux

but good enough for now..

Free Software / FOSS / FLOSS

Here's some code, do what you want, but please share back what you do.

Open Source

Here's some code, do whatever you want. (including lock it back down)

LITERALLY LINUX:

Super close ("Posix Compatible etc)

Are MOST often running something that

• literally is Linux OR

• is at least Linux like

(you see this in things like URLS, email addresses, etc)

So, " Open-Source " is adopted.

All free software is open source, but not all open source software is free (as in speech or otherwise)

And so, you get a pretty good mix....

You can do most anything with it, including lock it back down and making it unfree.

(BSD, Apache, anything MIT Licensed)

You can do most anything with it yourself..

EXCEPT you may NOT re-release it closed.

GNU/Linux, Firefox etc.

Historically?

Free and Open Source, overwhelmingly

Today?

Free and Open source, overwhelmingly,

but with weird business models...

Because you can very quickly say/relate complex concepts in a concise way, by combining a series of simple symbols.

Because you can very quickly say/relate complex concepts in a concise way, by combining a series of simple symbols.

You know, like talking. Or writing.

" Caveman interface."

Pre-linguistic/animal-like

" Point and grunt"

(Tablets and even "Minority Report" are cool and fun...but why is Charades a game?)

Buttons and gestures are frequently convenient for repetitive tasks...

...but to do anything intelligent,

you need LANGUAGE.

TEXT. Numbers and Letters.

The mouse is the worst thing to ever happen to computers.

Most real work = communication = text.

• Tablets (and mouses) arguably didn't do much for productivity...

• Siri, et al, on the other hand...

That..what, the entire field of UX/UI Design is

just a MASSIVE waste of time?

I wouldn't take it that far...but I'd think about it.

That..what, the entire field of UX/UI Design is

just a MASSIVE waste of time?

I wouldn't take it that far...but I'd think about it.

e.g. a very simple, if not easy, way to solve ADA compliance?

Only allow text.

Yes, I do think a lot of this UI/UX stuff is an enormous waste of time.

Especially since we have collectively "rediscovered"

how good language can be,

in the form of Siri, Alexa, and now

AI

(a waste of time and perhaps "ableist" as well.)

Know how to make your interface "ADA compliant" or otherwise definitely works everywhere?

ONLY USE TEXT.

Like I said, LINUX and TEXT.

But there's A LOT OF MONEY in between, aka PLATFORMS

Much more on this later