Metcalfe on open source and IPv6
The inventor of Ethernet Bob Metcalfe is interviewed by AlwaysOn on current issues. Metcalfe is known for challenging commonly accepted wisdom and this time he’s quite confrontational.
On open source and operating systems:
If you look at Windows and Linux, both are based on 25-year-old technology. Windows is sort of a GUI version of the Mac’s operating system, and Linux is of course Unix, which stems from 1968. These are both old clunkers. So the question is, Where are the new operating systems likely to come from?
On IPv6 adoption and IETF:
Back when you attended the IETF, you all looked down your noses at the ITU (or I guess it was called CCITT at the time)—the entrenched, corporately manipulated, corrupt, competent standards being embodied in IT. We were the IETF—the swashbuckling, institution-oriented, open people, the rebels. That’s changed now. The Internet has arrived, and all of those people are now just like ITU: IETF has become the ITU.