Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] funding free software R&D

[Andrew Suffield]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2003 at 01:58:31PM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>     Tom> The rule of thumb for the tech industry is "something
>     Tom> surprising will happen".  I think that rule of thumb is a bit
>     Tom> like Moore's Law: it wears out -- in our lifetimes -- soon --
> 
> What makes you so certain either is going to wear out?  You sound like
> the late 19th century physicists who declared that everything that was
> left was "engineering" (although Michaelson-Morley etc had already
> been done).  Yes, I know about the "absolute" physical limits, but
> they assume things like von Neumann architecture, no?

Worse, they assume "Everything we currently know is true". Once you
start building ideas on that, somebody _always_ comes up with some new
physics. Especially with quantum stuff around the corner, this is a
really bad time to assume our absolute physical limits are
particularly limiting.

And that's not even considering all the new design techniques and
workarounds that engineers keep coming up with. I've seen more stuff
with significant potential in the past couple of years than I can
count.

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ |
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