[no subject]

>> And what about a successful platform at its early stages, while it still
>> only have a single implementation - is it then a non-platform?
> 
> Any platform with hopes for success will be very careful in its
> definition, so that later "backward compatible" implementations can
> be easily created to satisfy growing market needs.

That's a pragmatic consideration.  I was asking whether it's a platform or
not when there's just one implementation, and you evaded that question.

>> I.e. is the word "platform" defined by commercial success rather than
>> technical merits?
> 
> Practically, it *is* defined by success, since all the unsuccessful
> platforms are irrelevant.

...yet an unsuccessful platform is still a platform, right?

> Technical merit is clearly also irrelevant,

Sadly yes -- Micro$oft is a clear proof of that.....

> since a huge number of very significant platforms were never designed
> to anticipate the degree of market success they have achieved, or have
> long since outgrown the foresightedness of their creators.

...yet you call them "platforms"....

> But this leads in the direction of a critique of "platform goodness"
> which is certainly a neverending discussion.  ;-)

A discussion I didn't intend to launch.  However I note that you call
all these "platforms", although with the qualifiers "unsuccessful
platform" or "insignificant platform".

Is an unsuccesful human being still a human being?  Is an insignificant
human being still a human being?  Is a human being which fails badly
in the marketplace still a human being?  Is a human being which
committs suicide while only a teenager still a human being?  Was the
recently passed-away Syd Barrett (founder and first lead member of the
rock band Pink Floyd who got mad from too much acid and then lived the
last decades of his life in isolation) a human being?  I believe
you would answer "yes" to all those questions.  Similarly, a platform
which is insignificant, which fails in the marketplace, and which perhaps
even is technically bad, is still a platform.
 
>>>Say what you will about Microsoft, they have been a powerful force
>>>of reality in a marketplace once addicted to fantasy.  The message
>>>is simple and Darwinian:  do a better job (than we do) giving customers
>>>what they want (a capable, affordable, unified platform), or die.
>> 
>> Nah, you've misunderstood Microsoft's message.  Instead it says: "do
>> a better job than we do in advertising, brainwashing customers to
>> believe there's no other feasible option than us".....
> 
> OK--but any marketing person will tell you that perception, however
> achieved or misguided, *is* reality in the marketplace.  This is
> particularly apparent in the area of politics.  ;-)

...at least in the US, where politics is more market-driven than in
perhaps any other country.  But in other countries there are other
kinds of politicians.  Consider for instance Nelson Mandela, former
president of South Africa.  Did he become president because he was the
richest candidate who could afford the biggest campaign?  No, he was a
prisoner for decades, accused for terrorism, who stood up for
fundamental human rights, with a stubbornness and preserverance which
few of us could bear - THAT made him a president.

> Put another way, people get what they deserve.  If they don't like
> it, smarten up the market!

In a way you're right.  And this applies to governments too: of they
don't like their government (e.g. because the government won't allow
then to vote); overthrow the government....

> -michael
> 
> Fast Sudoku solver for Apple II's!
> Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
> 
> "The wastebasket is our most important design
> tool--and it's seriously underused."
-- 
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