Accidental Heroes

UNIX (in its many variants) is the OS at the heart of modern IT. It also is behind three of the four top desktop OS's (MAC OS X, Linux and, when available, Google's Chrome). It is the foundation for iPhone OS and Android. In short it's everywhere.

I like UNIX and have been working with it for nearly 20 years. You may already know that UNIX originated as a small reseach project of at AT&T in the late 60's. But what you probably don't know is that one of its creaters is gobsmacked that it became adopted for use as a commercial OS - for that was never the intent of the project. How do I know this - well I worked with one of the creators relatives and she told me.

Now let's look at Java. I don't have the stats but it is one, if not the, biggest language in use in enterprise IT today. Unlike UNIX however, Java, was written as a commercial product. It was a language developed for appliances - yes appliances. TV's, fridges, washing machines and the like. It was never intended for use in enterprise IT.

So what's the common denominator - well there are two that I can think of. Firstly both were given away free at some stage of their life, but more significantly they grew out of projects of somewhat humble origins and expectations. This is a phenomenon that is not uncommon in Research Science in that some of the greatest discoveries and developments have been accidental, for example Fleming's discovery of penicillin. So my point is that when somebody tries to sell you the future of the IT they're probably wrong. They can't know because the next accident may not yet have even occured.