On the floor of summer USENIX 83

[PAD Powell[Admin]]

Vicious?  Nasty?  Come on people!!!  You clearly have not been to any
sort of contract negotiations with some of the big boys like IBM,
Univac, etc.   At least the arguments were technical in nature,  and to a
certain extent attacking a philosophical/technocratic bias.  Wait until
you get down to the "Where the hell is that junk you promised us?  We paid
real money for it,  and you  guilty-of-incestuous-and-buggery-offsprings
have sat on this,  we are 6 months/years/decades behind schedule, and now
you tell us we have to buy a complete new hardware suite to run the thing?"
Persons who have lived with IBM will remember several occaisions when the
egg was on their faces...  and red ink was the order of the day.

Patrick ("I think that Bob Pike has heard a lot worse") Powell