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0 pointsmorsch13y ago0 comments

Not really. Not all contributions are equal. For every contribution A there is a likelihood L(A, X) that is the chance of someone else making the same contribution within time X.

It seems completely reasonable to rank contributions with low values for L (for a given X) higher than others. People are claiming that Microsofts contributions have very high values for L, ie. if MS hadn't come up with it, someone else would have in short order. Furthermore, people are claiming the same is not true for other contributions, e.g. TBL "inventing" the web, or what have you.

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pmelendez13y ago

I am agreed with you but still codeka point is valid. Granted for a given X there would be low values of L that make the contribution irrelevant. What I differ from you is saying that X is static. Einstein might helped to get the atomic bomb working faster, but there are good chances that eventually it would come out anyway.

Anyway, discarding contributions in that way seems disingenuous in the best case. What would happen if Newton wouldn't invent Calculus? Well somebody else would invent it later but we should be thankful that that didn't take 100 years more.

tedunangst13y ago

How soon we forget. If TBL hadn't invented the web, we all would have had to wait six months for gopher to come out. Hell, SGML + FTP is practically the same as the web, and that was around for years.

morschOP13y ago

Heh. I knew that whatever example I came up with, someone would come along and bash it.

tedunangst13y ago

Just goes to show, there's not much point in identifying "inevitable" innovations. History quickly forgets the also-rans.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsmorsch13y ago0 comments

Not really. Not all contributions are equal. For every contribution A there is a likelihood L(A, X) that is the chance of someone else making the same contribution within time X.

0 comments

pmelendez13y ago

tedunangst13y ago

morschOP13y ago

Heh. I knew that whatever example I came up with, someone would come along and bash it.

tedunangst13y ago

Just goes to show, there's not much point in identifying "inevitable" innovations. History quickly forgets the also-rans.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse