The government allowed Bell to maintain its monopoly position with the understanding that Bell Labs would work for the public good. In other words, Bell was unable to capitalize on what Bell Labs created. Bell Labs, in hindsight, is so significant because everyone else was able to take their research and do something with it.
Google has given us things here and there (the LLM craze stems from papers published by Google), but it seems most of the research they are doing stays within Google. For example, I expect you will struggle to find what you need to start a self-driving car company based on Waymo’s work.
> Google certianly had the talent
Including Bell Labs alumni. They used their time to create Go. If that isn't game changing, perhaps Bell Labs was also a product of its time?
It seems like there was something special about the innovation derived from collective spirit during that time, the 1940-1960s. Post-depression and -war momentum combined with major scientific and technology milestones that had to be passed, with a dynamic caused by an unprecedented global situation.
Some major drivers of innovation for that time period:
A lot of people were very recently very upskilled on the government's dime. A shitload of Navy personnel had just been trained on things like electrical engineering to better understand the radios and radars they were operating, and others were taught how computers worked and accidentally turned into early software developers.
Labor was in short supply so companies had to provide significant benefits and eventually pay to make their business work. Low level labor making more money directly enriches a majority of Americans at the time, and a rich base like that has more resources to devote to buying goods but also investigating WHICH goods are worth it, ie making market competition actually work instead of just being about who has the lowest sticker price, which is a direct result of modern americans being dirt fucking poor in money, time, attention, resources, etc. A shortage of labor and therefore increase in the wealth of the everyman may have also contributed to the renaissance.
The US was still PUMPING money into basic sciences and basic technology research. This is especially useful for materials science which feeds a lot of engineering.
So many people had been recently put into such high positions that there wasn't as much of a "Management class", workers were managing workers. People could focus on doing things instead of office politics, ass covering, and pretending to look busy to people who have no freaking clue what they are managing.
Germany lost IP protections for many things. This results in a fertile ground for innovation, because everyone can freely make a widget that matches the now invalid german patent X, so there is high compatibility in widgets, while also being high incentive to improve your version of Widget X in some way so you can patent that improvement, meaning there's a lot of exploration going on in the solution space. Patents explicitly freeze investment into large solution spaces, especially with how vague modern patents are, how incompetent and undertrained/understaffed the patent office is, and how hard it is to get a court to invalidate bullshit patents.
Basically all those things businesses insist are bad made the world better for consumers, and more importantly, people. State investment into the population paid huge dividends. Who could have guessed.
What was most special is that it was new, few were doing it, and so any achievements stood out and were able to make a splash. Nowadays you can't even step outside in a rural area and not bump into someone who is trying to make their mark.
We now see more achievements made each year than Bell Labs achieved in its entire history, but because of that there is no novelty factor anymore. It is now just the status quo, which doesn't appeal to the human thirst for something new. Mind-blowing discoveries made today are met with "meh" as a result.
It's kind of like a long-term relationship. In the beginning feelings are heightened and everything feels amazing, but as the relationship bonds start to grow those feelings start to subdue back down to normal levels. Without halting innovation for a time (perhaps a long time), to the point that we start to forget, I'm not sure there is any way to bring back the warm fuzzies.
Go is basically Limbo, with a bit of Oberon-2 sprinkled on top.
They got more lucky with Go than with either Limbo or Oberon-2, thanks to Google moat, Docker pivoting from Python to Go, Kubernetes pivoting from Java to Go, both projects hiting gold with devops community.
Google itself keeps being a Java and C++ shop for most purposes outside Kubernetes.
It doesn't seem that they ever really used Plan 9, though. Are you trying to imply that Bell Labs was just few trick pony, or what? I'm still not clear on what connection your story about Go/Limbo/Oberon-2 has to the topic at hand. It seems you forgot to include the conclusion?
Who are also the Go guys, but we already know that as it was already talked about much earlier in the thread. If you have some reason to return to that discussion, let it be known that you have not made yourself clear as to why.
> Punchline is without Google's moat, Go would have gone the way of Plan 9 and Inferno.
And that relates to the topic at hand, how? I am happy to wait. No need to rush your comments. You can get back to us when your conclusion that connects this all back to what is being talked about is fully written.
"Including Bell Labs alumni. They used their time to create Go. If that isn't game changing, perhaps Bell Labs was also a product of its time"
Failed twice to create anything else, only succeeded yet again thanks to Google moat and a set of lucky events caused by Docker and Kubernetes rewrite in Go, followed by their commercial success.
Bold claim that Go succeeded. A couple of software projects used by a tiny fraction of the population (hell, a tiny fraction of the software development population!) is of dubious success. Just about anyone's pet language can achieve that much. What sees you consider it to be more?
Also interesting that you consider UTF-8 to be a failure. From my vantage point, that was, by far, the most successful thing they created. Nearly the entire world's population is making use of that work nowadays. Most people can only dream of failing like that.
That conclusion, though... We still have no idea what this has to do with the topic at hand. Again, don't let me make you feel rushed to get your replies out. I am happy to wait until you are complete in writing that.
Given that you don't consider UTF-8 to be success, perhaps nothing is?
Explaining what any of this has to do with the topic at hand is definitely not a success. Is this supposed to be your admission that you have no idea what you are trying to say?
The government allowed Bell to maintain its monopoly position with the understanding that Bell Labs would work for the public good. In other words, Bell was unable to capitalize on what Bell Labs created. Bell Labs, in hindsight, is so significant because everyone else was able to take their research and do something with it.
Google has given us things here and there (the LLM craze stems from papers published by Google), but it seems most of the research they are doing stays within Google. For example, I expect you will struggle to find what you need to start a self-driving car company based on Waymo’s work.
> Google certianly had the talent
Including Bell Labs alumni. They used their time to create Go. If that isn't game changing, perhaps Bell Labs was also a product of its time?