once upon a time, there was a little group of unix sysadmins that ran mail servers. they did other things too, important and unnoticeable things, but mostly they made the mail go.

then events came to pass and the sysadmins were made to run mail on non-unix machines. they bought three years of service for the not-unix machines, and were sad, for they were unix admins and they liked unix, and not-unix is, well, not unix.

then more events came to pass, and one of the chiefs of the tribe for whom the unix sysadmins made mail go decided that he wanted to have exchange. specifically exchange, and none other would do, not even other non-unix products. and time passed, and there was exchange, courtesy of the little group of windows sysadmins.

then the oracle of the tribe fortold, the chief will have his other chief friends move to exchange too, because they will see his outlook and his calendar and his gadgetry, and think “wow, that’s neat, i want me some of that.”

and, the oracle continued, once all of the chiefs are on exchange, the group that runs all of the chiefs’ computers will offer exchange to everyone whose computers they run as well, because if you’ve got something you can offer, it makes sense to offer it to anyone who wants it and/or can pay for it. and people will pay for exchange, for it is shiny and they care not for quality of service but only for the shiny.

and lo, says the oracle, at the end of the three year contract for the non-unix mail machines, we will have many important people on exchange, and we will have two distinct and expensive mail systems to run, and it makes sense to only have one large expensive mail system for everyone. and since the oracle is a cynic, she commented under her breath that she didn’t think that exchange was going to be losing that particular fight.

and thus in three years, the little sysadmin group that just wanted to work on unix systems and make the mail go wouldn’t even have mail running on their non-unix systems, but wouldn’t have mail at all anymore, for mail would be in the hands of the little group of windows sysadmins instead. and although there would still be mailing list servers and usenet news servers in need of tender loving unix care, they are not so needy as to require a group of six to run them, for neediness is not the nature of unix.

and the unix sysadmins were sad at the oracle’s words, for they feared it was true, and although they liked their tribe and its pretty lands and neat people to work with, without unix they had no jobs, and without jobs they could not pay the rent on their hovels or buy jaunts of meat to roast on sticks.

now i know how roger deschner felt in 1996 when i called UICVM ‘obsolete.’