The Chinese sage Mencius, 4th century BC, was asked by Prince Wen of Kung what
to about pressure from larger neighbors.



Mencius replied with a tale of King Tai of Pin, who in ancient times (which is
saying a lot, coming from him) had been under pressure from barbarians.  He
tried to appease them with tributes of furs and silk, to no avail.  Likewise
tributes of dogs and horses.  Ditto pearls and jade.  Finally he told the
elders that for their own good he had to migrate to another land.  Most of his
people followed, but there were others who said it was their ancient homeland,
built up over generations, not something for one person to throw away, and
they would rather die than abandon it.  Mencius told Prince Wen to make his
choice.



So, based partly on my own ancient recollections of a college course in
Classical Chinese, and partly on the original source in a textbook that I find
mysteriously harder to read than 35 years ago, I offer the following
modernized, "relevant" translation.



The IT Mgr of the Unix shop asked the Consultant saying, "I am under pressure
from the advocates of commodity computing.  How can I deal with them?"  The
Consultant answered saying "In ancient times, at least in computer years, the
Management of Cupertino was under pressure from the forces of
industry-standard computing.  They implemented Posix and could not stem the
tide.  They ported Apache and Samba and their ecosystem continued to erode.
They protected price-points and investments but market share did not increase.
Finally they told their oldest customers that for their own good they must
migrate to HP-(S)UX.  Most migrated, but there were also those who said it was
their System, built over many years, not something for one person to convert,
and they would rather suffer resume death than abandon it.  Pay me to make the
choice for you."

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