When almost every new issue is presented as a revolution your senses are already worn out and a certain apathy occurs. Rarely start you at hearing a piece of news and ideas may be treated as publicity slogans. nevertheless, there is a category of people who remain cureless optimists, attached to certain hopes that they don't betray even when a few evidencies to the contrary come up. I am a member of this category and the topic which I refuse to see pessimistically is obviously the Internet.

More than that, the subtopic "Romania and the Internet" makes me fuss a lot, irrespective of the disappointments that I come across every day. I could say. The launching of Oracle8i was for me a major event with large consequences at the geographical and computerized levels. I wrote on the technical part in PC magazine and so did my colleagues at the PC Report and Byte. I will now refer to some discussions that we had on the implications of this true revolution of computer science in Romania at the end of the millenium. From an economical point of view, Oracle8i is maybe the most valid solution for the countries that begin to build now their overall computer systems.

The promised costs, 10 times smaller, may be a starting point but I think that the real one is the shifting of the philosophy of building a large system on the Internet. Given the possibility that various moduli from different parts could be integrated rapidly and efficiently and offering at the same time a common development environment and choosing from the very beginning a technological top, Oracle8i comes as a panaceum which can rule out in a large degree the fragmentation and incompatibility.

What is more, no local solution is rejected that would lead to a monopol transfer from a long defamed Microsoft to a superpraised Oracle. Talking to Peter Jensen, director of Oracle ECMEA Server Technology after the official launching of Oracle8i, at the cocktail :), I understood the company was concerned with the evolution of computer science in Romania; they didn't want quick answers but a partnership to prepare a virtual market in a time that would really allow the mentalities' adjustment, in the first place.

At present, the Internet is still a luxury in Romania, not only because of the subscription price but also because of the raised costs of telephonic appeals. Other impediments are: legislative gaps regarding piracy through computerized technologies (I mean any type of piracy, from credit cards to programmes' stealing), the lack of adequate means of transfer for goods and money, the lack of consideration for the Internet as a tool and the stubborness with which a lot of people would think of it as entertainment.

All these and maybe more make the adoption of a global technical solution at national, company or registered unity level an adventure buried under a mountain of bureaucracy most of the times. Oracle8i takes a step forward, you are on the Internet whether you like it or not and you let the problems take their own course or maybe just to be disolved by a "That's it". This product may be an opening to another type of looking at our present situation which is not a very happy one. It may be that the philosophy that says that "Internet changes everything" will diminish or even stop the hemorrhage of young people who wish they lead another kind of life.

Working here and getting more in touch with a different civilisation (whatever you may say, the West is another civilisation, if not better at least more normal in my opinion) the wonder may produce for the aspirants to fresh air so they could get an attitude and do here what they'd like to do there. Utopia? So what?