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Top 10 Most Important Tech People of the Decade
KarmaWhore writes "For it's 10th anniversary Network Computing has put together what they consider to be the top ten people of the decade. Linus is number three. Gates is number two. " I dunno - lists like this are certainly useless - but it's always a fun debate.
And I'll bet that he later refuted that statement by claiming he was tired when he said it.
/HUMOR
Anyway, I definitely agree with Bill Gates' position on that list. Like the article said, whether you love him or hate him, there's no doubt he helped shape the computer industry into what it is today. (For those of you who doubt this is a good thing, we're HERE, aren't we?) Windows isn't the best OS on the planet for a lot of things, but it's inspired competition - and rigorous competition helps everyone. (I'm anxious to see an interface that can rival the Windows interface. It may not be the best OS there is, but there isn't an interface that comes close to the ease that Windows provides. That's the problem with X.)
If we had an interface that was as good as the Windows UI (and provided the same continuity! Important!), with the power and stability of Linux - the sky's the limit.
I was disappointed I didn't see MY name on the list, but....
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
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Where would Linux be without GCC and GNU Libc?
If that's your "best argument", you're neck-deep in buffalo dung, my friend, for that argument is exactly backwards.
Many of us were not only working on GNU software before Linux, we were using it, on a reasonably wide variety of underlying kernels -- SunOS, AIX (or whatever ran on RS/6000's in those days), and so on.
And I'm pretty sure when I started running Linux 0.96pl2 or whatever patch level it was, it already came with GNU utilities.
If there was indeed a time when Linux came without GNU stuff, the number of people using it was probably less than .1% of the number of people who were already using GNU software without the Linux kernel running underneath!
Not that I insist you change your mind now that you've been given a clue about GNU/Linux history...but you might want to consider either calling it GNU/Linux sooner, or maybe when (or if) people use Linux with non-GNU tools in greater numbers (and this has long been "threatened", anyway)...
If the FSF uses "Hurd" to denote both the kernel and the OS, that certainly suggests it's okay to use "Linux" to denote the whole GNU+Linux(+otherstuff) OS. But if they call it "GNU/Hurd", they'll be risking suggesting that "Hurd" is no more a creation of Project GNU (or the FSF) than is Linux, as well as implying a useful system could be put together out of the Hurd kernel plus non-GNU utilities (and these are, respectively, false and true), which might be too risky for them. (Then again, maybe the GNU toolchain will be considered ubiquitous by the time the Hurd gets widespread usage?)
In the meantime, the fact that RMS couldn't get through a slashdot interview (or response), in which he continued his attempts to promote the "GNU/Linux" name on the basis that honesty in naming is important, without himself resorting to "name games" to smear George W. Bush, calling him by the invented nickname "shrub", strongly suggests that RMS doesn't have sufficient moral authority to persuade anyone to use "GNU/Linux" over "Linux", even if he has many other good arguments for such a choice.
But, in case I have any moral authority (which does not seem likely to me), I do prefer "GNU/Linux" to denote the class of OS that combines the Linux kernel with GCC, glibc, and other GNU utilities, without denoting anything about a windowing system, graphics capabilities, or all that much about networking, etc., FWIW. And I still wish, or recommend, that Linus would decide to wean Linux off its dependency on GCC, which, last I checked, was quite excessive, leading to too many cases where Linux depends on being compiled by a particular version of GCC, and making it harder for a true non-GNU Linux OS to develop.
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
Steve Jobs would undoubtedly earn a spot in the top 5 in a list covering the 1970s or the 1980s. But in the 1990s?
Jobs turned Apple around, but Apple isn't really important to computing as a whole anymore, not with an 8% market share. They make nice, leading-edge machines, they have a nice UI, and they're swell at industrial design again, but with the exception of case design, Apple--and Steve Jobs--don't shape computing anymore.
Where's Jeff Hawkins? He's arguably the inventor of the first practical PDA. Just as Apple deserves enormous credit for making existing "outsider" technologies palatable in the '70s and '80s, Palm should get props for making the handheld computer into something for the masses back in '97.
Perl, Perl, Perl!!! Where would Apache be without it? ...or Slashdot for that matter.
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