FreeBSD Guru Matt Dillon Interviewed

Jeremy writes: "KernelTrap has interviewed Matthew Dillon, a well-known FreeBSD kernel hacker. He has recently been in the spotlight due to many impressive NFS related bug fixes, as well as fixes to the TCP stack. In this interview he talks about these bug fixes as well as his history with computers, programming and FreeBSD. He also discusses Linux, open source, embedded systems, the Amiga (and his DICE C compiler), and much more."

Comments

fp

[Anonymous Coward]

I claim this anonymous first post for any logged in troll who wants it later. Frankly, in these quiet sections I don't think anybody could care less.

ps. *BSD is dying.

Matt Dillon?

[breon.halling]

From Drugstore Cowboy to FreeBSD kernel hacker -- Wow, now that's a career!

Great Quote from the Article

[Anonymous Coward]

"I admire Linus Torvalds for not going mad from all the raving lunatics who follow his every word as if it meant something really significant (Linus will be the first person to tell you that it doesn't)." -- Matt Dillon, of FreeBSD fame

Re:Great Quote from the Article

[Anonymous Coward]

I admire Matt Dillon for not running that POS called Linux

Really nice

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

To see so much measured, clear statements about both xBSD and Linux - without denegration or flamage. Matt's level discussion of VM issues and NFS speak for themselves, and doesn't need justification at the expense of other projects or systems.

I think that many of the "banner carriers" in the various user communities could do well to emulate this outlook!

MD's view of short-term fixes.

[Jayson]

This is why I hate bandaids. A bandaid, in the long term, only adds to the instability of a system. The correct solution is to make the code do what it is supposed to do and assert (panic the system) if it does something it isn't supposed to do. You might get a few panics in the short term, but in the long term you solve the problem. Permanently. Bandaids have the effect of causing problems to return and haunt you, sometimes for years. The dirty-cache-page bug was in the system for at least 3 years because of a bandaid.

This makes Matt my hero. I wish everybody (including me) believed and followed this more.

Re:MD's view of short-term fixes.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

This is the VERY reason the M$ will never be able to compete on a performance basis with FreeBSD, or with Linux - for that matter.

The deepest parts of the API have bits of what was originally written to be 16-bit code! Rebuild this with a 32-bit compiler, Woops! Now "band-aid" the stuff that breaks....

At least I can still run the Reversi app that shipped in 1986.

The obvious answer: *BSD is DYING!

[Anonymous Coward]

Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying

Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin [amdest.com] to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

Fact: *BSD is dead

Thank you BSD Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone want to mod that shit down?

The guy posts it bloody everywhere. For once it's an actual BSD-relevant article.

Flamingo Kid????

[Anonymous Coward]

Loved him in the Outsiders too.

Matt Dillion...

[ImaLamer]

... from the "Outsiders"?

[-1 *bsd people don't like jokes]

go Dillon!

[Anonymous Coward]

Matt is my hero!

Amiga Legend

[Lips]

For me Matt is an Amiga legend. He wrote so much for the Amis, his name is all over the Fish disks like a rash.