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BFS Creator Giampaolo Joins Apple

Posted by pudge on from the mmmmm-journaling-filesystems dept.

zephc writes "According to The Register, Dominic Giampaolo, creator of BFS, Be's journaling file system, has 'joined Apple as a file system engineer. He started last week.' As a Mac user and former BeOS user, I am delighted to hear this, as it has great implications for the future of filesystems on the Mac. The article is a great transcript with Dominic and another BeOS great, Benoit Schillings." Another user adds, "Interesting for a man who once said that Apple was the epitome of everything Be was not."

35 comments

  1. epitome by HughsOnFirst · · Score: 4, Funny

    "the epitome of everything Be was not".
    Still in business is the first thing that comes to mind unfortunately

    1. Re:epitome by rjamestaylor · · Score: 1

      Since Be Isn't then the rule "Apple == everything !Be" means Apple Is everything.

      --
      -- @rjamestaylor on Ello
    2. Re:epitome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Damn it! You made me laugh so hard, you owe me another pair of pants.

  2. I doubt he'll be porting BFS to Mac by LordNimon · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Chances are, he was hired to work as an OS X kernel developer, not necessarily as a file system developer. And even if he was hired in the file system group, it's still unlikely that he'll port BFS to Mac, because that's a brand new file system and its existance would just complicate things. He may, however, work on adding journalling to HFS, much like ext3 is a "journalling version" of ext2.

    I've been looking at Linux kernel development jobs in my area, and all of them are for people with very extensive experience (over three years in the Linux kernel itself, for example), particular people who have developed a major component of the kernel itself. Of course, 99% of these people already have good jobs, so these positions will go unfilled for months. Anyway, my point is that it doesn't surprise me that someone like Giampaolo has joing Apple, because it's just part of a trend - only people who have lots of experience in the field are getting job offers.

    --
    And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
    To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
  3. Deja Vu by aztektum · · Score: 2

    Deja Vu

    --
    :: aztek ::
    No sig for you!!
    1. Re:Deja Vu by zephc · · Score: 2

      in all fairness, look at the date (it was submitted before the original about him made it to the front page):

      2002-03-30 17:14:11 Dominic Giampaolo joins Apple (apple,apple) (accepted)

      --
      "I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
  4. cool by entheon · · Score: 1

    uh, I don't really know half of what these guys were chattering about but it was entertaining and I'm glad apple has dominic, sounds like a good guy. maybe I'll go hack up my own filesystem, I've been inspired.

    --
    I'm too lame for sigs
  5. As in: 'a viable company' by iamcadaver · · Score: 1
    "Interesting for a man who once said that Apple was the epitome of everything Be was not."
    --
    Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
    1. Re:As in: 'a viable company' by Ratso+Baggins · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Oh so witty....

      I see this as a follow-on effect from the dot-bomb. Now tallented people a prostituting themselves, because they have to. Very very sad really.

      --

      --
      "we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.

    2. Re:As in: 'a viable company' by Picass0 · · Score: 2

      Now tallented people a prostituting themselves, because they have to. Very very sad really.

      What, the guy gets a job with Apple and that's a bad thing? As if his work at Be was done out of charity?

      Did it occur to you that the influence of former Be developers could be a Good Thing(tm) for OSX?

      Also, any new file system Apple builds is going to be an open standard for the sake of Darwin development.

  6. lol by iamcadaver · · Score: 1

    Nothing really funny, just a /. loser that just noticed the aqua design on the mac posts....

    --
    Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
  7. This is proof... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that there indeed is a God.

  8. Metadata by AK47 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm hoping he'll be working on a metadata solution for the Mac OS X filesystem. The transition from 9's file type metadata to X's filename extension has been a big step backwards, and the BeOS is renowned for its handling of metadata. Perhaps Apple hired him with an eye towards imporving things?

    1. Re:Metadata by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amen to that. Filename extensions just royally blow.
      And of course imporvments are always welcome...

    2. Re:Metadata by SpotBug · · Score: 1


      That was my first thought too. Let's all cross our fingers.

      --
      cygnuhchur
    3. Re:Metadata by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Metadata is Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead get on with your lives Steve Jobs hates it and it will never EVER come back.. DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD

  9. Who manages this Apple news section? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Ummm... did anyone else notice this article was actually published on 03/29/02. Not exactly breaking news, folks. MacCentral is REAL source for up-to-the-minute Mac info/news.

    1. Re:Who manages this Apple news section? by crazyj · · Score: 2

      I think you meant to say MacCentral is the REAL source for up-to-the-minute Mac press releases pretending to be stories.

    2. Re:Who manages this Apple news section? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I love MacSlash, but you guys ain't much better then Slashdot when it comes to timely news...

  10. that would be a nice change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    only people in my area (utah) that get job offers are microsoft-certs and ITT *cough* professionals.

    unix is unheard of.

    people with experience are looked at like lunatics. (long story/subject...)

    no wonder novell is dead.

  11. Duplicate ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Damn you slashdot,
    and you get actually paid for this crap ?

  12. Let me know when... by qurob · · Score: 1

    ...Apple hires Jean-Louis Gassee
    :)

    1. Re:Let me know when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      did that, done that, fired

    2. Re:Let me know when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great, this time around he'd probably restart clones and almost kill Apple.

  13. competition? by CanadaMan · · Score: 1

    When I read this headline the first thing that I thought was that Apple wants to start working on something to compete with Microsoft's plan for a database file store in one of the upcoming versions of Windows, either Blackcomb or Longhorn. Probably Blackcomb. Of course, I'm not suggesting that Apple doesn't have engineers who couldn't do it without this fellow, but at least there is a sort-of-high profile guy they can garner some expertise from.

    --
    -- This sig is.
  14. Salon Smack-Down 1998 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    It's quite impressive how much smack-talk about Apple is in that Salon article, much of it from the author.
    • Giampaolo's "Apple is the epitome of what we don't want to be".
    • "...the difference between Be and Jobs' ill-fated NeXT was, Gassée replied, 'We don't shit on our developers.'"
    • Salon's smack parenthetical in "...draws people who have seen their favorite platform perish (Amiga, Atari, Acorn, Apple),". where Salon implies that Apple has perished.
    • The Ringwalde-Salon combo-smack "And unlike Apple, he says, 'The culture here breeds a number of supercapable, efficiently minded engineers...'". [he = Ringwalde].
    • Gassee's "What Apple had and still has is a hardware addiction. And they can't pull the needle". Which, if Apple listened to him, would mean I'd be using some black shit-brick gateway, dell or Toshiba or something instead of ma belle chere iBook.

    And of course a lot of other comments and a derogatory tone to the whole article w.r.t Apple. Quite a difference a few years makes, eh? It's nice that Apple has forgotten the smack-talking. OTOH, maybe they hired Giampaolo to get a better file system from him and then will set him up for a murder wrap and get him locked away for ever. Booyah!

  15. It is easy to switch filesystems if done correctly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is no reason Apple couldn't start using two file systems during a transition period. Just make the OS support both invisibly. Format only to the new one and ship new machines only with the new one. Yes metatags and such would be more difficult to handle but not impossible.

  16. Test Apple's resolve: ask them for BFS features! by depeche · · Score: 1

    If we are to really believe some of Apple recent rhetoric, they are listening to the community. There was a proposal floating around the net and a petition to support it. Also the 'Feedback' button on the MacOS X support page apparently is attached to some Apple interns or some such who actually sort through the comments. The fact that the resources to start adding more meta data and journaling to HFS+ are available at Apple may indicate that they are listening. The way to find out is to continue to let Apple know that the BFS and its features (along with the features of other good, modern file systems) should be brought to HFS+ and that meta data as the primary MacOS X file association system should grow, rather than diminish.

  17. Re:It is easy to switch filesystems if done correc by mattvd · · Score: 2

    This is true. And they do it now: HFS+ and UFS

  18. Epitome by Wise+Dragon · · Score: 1

    Whereas Be is now the Epitah of everything Apple was not the Epitome of.