Slashdot Mirror
Dennis Ritchie Interviewed
An anonymous reader writes "Unix.se has published an interview with Dennis Ritchie (inventor of C, co-creator of Unix)." Not very technical, but Dennis shares his thoughts on GNU, kernel design, and more.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Please support his OS - Plan 9. If you won't do it for the geeky sake, please..do it for Glenda!
,
faeryman
Interesting how modern day critics claim the gnu project to be too political, and try to rephrase free software rhetoric to be more palatable (sic) for business and those of a less "leftist" mindset, and he has the same beliefs, but for such a different reason: he existed before computing and software were touched by politics. He was co-developing UNIX before printer companies decided to have software contractors signing NDAs and closing off the specs, or vendor lock-ins.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
CowboyNeal: Wow an interview with a famous guy! Let's post it
CmdrTco: But the article is short and doesn't give any insights into anything
CowboyNeal: Whatever, let's post the story and get drunk
This isn't a troll, I really think this must have happened.
Back in the "good old days", operating systems weren't portable, so you were locked in from the start.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Not to nitpick, but there's just about one sentence on kernel design in the interview. Misleading storyline
I annot wait till his opyright on the letter " " expires.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
I would have expected an interview with him about how great he is, how great his invention C is, etc. However, I was really amazed. He seems rather low key and does not seem to have that superiority complex that plagues some idividuals. He seems like a human being with an interest in computers. I like this. It is a welcome read after listening to my professors make fun of people with their heads on tripods, when they should look in the mirror cause they have the biggest heads on the most massive tripods ever seen.
I would have liked to see longer answers and in more detail to some of his questions. Although, I can say tersness can be a desired trait.
Reserved Word.
Ok, the guy is venerated by many and was behind Unix, the C language etc, but does he really have anything relevant to say about what is going on in the world today. Of course we will never know if the interviewers only ask a few questions and settle for short, vague answers. His comments left me with no new understanding of anything... from the interview it seems as though he hasn't really been doing anything at all. He said just enough to leave a bad taste in my mouth. In particular I disagree with his view of free software. Of course they had to reinvent the wheel on a lot of things to get Linux/freeBSD or any free software going. All the stuff that wasn't free was copyrighted. We are getting to the point now that there is a free foundation for sofware upon which developers can build more innovative things(not that there was a complete lack of innovation to begin with). In any event, Linux couldn't be en-vogue forever, but that doesn't mean it's not good. People shouldn't bash a good thing just because they're tired of hearing about it.
My Blog
Any thoughts about the GNU project? How did you first learn about it?
Dennis Ritchie: (snip).... At the same time, much of it seems to have to do with recreating things we or others had already done; it seems rather derivative intellectually; is there a dearth of really new ideas?
Yes. One of the inventors of Unix is wondering why the GNU (and by extension Linux) community is rebuilding something he made 30 years ago. I've been wondering the same thing myself. Aren't there any better ideas in the past 3 decades?
Has anybody else taken a look at his other lives?
I was laughing when I read the one in Brazil.
That's it. I am not using C, Unix and Unix Derivatives ever again. Oh, wait...
getSexySig();
Right. Taking the path of least resistance, with no regard for ideology or ethics is the perfect thing to do. I use free software both because it meet my needs and as my personal "fuck off" to the Microsofts and Apples (yeah, you heard me you marketing-whores) of the world. I can understand people using Microsoft because they have to (because they have some business that requires it, for instance.) But using it just out of sheer desire to propogate the status quo? That's just lazy. It's fine to adhere to one ideology or the other. Not adhering to any ideology at all is just a bee-line to decadence. You sir represent everything that is wrong with this world.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The network is the computer.
The correct machine for the job runs your code, be it your desktop, the server, the toaster down the hall in building 2.
I've played, I sorta like. It doesn't offer enough of an advantage over *NIX for me to change. Maybe when everybody has fiber to the desktop and people have evolved to want to share then maybe Plan9 will be more than a neat research too.
While I agree the Plan 9 license isn't the best in the world, some of us aren't all that excited about software under the GPL or even LGPL. Stallman urges developers away from the Apache license let alone the Plan 9 license.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
I use free software both because it meet my needs and as my personal "fuck off" to the Microsofts and Apples of the world.
Reality Check:
Some programmers (like me) have spent years working on products like Mac OS X so that you can use a computer as a tool. See, we believe that the machine should help you get something done, and get the heck out of the way otherwise.
For some people, that means having txtfiles config everything, because their brains are capable of modeling the operation of the whole machine in their head.
For others (like me) I'd rather see the computer go off and do the stuff I can't, and simplify the user interaction so that the user can keep their problem in their head.
What the original poster was saying is that too many geeks forget that "how the computer works" is the problem they use computers to solve, and most other users have totally different problems, and wish us geeks would stop imposing our problemset on them.
So if you want to tell MS and Apple to fuck off, don't do it because they serve an "ideology" different from yours. GUI/CLI design is not a zero-sum game.
I guess you'd think that the boycott of Nestle baby milk, or not buying cosmetics products tested on animals, or not buying CDs because there the RIAA do things you don't like - I guess you'd think all those things are stupid yes?
Because really people will make political statements about things all the time. Most stuff is political, even if you don't realise it. Politics is just one facet of the interactions of humans. So, if people wish to take the piss out of Microsoft because they've done bad things, let them.
use a desktop computer and desktop software that actually works - to be productive instead of to feel technically and morally "superior" (whatever that means).
I'm under the distinct impression that believing you are the paragon of rationality who would never even conceive of using anything but the best tool for the job (in your opinion) actually makes you feel morally and technically superior.
Just because some people consider more than one factor when choosing a product, doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means they have different priorities to you.
not easy to summarise
: /dev/mouse
:
/net/tcp/clone} # ( `{} is like bash's `` )
/net/tcp/$conn/ctl /net/tcp/$conn/data /net/tcp/$conn/data
try reading the papers
user level file systems
Instead of having one protocol for interrogating the disks, one for the network etc. plan9 uses the 9p protocol. In this way the physical devices are abstracted and one can use a single set of tools to inspect them. It taes the concept of Everything is a file to it's logical conclusion.
Want to know where the mouse is : cat
Get slashdot homepage using the shell
conn = `{cat
<[4] $conn { # keeps it open
echo 'connect slashdot.org!80' >
echo 'GET http://slashdot.org/ HTTP/1.0' >
cat
}
I wrote an irc bot as an exercise in rc. It dangerously executes given commands and returns the results
There are also other great technologies.
Incremental backups are built in.
Acme is an interactive editor that does all sorts of interesting things.
The plumber - forget file associations. The plumber uses regular expressions and executes whatever commands you would like it to for a set of given strings. So if you see http://slashdot.org in ANY piece of on-screen text, right click and select plumb and it will open it. [hehe not it plan9's web browser - that is one area seriously lacking.
The really sad part is that Lucent's financial troubles means that people have been shed from Bell-Labs. No-one is being paid to maintain plan9 any more. The heroes remaining and some outside [Rob Pike, Russ Cox, Dave Pressotto, C H Forsyth, et. al.] are doing it in their own time. And doing a great job.
I could go on but I need to leave the house. [that always seems to be the case when plan9 gets mentioned here!]
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Plan 9 is supposed to correct what's wrong with the development Unix after Unix was "embrace and extended" by the Unix commercial vendors.
I used Plan 9 for about 9 months back in 1996. Here are some of the ideas behind it.
Everything in the system are files: This was a simple notion but powerful abstraction. Everything in the system is access through the file system API and all objects in the system have a representation in the file systems including low level network and graphics.
A per process private file name system: Plan 9 has the notion of a private file name space for each process. That means that I can create file system namespace on a individual process level.
A file system base network protocol call 9P All network services for Plan 9 are export as files to another machine.
A single sign on authentication system This has been featured a while ago. Check it out here
With these simple abstraction, you can do really cool things:
Build upon this and taking the Unix Small is Beautiful approach to problem solving. Plan 9 allows each program to perform small tasks well and provide the way to unified them together through private file name space.
Plan 9's design has a lot of impact on Linux, probably more then Linus would admit. /proc file system, process as thread, and others. These abstract can be traced back to Plan 9. Seeing those implementation on Linux (a traditional Unix clone), it become evidenced why original Unix folks like Dennis Richite wanted to start a new project to correct the mistakes of Unix. ;)
Plan 9 From Bell Labs is the Plan 9 manifesto. Good overview into the system and the rest of the documents.
Someone posted a parody on aus.tv of Dennis Ritchie being interviewed on an AOL chat session. It's more a jab at the AOL'ers, but I thought it was quite good.
It does make you curious as to what the exact arguments of these people against Linux are. Especially since Linux has become such a fine platform for desktop environments (KDE, Gnome) nowadays. In most people's experience, Linux has been more reliable on the desktop as well as the server for quite some time.
The person who invented Unix is doing what the rest of the world does - use a desktop computer and desktop software that actually works
I'm glad Dennis Ritchie validated your view of the world for you.
He uses Windows as an X-terminal and for web browsing and Office. Big deal - personally I think he is nuts since my favourite web browser, Galeon runs on Linux, and Linux makes a much better X client than Exceed running on NT. I use OpenOffice, and on the rare occasion I need to use MS Office I can fire it up in vmware.
That is what makes a productive and useful tool for me. But hey, I'm not Dennis Ritchie, so what do I know?
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
You, sir, have not even the faintest idea what you are talking about. There will always be a place for programmers, as 99% of software development is not done developing proprietary commercial software. People and companies will always need software, so there will always be people paying to have software developed, it doesn't matter how it's licensed, it's needed and will be paid for, or volunteer groups will develop it and/or businesses will help fund development. Just look at Mozilla, Linux, GNU, BSD(even more difficult as not all improvements make it back in), Open Office, Gnome, KDE, Konqueror fer Chrissake!, Gimp, Vim, Emacs, Wine(an open source reimplementation of windows!), MPlayer, Xine. Just browse around Freshmeat and SourceForge. There are some huge projects there, among all the little ones, done by volunteers. Then when businesses help out, even more gets done. IBM, HP, RedHat, etc. are all putting money into furthering Linux development, because it helps them. It might not make as much money over the short term as proprietary software, but proprietary software is a bad business.
Proprietary software is a bad business because you can't expect people to buy the same products over and over, forever. Physical products are a different matter, as they wear out, get damaged, etc. Think about it for a second. Businesses, schools, governments, all spend billions of dollars on the same software over and over again. Why should they do that? Some organizations that buy proprietary software spend so much(hundreds of millions of dollars per year) on software licensing, that they could fund development of their own software to replace said proprietary software. Depending on what they need, how much they spend, etc., after one year they could have already saved money. Being more conservative, a lot of organizations could look at things over the long term, and be saving money within 5 or 10 years by developing their own software, or helping develop existing free software.
Seriously, you're stupid if you don't see that. The only reason to stick with spending hundreds of millions on software is simply that that is the status quo. Governments and companies are starting to realize that. That's why so many European governments and companies, even the U.S. government and companies, are starting to get involved with "free software". They plan to save money, and have better software.
The things you are saying are unworkable, are already being put into practice.
How long has it taken to get HURD to a semi-useable state again?
Ok, now that's just absolute stupidity. Linux was developed, licensed under the GPL no less so there goes your implication that an OS kernel is too difficult a task to be completed by groups of volunteers, and HURD development was no longer necessary.
Not only are you flat out wrong, you are bordering on being, as another poster said, libelous, with your possibly intentional disinformation regarding software licensing.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
It does make you curious as to what the exact arguments of these people against Linux are.
Simple: technically Linux is not that impressive... hear me out before you moderate this as a troll:
Suppose a bunch of volunteers got together in a garage and built a clone of the space shuttle. This would be an amazing feat, but nobody would claim that this makes the design of the shuttle any less outdated or flawed.
Linux is a clone of a decades-old operating system... let me correct that, Linux is the best Unix clone out there, but to quote Rob Pike "Linux's cleverness is not in the software, but in the development model".
Linux has no novel user model, no new UI metaphor, no replacement for the X11 mess (still waiting for display postscript). It has no alternative to the all or nothing Unix security model (root/luser), it has not improved over the "everything is a file" innovation from Unix.
That is why innovators like Rob Pike, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson are not that impressed with Linux.
(heck, not even a decent replacement for the X11 mess... still waiting for
This is is the paradox of freedom: maintenance of freedom requires the limitation of freedom. For example maintaining your right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness necessarily requires a limitation of my right to kill, imprison and otherwise abuse you -- even if your death would make me ever so happy.
Similarly, maintainence of your right to the freedom to use GPL software requires a limitation of my right to 'imprison' that same software.
You choose your poison, you pay your price.
Unabridged libertarianism is little more than the thinly disguised right of the strong to enslave the weak.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
As Dr. Evil once said: put that in your pipe and smoke it. Yeah, I said pipe.
Okay!
$ echo "Dennis Ritchie uses NT" | smoke
It must feel good to be able to put that on a resume.
--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
Sigh. I don't know if this is cute or sad.
' "Pieces that are good and pieces that are not." What project is this NOT true of?'
Um...Unix? Unix V.6? Have you read the source for it? It's brilliant! It's occasionally scary and convoluted, but it's GOOD CODE! Linux is an unholy mishmash of some good code, and some deeply sucky code that barely works at all. Sendmail is good code. BIND is good code.
Linux taken seriously on the non-X86 platform is being left to the manufacturers. The various ports of Linux to Sparc processors, for instance, most definitely do NOT hold up! SunLinux will hold up, because it's being developed by Sun for Sun.
Why is it that whenever anyone points out some of the valid and legitimate problems with (a)Linux, or (worse!!!) (b) Open Source development as a philosophy they're categorised as either Microsoft apologists or obsolete? (depending on their respect in the *ix world)
Here's a trick. Go back and reread the article. Think about WHY Ken would say what he did. Think about WHY Dennis Ritchie is fairly unimpressed with Linux. Think about WHY Bill Joy is frightened by the future of computing. Quit dismissing them as 'old farts from before I was born' and you might learn something. God forbid, you might even become a better developer/admin/geek.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban