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UNIX Creators To Receive Pender Award

Posted by simoniker on from the long-ago-and-far-away dept.

jellings writes "Dennis Ritchie and Kenneth Thompson will be recipients of this years' Harold Pender Award, given "to an outstanding member of the engineering profession who has achieved distinction by significant contributions to society" by the University Of Pennsylvania School of Engineering. Under the direction of Pender, ENIAC was born, and under Ritchie and Thompson, UNIX was born."

21 comments

  1. Only now? by Randolpho · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So why haven't they already been awarded years ago?

    --
    "Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
    -Marilyn Manson
    1. Re:Only now? by xenocide2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Probably because the lingering ghosts of Operating Systems past have left the public eye. UNIX wasn't always considered the big-iron behemoth it is today. There was a time when people percieved UNIX in the same way the typical slashdotter views MS Windows today. "The good news is that in 1995 we will have a good operating system and programming language; the bad news is that they will be Unix and C++."

      The legends of UNIX hold that original version was put together hastily (the filesystem was designed overnight), and for the express purposes of playing spacewar. How much of that is true and how much comes from lying MUTLICS sympathists, I'll never know. But only with time has UNIX become something worthwhile. Perhaps the award is for being the first decent example of an iterative development cycle?

      --
      I Browse at +4 Flamebait

      Open Source Sysadmin

    2. Re:Only now? by Randolpho · · Score: 1

      Interesting article. Thanks! :)

      --
      "Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
      -Marilyn Manson
    3. Re:Only now? by AtrN · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They were. Read all about it.

    4. Re:Only now? by MagikSlinger · · Score: 1

      It was nice to read this article again; I had only read part of it before. What I like is a LISP fetishist owning up to the problems of his language community then encouraging them to be (gasps of horror) practical.

      --
      The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
  2. I would expect... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Torvalds, Cox, and Stallman get that similar award.

    After all, the free software was pushed by Torvalds and Cox by providing a free Nix under the gpl that pushes software in an open way.

    And of course, Stallman, for writing Gnu C. No other FOSS comiler existed for C until he made it. And it was used in many unixes, NExT, Linux, *BSD, MacOS 10, and Linux with compilers also for WIndows. I'd say he would qualify for it too.

    --
    1. Re:I would expect... by anomalous+cohort · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I see your point. Ritchie and Thompson made significant contributions to the Society of Engineering and to telcos but not to general Society (unless you want to count all those telephone switches that ran off of some variation of Unix). It was Torvalds, et. al, that brought Unix to the masses.

      I remember buying Microport Unix for the PC back in the late 80's for $1000. There certainly wasn't going to be a lot of wide adoption at that price.

    2. Re:I would expect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox didn't contribute any significant design effort, just "yet another implementation", and not the only free one either, even at that time (although this was somewhat ambiguous until the BSD lawsuit was settled). So you'd be awarding them for...using the GPL? That hardly seems worth an engineering award.

      Richard Stallman did contribute some new ideas that became popular (Emacs) and even spawned independent implementations. The GNU C compiler was also just "yet another implementation" of somebody else's ideas, but it was among the first high-quality free compilers and currently is probably the best cross-platform multi-language compiler.

      Somehow I feel that engineering awards should be limited to contributions that had something significantly new and unique (at the time) about them.

    3. Re:I would expect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      speaking of wide adoption, got goatse?

  3. Ho Ho, Mr. Gates! by kurosawdust · · Score: 1

    stick that in your pipe and grep it!

  4. SCO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Shouldn't this really go to SCO? They own Unix and all derived works.

  5. In other news.... by orthogonal · · Score: 5, Funny

    In other news, SCO's Darl McBride plans to rush the stage during the presentation, grab the Pender award, and bill UPenn, Dennis Ritchie, and Kenneth Thompson $699 each before running off with the award.

    McBride will then issue a press release claiming that the award was always his, but Ritchie and Thompson copied his citation for the award and scratched his named out, inserting theirs. The press release will explain that the original citation is "double secret", but can be revealed to anyone willing sign an NDA and read it in a Greek font.

    The next morning, McBride will attempt to dump the award on Wall Street for 2000% of its appraised value.

    --
    Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
    1. Re:In other news.... by mugnyte · · Score: 4, Funny

      ..AND sue UofP for their obvious participation in the outlaw OSS movement to discredit SCO's invention: UNIX, and all things command line.

      Actually, they just release PR about the lawsuit, but it never gets filed. As the stock rises, the overseas mansions fill up with hummers and marble and gold. The angry legions approach Utah driving truckloads of evidence to the courthouse. Darl stares down from the steel monolith, smirking. In SCO-issue sunglasses, the admin knocks on his door. "Your helicopter is waiting, Mr McBride."

  6. A whole bunch of other awards also... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    The Herbert T. Wack award
    The Joanne Dawson award
    The MooMoo Fleacatcher medal
    The Anonymous Coward special prize
    The Ryan, Dan, Andrew award (Wisconson, USA)
    The anti-Bill Gates snub
    The Kevin T. Rinkel award of excellence
    The Christina Mottleshmidt award
    The Coca-Cola bottle-on-my-desk award
    The Post-it notes grand jury prize
    The Stapler statue
    The lined-notebook award

    OK, OK... you got me... I made them all up!
    Who is this Pender dude?

  7. But when will they be awarded...... by FrostyWheaton · · Score: 3, Funny

    The first annual Mongomery Burns award for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence??

    --
    Comments should be like skirts. Short enough to keep your attention, but long enough to cover the subject
  8. This is perfect timing! by Roofus · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've nearly completed my port of Unix to ENIAC! Thus, the circle will be completed.

  9. Re:SCO did copy code from Multics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    SCO did copy the source code from MULTICS for Unix SCO

    Tanembaum and Linuz did copy the source code from MULTICS for Minix and Linux

    Linuz didn't copy source code from SCO Unix else MULTICS!!!

    open4free

  10. The real problem with Unix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    If the latest revalations regarding IBM's possible leakage of copyrighted Unix code into Linux have proven anything, it is that using any derivative of this outdated operating system is a legal disaster waiting to happen. Not only is Linux licensed under the anti-business GNU General Public License, but it turns out that commercial code may have been unlawfully added, making it illegal to use or distribute.

    This should suprise no one familiar with the history of Unix. The earliest version was an unlicensed ripoff of the proprietary Multics operating system, and was partly responsible for destroying the market for this pioneering operating system. The Berkeley Shareware Distribution (BSD) was sued by AT&T in the early 1990s, for openly distributing copyrighted code in its public-domain source releases. As if this wasn't enough, it turned out that AT&T had also broken the license on code they had taken from BSD, leaving both sides forced to essentially accept the other's illegal behavior in order to avoid stiffer penalties.

    Reputable software companies such as Microsoft, though initially interested in Unix, have learned to steer clear of the mess of standards, licenses, and conflicting intellectual property rights that Unix forms. Microsoft Windows XP is the latest release of Microsoft's flagship version of Windows, built from the ground up in the early 1990s based on the most modern concepts in operating systems, without any legacy baggage from the 1970s. And it is available essentially for free, preloaded on hardware from all major manufacturers. There is really no reason to use anything else, unless you need a truly high-performance computing system such as IBM's proprietary OS/390 or HP's OpenVMS.

  11. SCO next time? by karearea · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Obligatory SCO comment - after all SCO owns UNIX

  12. Engineers by __aafkqj3628 · · Score: 1

    So, is this proof that programmers ARE engineers?

  13. Roseanne Rosannadanna says... by SEWilco · · Score: 1

    I think the Bender Award is more important due to its indication of the continuing growth of Unix. Because Bender looks further ahead to the future, he knows the value of Unix. It apparently also will survive both global warming and nuclear winter. But I'm not sure how much of an honor it is to get an award from Bender.