Slashdot Mirror
Andy Tanenbaum on 'Who Wrote Linux'
Andy Tanenbaum writes "Ken Brown has just released a book on open source code. In it, he claims (1) to have interviewed me, and (2) that Linus Torvalds didn't write Linux. I think Brown is batting .500, which is not bad for an amateur (for people other than Americans, Japanese, and Cubans, this is an obscure reference to baseball). Since I am one of the principals in this matter, I thought it might be useful for me to put my 2 eurocents' worth into the hopper. If you were weren't hacking much code in the 1980s, you might learn something." Tanenbaum's description of the interview process with Brown is classic. See also Slashdot's original story and Linus' reply.
where, ten years after he first had this argument, he still feels obliged to rag on Linux's design as a monolithic kernel as a bad design decision. This from a man who describes true multitasking and multi-threaded I/O as "a performance hack."
Bitter much?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Poor old Ken Brown must be wondering how wise it was to have made that particular trip now! :-)
Curious that someone would spend all that cash and yet have done so little research. Smells of hidden agendas, or no-so-hidden agendas perhaps?
The best part has to be: "But the code was his. The proof of this is that he messed the design up."
Whi is writing the history? the winner or the who loose?
It seems that as of now no written history is correct, who can we trust? Buy a book for ×$ and learn history that is incorrect is not good.
------- In the end there are no begining
Why are microkernels a bad idea?
Torvalds Vs Tanenbaum. I've never used MINIX, but I believe the source code is out there somewhere, although AFAIK, it's not free software.
I've often wondered what things will be like when Hurd is ready, and we'll have GNU and GNU/Linux, and all those BSDs, and OS X all in usage.
And then we'll probably still have to worry about making stuff look right in IE 6, because Microsoft takes forever to update it.
Join the Free Software Foundation
...slashdotted after only a few comments!
Ydco co
Andrew Tanenbaum discovers slashdot effect. Adti disputes it, citing that others discovered it first and that Tannenbaum just copied it.
This just all looks like a classic case of shouting out some blatantly false statement and running... Leaves behind a trail of people bouncing up and down trying to drown out the initial totally false message. We should just point out the idiocy of the book and move on. (ps /. already?)
--
visiting italy? http://alltuscany.com
Some Notes on the "Who wrote Linux" Kerfuffle, Release 1.1
Background
The history of UNIX and its various children and grandchildren has been in the news recently as a result of a book from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Since I was involved in part of this history, I feel I have an obligation to set the record straight and correct some extremely serious errors. But first some background information.
Ken Brown, President of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, contacted me in early March. He said he was writing a book on the history of UNIX and would like to interview me. Since I have written 15 books and have been involved in the history of UNIX in several ways, I said I was willing to help out. I have been interviewed by many people for many reasons over the years, and have been on Dutch and US TV and radio and in various newspapers and magazines, so I didn't think too much about it.
Brown flew over to Amsterdam to interview me on 23 March 2004. Apparently I was the only reason for his coming to Europe. The interview got off to a shaky start, roughly paraphrased as follows:
AST: "What's the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution?"
KB: We do public policy work
AST: A think tank, like the Rand Corporation?
KB: Sort of
AST: What does it do?
KB: Issue reports and books
AST: Who funds it?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is SCO one of them? Is this about the SCO lawsuit?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is Microsoft one of them?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
He was extremely evasive about why he was there and who was funding him. He just kept saying he was just writing a book about the history of UNIX. I asked him what he thought of Peter Salus' book, A Quarter Century of UNIX. He'd never heard of it! I mean, if you are writing a book on the history of UNIX and flying 3000 miles to interview some guy about the subject, wouldn't it make sense to at least go to amazon.com and type "history unix" in the search box, in which case Salus' book is the first hit? For $28 (and free shipping if you play your cards right) you could learn an awful lot about the material and not get any jet lag. As I sooned learned, Brown is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was already suspicious. As a long-time author, I know it makes sense to at least be aware of what the competition is. He didn't bother.
UNIX and Me
I didn't think it odd that Brown would want to interview me about the history of UNIX. There are worse people to ask. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I spent several summers in the UNIX group (Dept. 1127) at Bell Labs. I knew Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and the rest of the people involved in the development of UNIX. I have stayed at Rob Pike's house and Al Aho's house for extended periods of time. Dennis Ritchie, Steve Johnson, and Peter Weinberger, among others have stayed at my house in Amsterdam. Three of my Ph.D. students have worked in the UNIX group at Bell Labs and one of them is a permanent staff member now.
Oddly enough, when I was at Bell Labs, my interest was not operating systems, although I had written one and published a paper about it (see "Software - Practice & Experience," vol. 2, pp. 109-119, 1973). My interest then was compilers, since I was the chief designer of the the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (see Commun. of the ACM, vol. 26, pp. 654-660, Sept. 1983.). I spent some time there disc
You'd be wary of Tannenbaum's assertion that Linus wrote Linux? Did you read his statements at all, or did you simply comment in a rush to be one of the first posters?
MINIX is licensed under the BSD licence, as mentioned in the article.
I think his webserver could use a performance hack right about now.
annenbaum is also the guy who thought that micro-kernels were a good idea.
I'm sorry, who was it that had that much coveted OS that "just works", and is so cool that everyone wants it but doesn't have the first clue as to how to copy it?
Oh, right. Microkernels seem to work pretty well for Apple.
Linus wrote Linux, and that's all there is to it. Anything to the contrary is Microsoft FUD.
Can't argue with that. I can't read the article, but I don't think that Tannenbaum argues with that either. He probably said something like Linus copied the basic Minix design (true) and the reporter blew it out of proportion.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Start with a premise, do little or no research, and declare conclusions. When the truth is pointed out, get indignant.
Granted, I haven't read the book in question, but this was a very enlightening article. I especially loved the comment that insinuates that Linus could have done a better job if he HAD stolen the code, than he did.
Visit Lockjaw's Lair. He won't bite.
In old world media, who creates something of value is more important than what gets created. Hence there is often alot of slander, lies, and outright fraud (and a lot of crapy media). In Hollywood, it's so bad it's pratically institutionalized.
I think the enemies of Linux are trying a similar strategy based on the addage "if you kill the shepard - the sheep will scatter", "If you lie about something long enough or hard enough, people will believe it". They can't discredit Linux for technological or commercial reasons anymore, so their only option is to discredit Linus. With billions at stake, it could get nasty.
Okay the real father of dos and windows is here
Well, not quite advocate ... I can't get to the interview, it's acting ...slow ... for some reason.
But I had the distinct impression from other quotes about the AdTI book that IFFFF you go with the idea that everything which looks like UNIX was inspired by UNIX, THEN it is not that big a stretch to say that Linux was not invented but is just a copycat derivative, therefore Linus did not invent Linux, he merely wrote it. Like I said, I have not seen the actual book (of course) or interviews, but maybe that is the quibble they are going with, a sock puppet for SCO, who is in turn Microsoft's own sock puppet.
And for all you bozoes who think this means I believe it, well, ha ha, yolk's on you for having no imagination in your narrow little cross-eyed brain.
Infuriate left and right
+1 interesting? come on moderators... this is a blatent troll!
Why are microkernels a bad idea?
They aren't, any more than monolithic kernels are a bad idea. The general whine against microkernels goes something along the lines of, "Any performance increases that result from a microkernel can be matched by simply tweaking a monolithic kernel, therefore why bother with the complexity of a microkernel?"
if one is a macrokernel and the other a micokernel?
I don't think Tanenbaum is bitter. He just wants to point this out.
Some things are more important than an animated rat
The complete archive for this thread was linked from Groklaw yesterday, you can find it here. You're right, it's well worth reading. The part I found funniest was his comment about "when you can run Hurd in the 21st Century" -- that was 1992 and here it is 2004...
Linus has said repeatedly in recent years words to the effect of "People think I'm a nice guy, but I'm really a bastard." It's interesting to see elements of that in what he calls (in the thread) "hopefully my last flamefest"; he was big enough to apologize for the tone of his first reply.
Brent J. Nordquist N0BJN
In a kernel there is a lot of interaction between the various parts. In a monolithic kernel these interactions are performed by simple subroutine calls and manipulation of shared data. In a microkernel these interactions require a more complex switch between tasks, and message passing. In exchange, you get better protection of one part from the others, which makes tracking down bugs quicker.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Does anyone here know about a cache or a mirror of the page that AT wrote about this issue?
"It was the dawn of the third age of mankind. Ten years after the Earth-Minbari war,
"the Babylon project was a dream given form
"Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully.
"It's a port-of-call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers.
"Humans and aliens wrapped in two million five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night.
"It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last, best hope for peace.
"This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258.
"The name of the place is Babylon5."
"Oh, and GNU Hurd was just released."
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The whole thread was linked from Groklaw yesterday at this URL.
Brent J. Nordquist N0BJN
right?
But who wrote the version of Basic that started bill gates on his path to riches?
The answer of course is that every creative engineering endeavour builds upon what came before. the detractors will call the step that the developer in question took as derivative, obvious, insignificant, or larcenous. the supporters will shine light upon the principal's ability to fuse diverse, unfocused, and/or unapplied parts into a cohesive whole.
to mis-quote grandpa simpson, 'the fax machine isn't anything more than a waffle iron with (something or other that i forgot).'
so, the question is really this: those of you who accuse (probably correctly) whoever is claiming that linus didn't write linux of spreading FUD, have you ever written a similar post smearing gates on basic? pot kettle?
I've often wondered what things will be like when Hurd is ready...
You sir, have more faith than I.
Some Notes on the "Who wrote Linux" Kerfuffle, Release 1.1
Background
The history of UNIX and its various children and grandchildren has been in the news recently as a result of a book from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Since I was involved in part of this history, I feel I have an obligation to set the record straight and correct some extremely serious errors. But first some background information.
Ken Brown, President of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, contacted me in early March. He said he was writing a book on the history of UNIX and would like to interview me. Since I have written 15 books and have been involved in the history of UNIX in several ways, I said I was willing to help out. I have been interviewed by many people for many reasons over the years, and have been on Dutch and US TV and radio and in various newspapers and magazines, so I didn't think too much about it.
Brown flew over to Amsterdam to interview me on 23 March 2004. Apparently I was the only reason for his coming to Europe. The interview got off to a shaky start, roughly paraphrased as follows:
AST: "What's the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution?"
KB: We do public policy work
AST: A think tank, like the Rand Corporation?
KB: Sort of
AST: What does it do?
KB: Issue reports and books
AST: Who funds it?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is SCO one of them? Is this about the SCO lawsuit?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is Microsoft one of them?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
He was extremely evasive about why he was there and who was funding him. He just kept saying he was just writing a book about the history of UNIX. I asked him what he thought of Peter Salus' book, A Quarter Century of UNIX. He'd never heard of it! I mean, if you are writing a book on the history of UNIX and flying 3000 miles to interview some guy about the subject, wouldn't it make sense to at least go to amazon.com and type "history unix" in the search box, in which case Salus' book is the first hit? For $28 (and free shipping if you play your cards right) you could learn an awful lot about the material and not get any jet lag. As I sooned learned, Brown is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was already suspicious. As a long-time author, I know it makes sense to at least be aware of what the competition is. He didn't bother.
UNIX and Me
I didn't think it odd that Brown would want to interview me about the history of UNIX. There are worse people to ask. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I spent several summers in the UNIX group (Dept. 1127) at Bell Labs. I knew Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and the rest of the people involved in the development of UNIX. I have stayed at Rob Pike's house and Al Aho's house for extended periods of time. Dennis Ritchie, Steve Johnson, and Peter Weinberger, among others have stayed at my house in Amsterdam. Three of my Ph.D. students have worked in the UNIX group at Bell Labs and one of them is a permanent staff member now.
Oddly enough, when I was at Bell Labs, my interest was not operating systems, although I had written one and published a paper about it (see "Software - Practice & Experience," vol. 2, pp. 109-119, 1973). My interest then was compilers, since I was the chief designer of the the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (see Commun. of the ACM, vol. 26, pp. 654-660, Sept. 1983.). I spent some time there discussing compilers with Steve Johnson, networking with Greg Chesson, writing tools with Lorinda Cherry, and book authoring with Brian Kernighan, among many others. I also became friends with the other "foreigner," there, Bjarne Stroustrup, who would later go on to design and implement C++.
In short, although I had nothing to do with the development of the original UNIX, I knew all the people involved and much of the history quite well. Furthermore, my contact with the UNIX group at Bell Labs was not a secret; I even thanked them all for having me as a summer visitor in the preface to the first e
From Micro Kernels
The basic idea of microkernels is to minimize the kernel, and implement as much of it as possible outside the TCB. The kernel should only export simple, low-level operations which hopefully allow for more efficient application implementations. This idea dates back to [Hansen 70], and a good overview can be found in [Liedtke 96]. Traditionally kernels are 'monolithic' in the sense that they implement all their functionality in a relatively unstructured fashion within the TCB. The advantages of microkernels are obvious from a software engineering standpoint:
The TCB is made smaller, reducing the chances of errors due to its faulty implementation. The OS is more modular and thus more flexible and extensible.
Services previously in the TCB can now possibly have more than one different implementation, perhaps even running concurrently.
Microkernels initially met with great enthusiasm and in the late 80s there was much work on them in both academic and commercial settings. This wave of initial enthusiasm subsided when people started encountering what seemed to be inherent difficulties with the flexibility and efficiency of microkernel implementations:
For some frequent operations, e.g. networking, the overhead of context-switching was too great for an out-of-kernel implementation. Thus the microkernels were not as efficient as originally thought.
There are great difficulties with supporting more than one implementation of a basic system service, especially when more than one is to run concurrently. Thus the microkernels were not nearly as flexible as supposed.
These difficulties were overcome by various compromises to the original microkernel ideals. Several efficiency-critical features were brought back into the kernel and the addition of new features into the kernel was supported through downloadable binary code, or trusted 'kernel-loaded modules'.
But this integration of most drivers and servers back into the TCB largely eliminates the benefits of the microkernel approach, in the end resulting in an even more complex monolithic-like OS kernel.
Some Notes on the "Who wrote Linux" Kerfuffle, Release 1.1
Background
The history of UNIX and its various children and grandchildren has been in the news recently as a result of a book from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Since I was involved in part of this history, I feel I have an obligation to set the record straight and correct some extremely serious errors. But first some background information.
Ken Brown, President of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, contacted me in early March. He said he was writing a book on the history of UNIX and would like to interview me. Since I have written 15 books and have been involved in the history of UNIX in several ways, I said I was willing to help out. I have been interviewed by many people for many reasons over the years, and have been on Dutch and US TV and radio and in various newspapers and magazines, so I didn't think too much about it.
Brown flew over to Amsterdam to interview me on 23 March 2004. Apparently I was the only reason for his coming to Europe. The interview got off to a shaky start, roughly paraphrased as follows:
He was extremely evasive about why he was there and who was funding him. He just kept saying he was just writing a book about the history of UNIX. I asked him what he thought of Peter Salus' book, A Quarter Century of UNIX. He'd never heard of it! I mean, if you are writing a book on the history of UNIX and flying 3000 miles to interview some guy about the subject, wouldn't it make sense to at least go to amazon.com and type "history unix" in the search box, in which case Salus' book is the first hit? For $28 (and free shipping if you play your cards right) you could learn an awful lot about the material and not get any jet lag. As I sooned learned, Brown is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was already suspicious. As a long-time author, I know it makes sense to at least be aware of what the competition is. He didn't bother.
UNIX and Me
I didn't think it odd that Brown would want to interview me about the history of UNIX. There are worse people to ask. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I spent several summers in the UNIX group (Dept. 1127) at Bell Labs. I knew Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and the rest of the people involved in the development of UNIX. I have stayed at Rob Pike's house and Al Aho's house for extended periods of time. Dennis Ritchie, Steve Johnson, and Peter Weinberger, among others have stayed at my house in Amsterdam. Three of my Ph.D. students have worked in the UNIX group at Bell Labs and one of them is a permanent staff member now.
Oddly enough, when I was at Bell Labs, my interest was not operating systems, although I had written one and published a paper about it (see "Software - Practice & Experience," vol. 2, pp. 109-119, 1973). My interest then was compilers, since I was the chief designer of the the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (see Commun. of the ACM, vol. 26, pp. 654-660, Sept. 1983.). I spent some time there discussing compilers with Steve Johnson, networking with Greg Chesson, writing tools with Lorinda Cherry, and book authoring with Brian Kernighan, among many others. I also became friends with the other "foreigner," there, Bjarne Stroustrup, who would later go on to design and implement C++.
In short, although I had nothing to do with the developmen
I think it says something that the link to "Accomplishments" at the AdTI website is broken... (see here)
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
I was the one who created Linux, and as I was on my way to cash in with ol' IBM I had the code hidden in a Wendies bag so no thief would steal it. But that rascal Linus was a starving pro-communist student at the time and he robbed me of my Cheese Burger, Fries, and my rights to the Linux empire.
That's the truth, I swear it.
Knowing the Free University network, I highly doubt that it is slashdotted, more likely that someone just pulled the plug after the unwashed masses of /. came along. No fear, I've got a login onto the machine and got the following from ast's www dir. This is the text version, I've also got the html, but given that my homepage is on the same machine as Andy's, I doubt that it will be of much use for me to mirror it.
Some Notes on the "Who wrote Linux" Kerfuffle, Release 1.1
Background
The history of UNIX and its various children and grandchildren has been in the news recently as a result of a book from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Since I was involved in part of this history, I feel I have an obligation to set the record straight and correct some extremely serious errors. But first some background information.
Ken Brown, President of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, contacted me in early March. He said he was writing a book on the history of UNIX and would like to interview me. Since I have written 15 books and have been involved in the history of UNIX in several ways, I said I was willing to help out. I have been interviewed by many people for many reasons over the years, and have been on Dutch and US TV and radio and in various newspapers and magazines, so I didn't think too much about it.
Brown flew over to Amsterdam to interview me on 23 March 2004. Apparently I was the only reason for his coming to Europe. The interview got off to a shaky start, roughly paraphrased as follows:
AST: "What's the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution?"
KB: We do public policy work
AST: A think tank, like the Rand Corporation?
KB: Sort of
AST: What does it do?
KB: Issue reports and books
AST: Who funds it?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is SCO one of them? Is this about the SCO lawsuit?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is Microsoft one of them?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
He was extremely evasive about why he was there and who was funding him. He just kept saying he was just writing a book about the history of UNIX. I asked him what he thought of Peter Salus' book, A Quarter Century of UNIX. He'd never heard of it! I mean, if you are writing a book on the history of UNIX and flying 3000 miles to interview some guy about the subject, wouldn't it make sense to at least go to amazon.com and type "history unix" in the search box, in which case Salus' book is the first hit? For $28 (and free shipping if you play your cards right) you could learn an awful lot about the material and not get any jet lag. As I sooned learned, Brown is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was already suspicious. As a long-time author, I know it makes sense to at least be aware of what the competition is. He didn't bother.
UNIX and Me
I didn't think it odd that Brown would want to interview me about the history of UNIX. There are worse people to ask. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I spent several summers in the UNIX group (Dept. 1127) at Bell Labs. I knew Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and the rest of the people involved in the development of UNIX. I have stayed at Rob Pike's house and Al Aho's house for extended periods of time. Dennis Ritchie, Steve Johnson, and Peter Weinberger, among others have stayed at my house in Amsterdam. Three of my Ph.D. students have worked in the UNIX group at Bell Labs and one of them is a permanent staff member now.
Oddly enough, when I was at Bell Labs, my interest was not operating systems, although I had written one and published a paper about it (see "Software - Practice & Experience," vol. 2, pp. 109-119, 1973). My interest then was compilers, since I was the chief designer of the the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (see Commun. of the ACM, vol. 26, pp. 654-660, Sept. 1983.). I spent some time there discussing compilers with Steve Johnson, networking with Greg Chesson, writing tools with Lorinda Cherry, and book authoring with Bri
Credit Mr. Tanenbaum sticking to his guns on the micro kernel design. But the brilliance of Linus is that he realises you must first have features to fight!
an ill wind that blows no good
SCO wrote it. From scratch. Now cough up that $699!
Sigs for Nerds. Sigs that Matter.
Microkernels seem to work pretty well for Apple.
ISTR that Mac OS X isn't really all that much of a microkernel - it's a monolithic BSD based system that mostly uses Mach (which *is* a microkernel) mostly for device abstraction.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Well, we've still got 96 years of the 21st Century left, so it's likely that the Hurd will be finished long before then.
I am seriously looking forward to the Hurd, just as much as most people are looking forward to Duke Nukem forever. Difference is, Hurd is not vapourware, it's just an awfully large project and it'll be awfully welcome when it's complete.
Join the Free Software Foundation
You could include Mexicans and most of the countries in the caribean. I don't think baseball is popular anywhere else in the world.
The general whine against microkernels goes something along the lines of, "Any performance increases that result from a microkernel can be matched by simply tweaking a monolithic kernel, therefore why bother with the complexity of a microkernel?"
Ummm, no.
The general whine against microkernals is that in order to get one to do useful work (outside of an educational institute) you have historically had to mangle it so badly that it is a microkernal in name only.
> I think Brown is batting .500, which is not bad for an amateur (for
> people other than Americans, Japanese, and Cubans, this is an obscure
> reference to baseball)
Right. I could have guessed what sport it came from, but what does it mean, exactly?
Here's a mirror of the article while it lasts.
Visit Lockjaw's Lair. He won't bite.
Some Notes on the "Who wrote Linux" Kerfuffle, Release 1.1 Background
The history of UNIX and its various children and grandchildren has been in the news recently as a result of a book from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Since I was involved in part of this history, I feel I have an obligation to set the record straight and correct some extremely serious errors. But first some background information.
Ken Brown, President of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, contacted me in early March. He said he was writing a book on the history of UNIX and would like to interview me. Since I have written 15 books and have been involved in the history of UNIX in several ways, I said I was willing to help out. I have been interviewed by many people for many reasons over the years, and have been on Dutch and US TV and radio and in various newspapers and magazines, so I didn't think too much about it.
Brown flew over to Amsterdam to interview me on 23 March 2004. Apparently I was the only reason for his coming to Europe. The interview got off to a shaky start, roughly paraphrased as follows:
AST: "What's the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution?"
KB: We do public policy work
AST: A think tank, like the Rand Corporation?
KB: Sort of
AST: What does it do?
KB: Issue reports and books
AST: Who funds it?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is SCO one of them? Is this about the SCO lawsuit?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is Microsoft one of them?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
He was extremely evasive about why he was there and who was funding him. He just kept saying he was just writing a book about the history of UNIX. I asked him what he thought of Peter Salus' book, A Quarter Century of UNIX. He'd never heard of it! I mean, if you are writing a book on the history of UNIX and flying 3000 miles to interview some guy about the subject, wouldn't it make sense to at least go to amazon.com and type "history unix" in the search box, in which case Salus' book is the first hit? For $28 (and free shipping if you play your cards right) you could learn an awful lot about the material and not get any jet lag. As I sooned learned, Brown is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was already suspicious. As a long-time author, I know it makes sense to at least be aware of what the competition is. He didn't bother.
UNIX and Me
I didn't think it odd that Brown would want to interview me about the history of UNIX. There are worse people to ask. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I spent several summers in the UNIX group (Dept. 1127) at Bell Labs. I knew Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and the rest of the people involved in the development of UNIX. I have stayed at Rob Pike's house and Al Aho's house for extended periods of time. Dennis Ritchie, Steve Johnson, and Peter Weinberger, among others have stayed at my house in Amsterdam. Three of my Ph.D. students have worked in the UNIX group at Bell Labs and one of them is a permanent staff member now.
Oddly enough, when I was at Bell Labs, my interest was not operating systems, although I had written one and published a paper about it (see "Software - Practice & Experience," vol. 2, pp. 109-119, 1973). My interest then was compilers, since I was the chief designer of the the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (see Commun. of the ACM, vol. 26, pp. 654-660, Sept. 1983.). I spent some time there discussing compile
------- In the end there are no begining
mirror if anyone has one
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
Can't argue with that. I can't read the article, but I don't think that Tannenbaum argues with that either. He probably said something like Linus copied the basic Minix design (true) and the reporter blew it out of proportion.
Worse, he said "Linus wrote Linux as far as I know" Then when the moron said that One person couldn't possibly write a kernel, Andrew listed six other examples (including himself) showing that one person could do that. Remember reading (the post) is fundamental.
How is that for a grain of salt?
I'd be wary of anything that Tannenbaum says especially after prentending he was dying just so his wife would take him back, you just cant trust some people...
There are 10 different kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who do not
What more needs to be said !
-- br
I personally think Microkernels are *still* a good idea. A well-designed one is extremely modular, often extremely small (yeah, I know: "duh") and very portable, and the small-chunk approach can make them a lot easier to understand. On top of this, you can seperate the different parts of the kernel from each other, so there's far less likelihood of different pieces stepping on others, drivers can (theoretically) be run in user-space (if such a thing applies)...
;-)
However, like anything, they are *not* going to be a perfect panacea. If the design is not just right, they can end up being far worse than the mono-kernels they are often competing with.
The Mach MK is one where kernel-developers complain frequently about trying to get drivers to work with it, its message-passing architecture being unable/difficult to use in certain important ways, etc, etc, whereas I've heard a lot of praise for the L4 design.
In fact, isn't TRON/iTRON (etc) a MK-style design? If it weren't for the US Trade Dept, it'd probably be running on your Desktop, PDA, Washing-machine, Wrist-watch, TV.....
Anyway, it feels a bit like the difference between OO and Procedural coding, where OO projects tend to suffer without a reasonable amount of design effort *before* starting to code, but make maintenance simpler over the life of the project, and Functional-style tends to allow you to get stuck in, but can make maintenance and/or functionality upgrades more difficult. In fact, even down to the usual blaming of OO-style for creating slower code.
Horses for courses; but I'd love there to be a full-fledged Linux-style OS (FOSS, good driver support, etc) running on a MK. Just because
Add QNX to that. It doesn't get much more microkernel than that, and I think noone would argue that QNX is slow.
As for Darwin; it was certainly slow on my x86 laptop, but it's not lacking any speed on my iBook. I guess that says something about the quality of the x86 port (hint: there is no such thing).
Poor Andy seems a bit too stuck in his I am right and everyone who disagrees is wrong. I have a book here (Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms) in which he claims that a 20% performance loss is not so bad, in exchange for all the benefits a microkernel brings. I most sincerely think that is a ridiculous statement, but fortunately, it doesn't have to be that way. I believe microkernels need not incurr any significant performance penalty at all.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I believe he's just annoyed. After all his teaching and even writing an example of how an operating system should be, he feels Linus didn't pay attention, and that if he had, Linux would be much better. Nothing seems to annoy teachers more than those darn kids who don't pay attention and run off and try something on their own.
He wrote Minix as an educational tool in the hope that someone would take the example and do great things. Someone did... but went off in a slightly different direction than was hoped.
Not that I know squat about baseball, but I think it's a batters hit percentage.
Klein bottle for rent - inquire within.
Quote #1 So at the time I started work on Linux in 1991, people assumed portability would come from a microkernel approach. You see, this was sort of the research darling at the time for computer scientists. However, I am a pragmatic person, and at the time I felt that microkernels (a) were experimental, (b) were obviously more complex than monolithic Kernels, and (c) executed notably slower than monolithic kernels.
... This is how we get crap like microkernels.
Quote #2 Only stupid people think they should throw away old proven concepts.
-- Linus
Monolithic: UNIX, Linux
Micro: Minix, BeOS, Hurd, (supposedly AIX)
Maybe all Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans, Mexicans and Panamanians will disagree that only those thre countries know about baseball... but hey... I'm used to americans thinking that everyone south the border is a tequila-drinking, sombrero-wearing mexican...
How long have they been developing HURD for? Seems like ages. I'm really not sure that it'll ever be finally released to be honest with you.
Can someone please post the article? I can't get to the web site. The Interweb may be down. Thank you.
How about Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Panamanians, Dominicans, Venezuelans, Koreans, Colombians and others who also play baseball? :)
It means of his two claims, half (%50) of them are correct. The two claims are that Brown interviewed Tanenbaum (true) and that Linus Torvalds didn't write Linux (false).
bbh
AST lists several independently developed systems of equivalent complexity to Mixix 1.0 / System 7. Here are a couple more I found:
OMU (6809 processor, ported to 68000) roughly system 7 but only single user, integrated shell.
http://tallyho.bc.nu/~steve/omu.html
UZI (Z80 processor, ported to 180, 280) roughly system 7: multitasking
http://www.dougbraun.com/uzi.html
...the big *SLAP* sound on the FUD.
While it was humorous to hear the account of the "interview", the article was spoiled by Tanenbaum's regrets, continuingly sour grapes, and display of hubris.
After I saying that, I was thinking, perhaps Linus should be discredtied - not in reguards to being the father of Linux, but for being so neutral about freedom.
When I think of Linus, I think of Charles Lindburg - he was prestigious hero, and a brilliant person. But when he went on a visit to Germany, all he could see was the armada of beautiful planes, and the amazing technology. He came back to the USA, and proclaimed that we shouldn't fight Hitler. The point being, Lindburg was a brilliant hero who was right about technology, but dead wrong about the importance of freedom - his stance didn't help him or us. This is how I feel about Linus, I'm thankfull he put Linux under the GPL, and that he's responsible for bringing us this cool technology - but I think his casual/neutral attitudes about freedom really suck, and in the long term will cause alot of uneeded harm. The goal shouldn't be to win a popularity contest, or to fit in, but to secure our freedoms in the technology space. Heck, that's the force that made Linux grow so much compaired to other alternatives to begin with.
What amazes me is how so many people feel that there is nothing wrong with having a technology bias, but then these same people turn arround and think you're a fruit for having a freedom bias. But political freedom isn't voodoo, it's provven itself more than enough - it's not just an opinion or wishfull thinking. I just can't understand why so many people who should know better seem simply ashamed of it.
http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/L4/LinuxOnL4/index.sht ml
Is an example of a Linux personality running on a mikrokernel architecture.
I havent had a look at it, but the developers claim only a performance penalty of 4% to the monolithic makro kernel standard Linux has.
To call OS X a Mach system is a bit disengenious. All I/O operations are handled by the "BSD Subsystem" for performance reasons. This means that all file and network I/O (along with the file security descriptions) are in a "monolithic subsystem" of the uK. Needles to say, this is the most performance-intense section of a UNIX (any?) system. A lot of the message-passing is therefore avoided; and the performance costs that those message passes would incur. Take a look at this url: OS X System Overview See that dotted-line that stretches from the kernel to userland? Tannenbaum would not approve.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
They have baseball there too. Blue Jays and the Expos.
I dont think Linus or anyone else has tried to conceal or hide the origins of linux. Anyone who has taken more than a passing interest in the history of linux knows that Linus got interested in kernel development while hacking Minix which was supplied in source code form in an educational book called "Operating Systems: Their design and Implementation". Rebel Code (Glynn Moody) is an excellent history of linux and open source and a great read. If people are interested in getting a good background its a great place to start.
I think its fair to say that "shock horror!" Andy Tanenbaum probably "learned" how to write Minix from somewhere else. In any case in the initial phases of Linux I think its fair to say that Linus did 99% of the work. And after the seed was planted.. well lots of people are now involoved with writing linux.
Its the nature of the beast almost all human acheivements are adaptations of something that came before . Its called development and its incredibly difficult to come up with an idea that doesnt have its basis in something else.
I challenge anyone to try and come up with an idea that doesnt have its origins in something else.
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
So what's Windows? Micro? Monolithic? Neither?
I seem to remember reading somewhere that it was Micro, but I don't remember if the source was authoritative, or even if I remember it correctly.
- ------- There are ten kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who... Huh?
Here we go again!
I can still remember that from the thread (Linux is obsolete) in comp.os.minix and reading it again today as a proof for Linus being the author of Linux mad me laugh so hard I am actually still cherry red and short of breath.
You rule, Andrew!
Could be worse. Could be raining.
What about the rest of the interview?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
You're kidding right? It's the percentage of times a batter makes it to first base based on the total number of "at bats" or turns at the plate. It's usually based on a single season but is, in rare occasions, in reference to a lifetime statistic. Anyhow, baseball on TV blows, almost as exciting as watching golf.
This is the first time I've seen an article where more of the comments are copies of the /.'d article or mirror links than actual comments...
Is this some link with the author of the book?
He goes on about how secure microkernels are, and that all the security problems of Windows show that he is right, but it seems nobody has pointed out to him that since NT Windows does use a microkernel design. Weird.
I prefer reading it from the Google archives.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
In baseball anything over .300(30%) is considered excellent when it comes to hitting.
So to say you are batting(hitting) five hundred means you were successful half the time.
my first reaction to this attack was, 'who the f### is Ken Brown? as they taught me back in school, 'always consider the source' --if this guy's attacking Linux, he'd better have some solid credentials in the computer industry, right? well, all it took was a Google search, and the first link I hit told me all i need to know: Anti-Open Source lobbyists need love, too Friday October 25, 2002 - [ 03:00 PM GMT ] Topics: Migration - By Robin "Roblimo" Miller - I felt bad for Ken Brown of the Alexis De Toqueville Institution (AdTI) last week... http://www.newsforge.com/business/02/10/25/056218. shtml?tid=19
thanks to Roblimo, we have a first-hand account of Ken Brown's shameless FUD-ing, back in 2002--read this link for a cuttingly funny look at Mr. Browns earlier efforts;>
you gotta love the 'thousands of eyeballs' that are working on our side--it more than offsets what M$ gets from spreading it's dirty money around...
-DWitt
ps. methinks Brown's IP has just gone down the tubes--thank you very much Andy Tanenbaum!
"Now cough up that $699!, you cocksmoking teabaggers".
Please get it right next time.
Its hard to refute Andy Tanenbaums claims for a number of reasons; his background, his education - basically his history. But to another end, you cant even view Browns document to contrast - they have it password protected.
Putting a story at the top of the front page of your website but making it password protected while no other storys on your frontpage are similarly protected smacks of gun for hire/skewed view/anything for money. Appears to me they want you to read the headline but not read the text, sound familiar?
These adti individuals dont appear to be concerned with their own credibility and i hope whatever they are being paid is worth it.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
Linus: Be serious, saying that the Linux inventors are Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus shows me and the world how inmature you're and obviously puts more fuel to the doubt many of us are having now. An answer like that says to me that there is a more obscure history than we know and is a tipical defensive reaction when you done something wrong.
I'm convinced that Linux sucks and is now dead, more when his *creator* answer to such allegations on this child way.
Whatever anyone does - do not read Brown's book when it comes out.
Thanks to Mr. Tanenbaum, we have the proof here:
People can create operating systems on their own. Even UNIX-like operating systems. Linus learned from Mr. Tanenbaum. Linus wrote the first kernel, published it and asked for input, which the rest of the world provided.
Linus then acted as a proper project manager, and the rest is history.
So again, whatever people do - do not buy the book.
Now, here's the problem: if we talk about this upcoming book, people will want to buy it. It's the Gibson Effect - the more its denounced, the more people will want to read it, and next thing you know there will be lines of people at the bookstores claiming they can see Jesus's face on this book.
So instead, I recommend to all intelligent folks in the programming community: ignore it. From here on out, don't even refer to the book by name, or its foundation, or the author. The more we pretend it doesn't exist and it's not important, the less interest people will have in it. If someone asks (such as a Pointy Haired Boss guy), shrug and lie as you say "No idea. I heard it was some book, but that it wasn't that good." And then shut up and leave it at that.
Don't give these guys free advertising. Don't even give them an ounce of respect, they don't deserve it.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
It's what drives them to make stuff, and attempt to make better stuff than the next guy. If they all got along we'd all still be using SLS!
As it is the arguments and many different flavors of Linux have helped all of us, and brought a great many things to the Linux world. When all the developers stop arguing and dissing each other, that's when -I'll- get worried.
I don't think that there has ever been a live baseball match on TV in the UK, so no, I am not kidding! Even highlights would be limited to a late night show on a specialist channel.
What is the plate? The thing that the batter starts on?
I always had the idea that Windows NT was micro, based on Mach.
Batting average is based on hits, not reaching first base.
A hit can mean reaching first base, but it can also mean a double, a triple or a home run.
However, if a batter reaches a base via an error, for the sake of his average it is considered an "OUT" and counts negatively towards his average.
If a batter walks it does not affect his average (although it affects on-base percentage, which is generally a more esoteric measure of batter's prowness). It doesn't even count as an "at bat".
Finally, if a batter "sacrifices" himself to advance a leading runner, his average is not penalized, and this is the same as a "walk". It is not considered an "at bat".
Baseball is a wonderful sport. Too bad "Shoeless Joe" Selig is trying to screw it up.
> In baseball anything over .300(30%) is considered excellent when it
> comes to hitting.
So this Ken Brown fellow with the 0.500 rating is doing rather splendidly then?
I somehow think that the wrong expression was used in submitting the story!
This simply confounded me...
"Finally, Brown began to focus sharply. He kept asking, in different forms, how one person could write an operating system all by himself. He simply didn't believe that was possible."
How many people does Brown thing wrote the original version of DOS? Microsoft wouldn't have gotten their big break were it not for Tim Paterson's SOLO coding effort.
Great article though...
Windows is a special 3rd type of kernel, called a "three ring clusterfuck".
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Let's see... development on GNU/Hurd started around 1984... ...so maybe by 2024 we will be able to run GNU/Hurd in a production enviroment, which allegedly is still in the 21st century, but by then probably my flying car will be running Linux.
Has anyone noticed that the original link to the press release has been password protected?
you forgot the most crappy one:
micro: windows NT
Matt Loney of ZDNet UK is covering the story, including Andy Tanenbaum's two Euro-cents here. I don't think anyone at AdTI, least of all Ken Brown, is going to be living off royalties any time soon - "falls at the starting gate" indeed. ZD even mention AdTI's ties to Microsoft least there be any doubt, which is nice of them. :)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
It's pretty clear that Ken Brown is an idiot. Here is a quote:
"It's clear to me, at least from quotes from Tanenbaum, that Linus started from Minix...He just sat down with Minix and wrote this product. By definition, that is not an invention," Brown said. "If you sit down with the Ford blueprints and build a Chrysler and don't give Ford any credit, that's not invention."
In an interview conducted for the study, Tanenbaum said Minix "was the base that Linus used to create Linux. He also took many ideas from Minix, including the file system, source tree and much more."
He is clueless and has no brain which could absorb a clue. It would require intelligence to actually claim that Linux copied other work, and he doesn't seem to have the capacity to understand the difference between "inspired by" and "copied". I suppose that is why AdTI hired him, and why SCO or Microsoft ired AdTI.
Infuriate left and right
Which is(was) also a microkernel, and incredibly fast.
my pet machine
Thanks for setting the record straight.
And especially for being brave enough to address the problem of political repression and scapegoating, if albeit a little obliquely.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
...value is more important than what gets created.
You have simply defined why so much of what is made by ??AA members in recent years is a bunch of drek. I'll add my pet theory - that too many of the *who* you talk about are money people first, and not movie or music people.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
...then all I've got to say
God didn't make little green apples and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime
There's no such thing as Doctor Suess
Disneyland and Mother Goose is no nursery rhyme
After reading this, the Tanenbaum interview and this, there is little doubt that of Brown and the AdTI were determined in their slander campain against Linux from the start. From the AST interview, it is clear that he is just fishing for incriminating quotes. It is well known that initial Linux development took place on (and was inspired by) Minix. With selective quoting, it's likely that he will have AST seemingly accusing Linus of stealing Minix. One of his more persuasive arguments to the laymen will be that it took the highly experienced professor Tanenbaum years to develop Linux, while kid Linus hacked his OS together in 6 months. Of course, he knows this is not a truthful representation, but that doesn't matter as long as it will get him headlines. We (and AST it seems) may regard people like Brown and McBride as dumb and ignorant. But we should beware, these people are of a kind that we do not encounter often day-to-day: people with malicious intend.
I read the interview and followed the other two articles, the original and Linus' reply. I think this stuff is a must-read. [conspiracy theory] Perhaps someone, somewhere funding anti-Linux FUD is realizing the whole SCO thing is falling through? [/conspiracy theory]. It outlines the differences between what Linus believes in and what Tanenbaum believes in. The more articles I see like this, the better I feel. There's a lot of people out there who know the truth, and I don't care how many billions you have, your underhanded sneakiness will be revealed. This whole situation has been the posterchild for Open Source.
FLR
> MINIX is licensed under the BSD licence, as mentioned in the article.
Not until 2000, when Prentice Hall finally came to realize that nobody would pay for Minix with Linux and the BSDs out there.
I think it was meant as a joke. Because not only is Tanenbaum arguing that Linus DID invent Linux, but he also states that this guy was one of the worst interviewers of all time. So saying he's batting five hundred (that's how it's said out loud, not "point five" or whatever) when he's an incompetent idiot, is meant to be funny.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I know many in the Linux community like to paint Mr. Tanenbaum as a bitter lunatic, but this is a great article, one that every Linux user/zealot should read.
First, he goes into the history of why people were souring on UNIX and the various independently-written UNIXalikes. These were mostly individual projects, which really sets the record straight for the people who seem to think that Linus was the first person to do this, and that Linus was somehow the only person intelligent and manly enough to write his own kernel.
At the same time, he lays out the history of UNIX clones, of which Linux was definitely one. It's surprising to me how many people seem to think of Linux as a great, independent OS, and fight so hard to deny that it has roots in UNIX. Of course these people are mostly young and don't know much about computer history. In that respect, this is an educational article.
And, yes, he does talk about the micro vs. monolithic kernel issue, but he does so without fanaticism, and, you know, what he says is generally correct. He's all for small and reliable software, which is something that UNIX was originally but rapidly became the antithesis of. Performance issues, back when people were using 4.77 and 8 MHz desktop processors, well, let's just say that things were different then. Now you have people writing big applications in Python. The real reason Linux ended up with a monolithic kernel is because that's what Linus understood and it was easier for him to write that way.
Channel 5 usually show all the obscure American sports late at night.
What does this quote reference?
"Some of you may find it odd that I am defending Linus here. After all, he and I had a fairly public "debate" some years back. My primary concern here is getting trying to get the truth out and not blame everything on some teenage girl from the back hills of West Virginia."
Just curious...
-Derek
"The proof of this is that he messed the design up. MINIX is a nice, modular microkernel system, with the memory manager and file system running as user-space processes. This makes the system cleaner and more reliable than a big monolithic kernel and easier to debug and maintain, at a small price in performance, although even on a 4.77 MHz 8088 it booted in maybe 5 seconds (vs. a minute for Windows on hardware 500 times faster)."
:)
Sheesh. Windows now uses microkernel (NT kernel) as Minix does. Your demonstration is not convincing, Mr Tanenbaum
DOS, Win3.1, 95, 98, Me are all super-monolithic. Your copy of Minesweeper.exe runs in the same space as everything else and essentially becomes part of the kernel.
NT 3.51 was a fairly pure microkernel implementation. However, it had some performance issues, so Microsoft moved a few things like the graphics drivers back into the kernel for later versions of NT, Win2K and WinXP. Modern versions of Windows are thus a kind of hybrid.
Ken Brown sent me an email about my early involvement in Linux. Unlike Dr. Tanenbaum I looked him up on Google before responding.
I then forwarded the email to Linus with a heads up. The lesson is, figure out who you are talking to before speaking.
I guess we should ask who wrote this book? I mean, if Ken Brown just went around and asked a bunch of people for their opinion, then typed up the parts of others opinions he liked, and added some comments, then it looks like he didn't write his book did he? I think Tanenbaum should sue him for a slice of the royalties.
Say, $699 per book?
Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)
>So this Ken Brown fellow with the 0.500 rating is doing rather splendidly then
Only if he was playing baseball, most other things he's not doing so good.,
I've often wondered what things will be like when Hurd is ready
We'll be flying our rocket backpacks around our Martian colony and speaking Esperanto.
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
...his stereotyping reference to who plays baseball. Before I had to grow up, go to college, and get a job (before I left highschool), I played baseball for 13 years (from the time I was 4 until the time I was 17). Baseball is a much more international sport than the bum (he is bum a for more than just this reason) portrays it (that is why it is an Olympic sport).
Also, the guy really doesn't understand people who use operating systems. That is why Minix never became as popular as any other Unix. Operating Systems are not useful unless they actually are operated.
I don't have to read the book -particularly after reading Tanenbaum's very convincing presentation that the author doesn't know dick about intellectual property, not to mention he was basically lying about writing a book about the history of Unix, when it is clear his notion from the get go was to write a book titled "SCO is telling the truth about Linux - Really!" The quote above makes it clear that rather than bother to, oh, find some actual copyrighted code in Linux that is stolen, he is arguing the stellar logic that:
1) Open source advocates are contemptuous of copyright law
2) People who are contemptuous of copyright law are plagiarists
3) The people who wrote Linux are open source advocates...
Remind me what de Toqueville said about weaselly corporate shills again?
A quote from the Yahoo article -
"The report," according to Gregory Fossedal, a Tocqueville senior fellow, "raises important questions that all developers and users of open source code must face. While you cannot group all open source programmers and programs together; many are rigorous and respectful of the intellectual property rights, while others speak of intellectual property rights with open contempt." -Emphasis, again, added.
Get it? Failing evidence for any credible claim that they are actually TREATING intellectual property rights with contempt, they will note that they "speak" of them with open contempt... as if there were something wrong with that.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
GLX ( GNU, Linux, XWindows ), an alternative name for the operating system is very fair, IMHO.
You can't do much with just the kernel ( linux ).
You can't do much with just the software GNU made
You can't do much with just XWindows.
Give everyone credit for "GLX".
I think it is catchier sounding the "Linux" and a whole let less clunky then "GNU/Linux'.
Steve
I managed to get to the article. All it took was hitting Reload a few times, just like a normal slashdotting.
The article hasn't been taken down.
Really does anything more need to be said?
Writing a simple OS kernel is easy. I wrote one, and believe me, it wasn't that hard. At the university where I am a grad student, we require the undergrads to write most of an OS kernel (including virtual memory and a filesystem) in a one-semester course. I read alt.os.development regularly, and there are high school students who are writing OS kernels. (I'm often depressed by the fact that they are much better programmers than I am :-)
Writing a scalable, production-quality OS kernel is another matter entirely. That takes hundreds or thousands of person-years by talented programmers.
Ken Brown is obviously a complete shithead if he doesn't understand this distinction. AST's rebuttal made the facts of the matter abundantly clear, and I'm sure any competent OS developer he asked would have told him the same thing.
One of my New Zealand friends once said to me:
"Now you're batting a thousand."
I asked him if he knew where that came from (I, of course, thought he must have heard that from me). I think baseball references and cliches are pretty widespread these days. Blame us travelling Americans and the fact that our tv shows are shown everywhere.
A lot of people are interested in American sports. Even baseball shows on up New Zealand cable TV once a week or so (in season). I much prefer rugby to baseball.
given your sig, shouldn't your nick be "byoGNU/linux" ?
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
This is a kid who was hired to do a fishing expedition in anticipation of hard questions.
You add this up with MS funding and you've got a smoking gun here.
Why doesn't someone email Justin and ask him who the bag man is/was?
Wow. I don't comment on here much anymore but somebody who gets the joke ought to mod the parent up as funny. Then again they are probably watching too much anime around here to have time for cultured films like "The Royal Tenenbaums".
Sigh...
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
and it's probably not hard to guess what he did tell in the interview. "No Linus did not write Linux, because it's actually GNU/Linux and consist of a lot of GNU tools and Linus did just write the Kernel". Wanna bet?
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&start=75&hl=en &lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=linux.samba&selm=1Xf0Z-7VF-11% 40gated-at.bofh.it
From: Justin Orndorff (raison__d_etre@hotmail.com)
Subject: [Samba] research inquiry
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: linux.samba
Date: 2004-05-18 08:50:10 PST
Greetings,
I'm currently doing research into corporate contributions towards open
source projects, such as Linux. One of the recent Credits Files lists Mr.
Anton Blanchard as a contributor. Is Mr. Blanchard still an employee with
the company?
Also, does the company have any policies regarding open source contributions
by employees? If so, are there any differences between on and off the clock
contributions?
Thanks very much for your time and apologies for posting on your mailing
list. I did not find any other contacts on your website related to this side
of your business.
Best,
Justin Orndorff
No. No he didn't.
s ic.htm
Read more history.
More importantly, he didn't "invent" basic, he stole it from http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blba
Dartmouth.
That's a more interesting question is it not? That Bill Gates and Paul Allen stole Basic from Dartmouth?
Maybe we should consult Royal and Chaz Tanenbaum. This whole thing about Linux not being the author of Linux is about as funny as the artwork from the Movie the "Royal Tenenbaums". Absurdities like these really make me laugh...
I'd just lust like to say, in a completly off-topic way, that that line alway bugged the heck out of me. It is such horribly awkward phrasing. What is wrong with "The place is Babylon 5"?
If they were trying to come up with something to rival Kirk's "To boldly go...", they failed.
I think that clumsy line is the main reason I gave up watching B5.
He's also affiliated with Democratic Centruy Fund:
Sounds like "If you've got a lot of money that you can afford to lose and don't ask too many questions, invest with us." Most of the links on that site are broken, too.
It always amazes me that people have the nerve to pull stunts like this guy does. I just have to believe that his Karma will catch up with him eventually.
It has recently changed and now is GPL
Quote from Tannenbaum:
That's when I discovered that (1) he had never heard of the patent, (2) did not know what it meant to dedicate a patent (i.e., put it in the public domain), and (3) really did not know a thing about intellectual property law. He was confused about patents, copyrights, and trademarks.
Do you not find it strange that the President of an organisation involved in arguments about patents, copyrights and trademarks should be so ignorant of patents, copyrights and trademarks?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Background
The history of UNIX and its various children and grandchildren has been in the news recently as a result of a book from the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. Since I was involved in part of this history, I feel I have an obligation to set the record straight and correct some extremely serious errors. But first some background information.
Ken Brown, President of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, contacted me in early March. He said he was writing a book on the history of UNIX and would like to interview me. Since I have written 15 books and have been involved in the history of UNIX in several ways, I said I was willing to help out. I have been interviewed by many people for many reasons over the years, and have been on Dutch and US TV and radio and in various newspapers and magazines, so I didn't think too much about it.
Brown flew over to Amsterdam to interview me on 23 March 2004. Apparently I was the only reason for his coming to Europe. The interview got off to a shaky start, roughly paraphrased as follows:
AST: "What's the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution?"
KB: We do public policy work
AST: A think tank, like the Rand Corporation?
KB: Sort of
AST: What does it do?
KB: Issue reports and books
AST: Who funds it?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is SCO one of them? Is this about the SCO lawsuit?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is Microsoft one of them?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
He was extremely evasive about why he was there and who was funding him. He just kept saying he was just writing a book about the history of UNIX. I asked him what he thought of Peter Salus' book, A Quarter Century of UNIX. He'd never heard of it! I mean, if you are writing a book on the history of UNIX and flying 3000 miles to interview some guy about the subject, wouldn't it make sense to at least go to amazon.com and type "history unix" in the search box, in which case Salus' book is the first hit? For $28 (and free shipping if you play your cards right) you could learn an awful lot about the material and not get any jet lag. As I sooned learned, Brown is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I was already suspicious. As a long-time author, I know it makes sense to at least be aware of what the competition is. He didn't bother.
UNIX and Me
I didn't think it odd that Brown would want to interview me about the history of UNIX. There are worse people to ask. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I spent several summers in the UNIX group (Dept. 1127) at Bell Labs. I knew Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and the rest of the people involved in the development of UNIX. I have stayed at Rob Pike's house and Al Aho's house for extended periods of time. Dennis Ritchie, Steve Johnson, and Peter Weinberger, among others have stayed at my house in Amsterdam. Three of my Ph.D. students have worked in the UNIX group at Bell Labs and one of them is a permanent staff member now.
Oddly enough, when I was at Bell Labs, my interest was not operating systems, although I had written one and published a paper about it (see "Software - Practice & Experience," vol. 2, pp. 109-119, 1973). My interest then was compilers, since I was the chief designer of the the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (see Commun. of the ACM, vol. 26, pp. 654-660, Sept. 1983.). I spent some time there discussing compilers with Steve Johnson, networking with Greg Chesson, writing tools with Lorinda Cherry, and book authoring with Brian Kernighan, among many others. I also became friends with the other "foreigner," there, Bjarne Stroustrup, who would later go on to design and implement C++.
In short, although I had nothing to do with the development of the original UNIX, I knew all the people involved and much of the history quite well. Furthermore, my contact with the UNIX group at Bell Labs was not a secret; I even thanked them all for having me as a summer visitor in the preface to the first edition of my book Computer Networks. Amazingly, Brown knew not
The commies are all gone.
He's more likely a terrorist. An islam-loving, jesus-hating, towel-wearing, beard-wearing terrorist.
Not the first time, either.
"This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258.
"The name of the place is Babylon5."
"Oh, and GNU Hurd was just released."
Dude, you so rock! I just about spit my drink through my thanks to that. Thank you!
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
I think you want one of the later intros with "It was the year of flamewars.."
The Canadians know aboot baseball...
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Interesting...! I think I'll email PJ with this little lot!
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Then I kind of have to wonder, why is that every publically sold consumer microkernel operating system I've ever seen (Mac OS X, Windows NT) wound up giving up and debasing the microkernel model before long because actually sticking to principle provided unacceptable performance?
That sounds like "need" to me
In fact, back at university I implemented the "nice" command for MINIX 2.0. The hard part was to pass the message from userland to the scheduler (which previosly I had modified so it sorts the process qeue according to the priority).
I haven't try anything similar for Linux, but having a monolitic architecture surely simplifies the message passing burden (which was a lot!), although it migth add other problems I haven't consider...
For a start, the simplest OS seems to be a monolitic approach, single-task, single-user, like DOS... taking to the extreme the KISS approach we would go back to pure assembly language...
So Ken Brown is claiming that, because Linus didn't write Linux in a vacuum, but was exposed to Andy Tanenbaum's work on the subject, he doesn't really own it. In order to come to this view of history, Ken Brown exposed himself to Andy Tanenbaum's work on the subject. So is Linus isn't the originator of Linux, Ken Brown isn't the originator of his book.
for that matter, how many people does he think wrote the core routines of Windows NT (David Cutler of DEC, who also wrote the core of VAX VMS)
How can we get Mr. Tanenbaum's article out into the hands of people who read AdTI?
So this article will probably weed out the few remaining slashdot readers who still took AdTI seriously. But it would make me very happy if AdTI could be exposed for what they really are in terms that the people who might otherwise fall for their claptrap would actually understand.
I dunno... getting 1 out of 2 when you get three tries to succeed once is good no matter what you're doing.
Of course, I still think baseball is silly.
Mirror #1
Mirror #2
...Japan! You left out Japan!
Andy listed 6 independantly developed UNIX-like OSes, but he didn't even get them all, for example he missed Microware's OS/9, of which the original 6809 version was largely written by one person, Ken Kaplan. Undoubtedly there were others out there as well. It really isn't that hard to believe that one person can develop a UNIX-like OS kernel...
but Linux rose to the challenge, Minix pretty much didn't.
RTA. particularly the bit where Tanenbaum says that he kept MINIX small in order to to keep it up the challenge of being a good teaching tool. And then goes on to imply that he was suprised that it took so long for the niche of free, open production-featured UNIX to be filled by Linux and BSD.
Of course, Tanenbaum would have prefered that niche to be filled by a microkernel OS, but MINIX was never going to be that OS. MINIX was going to be the code that the creators of free UNIX cut thier teeth on at university. And guess what, it was.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
It is a shame that such a bunch of liers, obviously finnanced by the Microsoft Marketing Department, is allowed to use Tocqueville's name. The man must be almost rising from his grave to do them justice.
Anyway, a quote of his seems to apply:"In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates..."
All is pretty clear: the Alexis de Tocqueville Foundation is nothing more than a front-end to third-party interests, the Foundation agenda is clearly determined by the ammount of money payed by its clients and the Foundantion and its members are willing to say and do anything, no matter how dishonnest, to please their clients.
It is now just a matter using every opportunity to show the evidence to the press so the harm they can do is minimized. Until Microsoft chooses another "Foundation" to fund...
It's historical, I'd really like it changed.
;)
byolinux, as a website hasn't existed for ages.
Anyway, I should be byognu, or gnuboy, surely?
Join the Free Software Foundation
You forgot AtheOS.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Ok i know you don;t like baseball but you statement is not correct.
Suceeding in baseball is getting a hit, getting hit, walking, or in sacrificing. Only getting a hit counts in your average.
You don't get three chance to succeed, if the first pitch you hit a lazy pop-up you are done. Only if you swing and miss, hit a foul ball or take a strike(assuming less than two strikes) do you get another chance.
Sorry to get technical.
Baseball is a great game too bad the owners and players have ruined it. Or should i just say money.
Can anyone here explain the cryptic "teenage girl from virginia" comment toward the end?
Ha. A search for the author of this posting reveals a rather lengthy list of "OS Research Questions" in forums, newsgroups and alike. Implementation details, amount of work, authors and ownership, etc.
But shouldn't come as a surprise, as his email address "[name]@adti.net" belongs to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution mentioned in the article.
Aren't you, like Andy, taking a purist position?
I find the comments about Mac OSX elsewhere in this thread very enlightening. OSX has attributes of both a micro- and monolithic kernel. Clearly Apple is supplying common drivers in the kernel space that are performance-critical. Yet users can still easily install other drivers without having to, er..., recompile their kernel.
You lose, Andy loses... Apple wins.
(FYI my primary OS is Linux.)
I didn't say I didn't like it, I just said it's silly. Monty Python is also silly, but I get a kick out of them as well. The game is comically complicated while simultaneously maintaining that old-timey feel. It's like a sport satire, without trying to be.
You're right, I oversimplified. You get three chances to succeed, except that there are ways to forfeit some of your chances, like having your ball caught, or if you turn around and beat the catcher to death with your bat.
Minix Source code download
http://minix1.hampshire.edu/mxdownld.html
-Enjoy
---
Error 404: WMD Not Found
Damnit, don't you guys get it? *I* created Linux, not long after finishing my master creation of the internet!
But he slips off into his own "Alice in Wonderland" with this remark:
Even taken as sarcasm, that's as strange as anything Ken Brown is saying. Nobody in America needs "Ashcroft's written permission" to say anything. My neighborhood is filled with people engaging in bizarre rants about why Bush should be impeached. Yet at the same time they're convinced that they are in a police state. Living in Seattle has become like living next door to a John Bircher in the 1950s.Yes, the left is now as nutty as the right was half a century ago. Conspiracy theories abound. Strange books of the None Dare Call It Treason variety flood the market and there'll soon be a movie with the same theme.
Every few weeks the press is seduced by media attacks as bizarre as any cooked up by the drunken Senator Joe Macarthy. Any day now, I expect to see Senator Ed Kennedy, his gait a bit unsteady, hold a press conference to announce, "I hold in my hands the names of 132 people, known to authorities as part of 'Big Oil,' who are members of the Department of Commerce."
Reality, as in the fact that demand from China and gas-guzzling domestic SUVs are driving up the price of oil, is beyond such folk. For every problem, they must have an evil conspiracy.
It's like living in a time warp. A exceptionally likeable and decent president from the American heartland (Ike/Bush--both born in Texas) is alternatively portrayed as the dumb tool of dark forces or as evil incarnate. Like those suffering from some forms of mental illness, these poor folk can't even sort out why they hate this Ike/Bush so much. Perhaps it's because he's reasonable and sensible, while they are not.
And if history repeats itself, like the right in Goldwater/1964, the left is headed for a big crash.
Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle
In my opinion, Tanenbaum is right in his discussion about the micro vs. monolithic kernel issue. This doesn't mean Linux is a mess, but it could have been better. The information for doing so was available when Linux was developed by Linus. Don't get me wrong, I never wrote an entire operating system like Linux or Minix, but my point is that the knowledge was available and it was not used in the (initial) development of Linux. Perhaps Linus is really convinced that monolithic is preferred, but that is not enough to debunk the reasoning of Tanenbaum concerning microkernels.
In case you have any questions about his book, Ken Brown can be found here or here. (Source.)
Answer: One more than it takes to change a light bulb.
(Punchline: "That's a hardware problem.")
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I think Andrew lays things out quite nicely in this article. So hopefully Brown will crawl back under the rock he came from.
Also Tanenbaum made one of my favorite comments, something like this...
The wonderful thing about standards, is there are so many to choose from.
Tanenbaum is one the best minds in Computer Science.
.... was a Jew. Just so you weigh again your previous comment....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What do we know about Justin Orndorff
:- 1%4 0gated-at.bofh.it&output=gplain
:d 040 4d&L=minix-l&F=&S=&P=59
:4 050 61039.75c2fc2c%40posting.google.com&output=gplain)
: 8 1 19&goto=nextoldestp ?message=6907
:- 11% 40gated-at.bofh.it&output=gplain
:
:
:i antart.com/journal/
:- gui des/-/A17FKWGJYHSEL2/103-1166439-6115864
:i ght .asp?ArtistID=3338c om/Framed_Trader_Det ail.asp?ID=9856
:0 02- February/010935.html
:
:
1. On April 12, 2004, he asked about Linux ownership on usenet linux.kernel, using IP address 66.44.2.45 (RCN dialup access range). He used raison__d_etre@hotmail.com as his originating email address.
References
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1Kbes-3hM
2. On April 28, 2004, he asked about obtaining older versions of Minix in a Minix related mailing-list. He used raison__d_etre@HOTMAIL.COM as his originating email address.
References
http://listserv.nodak.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=in
3. On May 6, 2004, he posted questions about O.S. development on usenet alt.os.development, using IP address 66.44.4.15 (again, RCN dialup access range). He used jorndorff@adti.net as his originating email address.
References
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=b6920e1.0
4. Later on May 6, 2004, the very same questions were asked in various web forums by someone using the nickname "jnana".
References
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum40/1067.htm
http://forums.devhardware.com/showthread.php?t=1
http://www.osdev.org/board.js
5. On may 18th, 2004, he asked questions about corporate contribution into Linux on usenet linux.samba, using IP address 138.88.144.59 (Verizon DSL access range). He used raison__d_etre@hotmail.com as his originating email address.
References
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1Xf0Z-7VF
It is very likely that it is indeed only one person as
- The topics are closely related.
- The IP used when posting using the @adti.net address (3) is on the same range as the one used when posting using the @hotmail.com address (1).
- The questions asked using the jnana nickname (4) are the same as the ones asked using the @adti.net address (3).
Obviously, we have someone here, going by the names of Justin Orndorff/Jnana/Raison__d_etre (French for "reason to exist, or reason to be), and who seems very interested in Linux and other FOSS intelectual properties issues.
This person has at least two email addresses
raison__d_etre@hotmail.com
jorndorff@adti.net
What else ?
6. He apparently has a page/blog on Devianart. He uses the same Justin O. and Jnana names. He says he's 22 and lives in CP (?), Maryland. He has apparently started a new job on March 1st.
References
http://jnana.deviantart.com/
http://jnana.dev
7. He seems to like movies, particularly the "poetic" genre.
References
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/member
8. He likes VHS music tapes trading (particularly black metal), has an email address @wam.umd.edu (University of Maryland) where he seems to be a student.
References
http://www.tapetradernetwork.com/Framed_body_r
http://www.tapetradernetwork.
9. A while back he was looking for "Codreanu comp. ['Fidelis Legio']" (whatever that is, apparently more black metal).
References
http://grumblesmurf.net/pipermail/coldmeat-l/2
10. Well, he actually seems to be an English student at U. of Maryland (College Park, CP again, see (6)), and interested in films production.
References
http://cinemaminima.com/blogs/orndorff/
OK, so maybe this is going a little fast but we apparently have an
- English student in Maryland,
- Interested in films
- Using email addresses raison__d_etre@hotmail.com, jorndorff@adti.net and maybe morpheus@wam.umd.edu (fake ?)
- Working since March or April for the ADTI (A. de Tocqueville Institute)
Justin Orndorff seems to be a nazi lover:
Romanian fascism and anti-semitism
Justin trading warez.
Greetings to stats_for_all on the yahoo SCOX board for the excellent research:
This is the person working at AdTI trying to FUD linux!
Think someone is still sore about Minix's destiny compared to Linux's?
Is that what we have is a "superior architecture" from the developer standpoint but not the user standpoint. The user gets no advantage. The user doesn't care that the developer's lives are easier, from their perspective if a product is "better designed" but 20% slower it just means it's worse.
DEVELOPER: We want you to take a 20% speed hit on our next OS release because our new OS has a superior architecture. The new computers coming out are 20% faster so this wont matter
USER: What's superior about it?
DEVELOPER: The kernel is much more better designed, there is a more coherent separation between different intrakernel address spaces and functionalities
USER: I don't know what that means
DEVELOPER: It's just.. you know.. better. And it is the same speed in the aggregate since youre buying the new hardware anyway so its worth it
USER: Or I could just not give you any more money, and run your previous software on the new hardware, and get a 40% speed gain
DEVELOPER: Uhhhhh...
How many people does Brown thing wrote the original version of DOS? Microsoft wouldn't have gotten their big break were it not for Tim Paterson's SOLO coding effort.
Criminy, just check the OS section on DMOZ or Yahoo. It's amazing how many teenagers have written fairly sophisticated operating systems on their own. It's not easy, but it's not like sending men to the moon, either. Shit, *I* wrote one once, in 6502 assembly language, on a 8-bit microcomputer when I was sixteen. Mind you, it wasn't anything like Linux, but then I didn't have thousands of talented developers helping me out.
It's difficult to imagine any application that couldn't be written by a reasonably smart programmer given time and motivation. Arguably, it's having too many developers that will screw up a project.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
How come stupid wankers like this have jobs? Compassionate conservatives?
I think that clumsy line is the main reason I gave up watching B5.
Well, if that's the reason you gave up on B5, you gave up mighty early - that line was only present in the opening of the first season. Every season of B5 has a different opening blurb, and that line was dropped (along with most of the rest of the Season 1 blurb) at the opening of Season 2.
From the Springdale Police Department:
:
o cu ments/wanted.htm
KENNETH PAUL BROWN WANTED FOR GRAND THEFT AUTO 3 COUNTS WARRANTS ON FILE KENNETH PAUL BROWN AKA
KEN BRAWN
http://www.springdale.org/DEPART/police/pdweb/d
Everybody knows that Bill Gates wrote Windows! Didn`t he?
So why does Mr. Brown wonder that Linux wrote Linux?
I meant: Linus wrote Linux ;-)
I should have used the preview button...
This just demonstrates that smart people can still say remarkably stupid things. The attentions of virus writers have never had anything to do with popularity.
Your post just demonstrates that random Slashdotters fall for the same fallacy as "smart people" -- namely, that you possess the knowledge to determine how everybody develops viruses. I mean, seriously. You don't think that even a small percentage of virus writers think "Hey, this virus will infect 80% of all Windows boxes out there"? Good to see you've personally interviewed each and every virus writer and determined their intentions.
You may not consider popularity a crucial influence, but I assure you that it is. Linux is far more secure to begin with, as Tannenbaum suggests, and suffers less attacks because of inherent design choices. But it is by no means the sole factor keeping it from being attacked.
From reading the article, shouldn't it be that monolithic kernels are faster (but less secure) than microkernels but microkernel can be tweaked to be as fast as monolithic kernels?
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Perhaps this is a comment on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.
#!
Perhaps this is a reference to the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.
#!
Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 2nd ed, p.254
One of my favorite quotes as well, and applicable to so many things.
Got an error on the first posting and thought it had bombed out.
#!
He brought it up because it proves the point that Linus wrote Linux. If he had copied MINIX Linux would've been a microkernel design instead of a macro one.
The fact that Linus wrote Linux "wrong", proves he wrote it and didn't steal it.
Breakfast served all day!
I never thought of that line as being a big deal (well, actually, I never though of it at all -- it's the "It can be a dangerous place" bit that bugged me). It gets A LOT better with Season 2.
From everything I've read, I'd say Linus is anything but casual about freedom. What he is *not* is an idealist. That's what we have RMS for. He's a pragmatist, exactly the kind of person you want in charge of an engineering project. Perhaps not the person you want at the head of a movement, but that's not what he is. He's first and foremost an engineer.
As much as I admire the strength of RMS's conviction, Linus' pragmatism makes more sense because technology--at least, in the context about which we are talking, that of electronics, computers, etc.--is conducive to freedom at all.
When we talk about "freedom", we're generally refering to a limited spectrum of "entropy" within a social system. Computers and communications technology, by their very nature, increase information availability, the very antithesis of entropic progression. High-falutin' words to merely restate: if it can be turned off, freedom doesn't factor into it.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
Well, I suggest (as someone who has recently watched the whole thing) you go watch it now. As it's a brilliant series, maybe not so good in the SFX department by todays standards, but an absolutly great story line.
RegardselFarto
Aw, so it is true. I've heard before that x86 context switches are costly, this just adds to the clues. I guess that's what you get with a design that was never meant to do multitasking.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Why don't you get your facts straight before you go spouting off like you know what you're talking about?
I saw the original AdT slander on yahoo via reuters (I think).
Can ESR or some other evangelist work to get an abridged version of AST's response on a major news wire?
While preaching to the slashdot and other choirs is fun, getting the story into the same channels that the AdT report was in would be more helpful.
Apple should probably ask if you want to install the "BSD Userland" tools or something.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Additionally, it's not GNU/Linux. One can use, for example, ulibc X and MWM to have a complete operating system with no more GNU software than the typical BSD. So unless you want to suggest that we start calling it GNU/BSD, stop insisting that Linux is really GNU/Linux.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Robert Oppenheimer: My God, what have we done
Porting the analogy to F/OSS is left as an exercise to the reader.
...somewhere
IANAL, but I'm wondering of Linus has on open and shut case for slander, if not libel per se.
I still don't understand the whole monolithic vs microkernel of linux-ness.
As linux has become more developed, it seems in my eyes to becoming more and more microkernel like. It is becoming more modular (with architectures and kernel subsystems such as file systems, memory management, scheduling, etc). With the clustering functionality being developed is seems more message/microkernel like. The VM tries to isolate memory between processes/threads which seems more microkernel like.
The case could be made that linux does share memory and not do the whole message passing, but couldn't the whole method of using sysctrl and related interfaces be another form of message passing with another name?
Seems like a tOmato / tomAto type of argument.
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
The nonsense coming out out of AdTI together with Andrew Tanenbaum's description of his interview make me wonder whether the speculation that Microsoft is behind this is really correct. Microsoft has tons of money and some fairly smart people, even in management. I find it hard to believe that they couldn't do a better job than this. Even if they need a putatively independent institution as a front, they could write the material themselves. They could even have their chosen institution hire somebody halfway competant for the project. It's hard to believe that they couldn't do better than this.
I wonder if this is perhaps just somebody trying to make a name for himself and/or bring in money for himself or his institute rather than something directly arranged by Microsoft.
It's what makes pine work.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
You gotta love the "get the facts" ad in that article, asking "Can Linux deliver lower TCO?". If slander doesn't work, try TCO "studies". If those don't work, try slander again.
Criminy, just check the OS section on DMOZ or Yahoo. It's amazing how many teenagers have written fairly sophisticated operating systems on their own. It's not easy, but it's not like sending men to the moon, either. Shit, *I* wrote one once, in 6502 assembly language, on a 8-bit microcomputer when I was sixteen. Mind you, it wasn't anything like Linux, but then I didn't have thousands of talented developers helping me out.
.com's the first day. It really isn't hard to write a basic OS, everyone should do it just to demystify computers a bit.
Yeah, I wrote an OS too in high school, before I had any programming classes under my belt (Just the Turbo Pascal Manuals and a couple issues of Dr. Dobbs my mom had seen in a trash can at work and brought home for me). I probably would have used Minix if I had known it existed, but I hadn't yet heard about the internet thing that my university might have from my Physics teacher. I spent more time figuring out where to place my bootloader on the floppy than I spent on multitasking (which started my long and eventually foolish habit of writing my own mutexes). I initially used the BIOS to interface with all the hardware, even the terminal. I could load
It's whether it snowballs into a something more featured that everyone wants to use that is the key. The genius of the GPL is that it allows others to contribute to your pet project without worrying that you might steal their work. They don't need to trust you much, they just need to trust the legal system a tiny bit. This lets the snowball get going. Once it's big enough, a BSD license might even be sufficient, but the GPL really excels in getting that initial momentum.
Microkernels are hard to do, but QNX demonstrates that you can do everything you need to do with a very small microkernel.
" Microsoft indeed has provided funding to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution for five years, a Microsoft representative said, without disclosing how much has been granted. Microsoft funds several public policy institutes, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute, the representative said. "
CNet
http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/4/12/72 Along with similar posts in other forums
that line alway bugged the heck out of me
That line has meter! It has rhythm! It has strength and character!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Nice work 'Anonymous Coward'!
Thanks for the help... if you find anything else, and want to continue this rather interesting game, please mail me at justin at aug24 dot co dot uk.
We'll show these dodgy buggers that the human community is stronger than any greed bastards' company!
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Could you write a "microkernel" that becomes a macrokernel if compiled with certain parameters? Message passing would be done via a macro which can become simply a function call.
Then kernel developers can run the "micro" version and have the freedom to easily hack parts while the system is running. But production machines could run the "macro" version.
if Linus didn't write Linux, can we go back to pronouncing it with the long "i" (lie-nucks)? It sounded so much cooler that way.
In terms of users, of course, Linux too was a big success. I think that it is only in comparison to Linux that Minix doesn't look like a success. But it is a success, a big success.
It is not unlike the whole GNU/linux argument that Stallman keeps bringing up. Stallman fundamentaly believes in the GNU and what it stands for.
Linus isn't to concerned about ideals. That is his secret. He is rather pragmatic and makes the choice that works right now. It is why it is the cute little penguin and not some super slick logo or the BSD devil that is the symbol for everything MS is not. Minix, BSD, hurd. All are free and true to some higher ideal about software. But linux rules them all in actually being used.
Tanenbaum and Stallman are the shoulders Linux stands on (with a lot of others of course) but at the same time it is also betraying them a little. That tanenbaum and Stallman can't help but point this out makes them real human people. Not some politically correct mouthpiece. I like them all the more for it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I built him from a kit as part of a science project in fifth grade.
I first read about it from the Google Groups Timeline I was reading "Modern Operating Systems" at university and I thought it funny that the guy who wrote a hugely popular operating system was having a massive row with the guy who wrote the book on operating system design.
It made me want to find out more about the differences between NT and Linux so I could more objectively compare them.
"Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "
There is a tremendous difference between:
the thing itself,
what the thing is called,
the name of the thing,
and what the name is called.
Didn't you know? It's just like pointers in C or (better) refs in Algol68.
-Lasse
Heh. Tanenbaum is bashing macrokernels because Windows is insecure.
Kind of ironic considering the fact that Windows NT is actually more of a microkernel design.
People who are intolerant of other people's cultures....
and the Dutch.
If you made it through the first season, you generally got hooked in the second if you weren't already. I was hooked in spite of the bad acting because prior to that I had been a star trek (TNG - I loved TOS too but let's put it aside for now) fan and if you really examine it with a critical eye, the acting in that show might have started out slightly better (by a RCH or so) but it really took some time before those characters felt natural to me. Eventually I stopped watching TNG religiously even though the rest of my household at the time always watched it, but I stuck with B5 for quite a while until sometime around season 4 at which point for some reason it became difficult for me to watch for some reason, time slot or something.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
About your sig: it better describes the LGPL.
To describe the viral narute of the GNU GPL,
a sig's space would not suffice.
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
Granted, it took a little while for the actors to settle into their roles, but by "The Parliment of Dreams", things were moving along quite well. One of my favorite things about B5 were the well developed characters.. Londo, G'Kar, Vir, Ivanova, Garibaldi, Sheridan.. it would not have been the same without them. The science fiction was the backdrop to the story, not the story itself. As it should be.
at least that's what I'd do if I had any mod points left
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
after Googling many uninformative links(read:i'm lazy and i wanted a synopsis
which says:
Alexis de Tocqueville
Tocqueville, Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Cl érel de (1805-59), French political writer and statesman, whose work on the United States political system became a classic.
Tocqueville was born July 29, 1805, in Verneuil, and studied law in Paris. With the French publicist Gustave Auguste de Beaumont de la Bonninière, he went abroad in 1831 to study the penal system in the U.S. The two men reported their findings in Du syst ème p énitentiaire aux États-Unis et son application en France (The Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application in France, 1832). After returning to France in 1832, Tocqueville wrote his most famous work, Democracy in America (2 vol., 1835-40; trans., 4 vol., 1835-40). One of the earliest and most profound studies of American life, it concerns the legislative and administrative systems in the U.S. and the influence of social and political institutions on the habits and manners of the people. Tocqueville maintains in this work that the full development of democracy occurred in the U.S. because conditions there best permitted the diffusion of European social ideas. He was highly critical of certain aspects of American democracy. For example, he believed that public opinion tended toward tyranny and that majority rule could be as oppressive as the rule of a despot.
As a member of the French Chamber of Deputies (1839-48), Tocqueville advocated a number of reforms, including the decentralization of government and an independent judiciary. He became vice president of the National Assembly in 1849 and for part of that year was minister of foreign affairs. After opposing the 1851 coup d'état of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later French emperor as Napoleon III, Tocqueville retired from political life. He died on April 16, 1859, in Cannes.
Tocqueville's major works offer a penetrating analysis of the principal political and social ideas of his period. His main emphasis was the evolutionary developments underlying all changes in society. His second most important work, The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856; trans. 1856), which he left unfinished at his death, interprets the French Revolution as having been the result of gradual changes in the structure of government and in political attitudes toward equality and freedom. Among his other writings is Recollections (1893; trans. 1896). An English translation of his notebooks for the period 1833-35 was published as Journeys to England and Ireland (1970).
There are other more in-depth biographies, but this was the most succinct. Spinning in his grave may be an understatment given the philosophy of this "institute" - He is probably closer to the spin-rate of a millisecond pulsar
"...that's as white as it gets; all the bits are on..."
or at least +INFORMATIVE
Developing Your Own 32-Bit Operating System
i ent/server oriented
Richard A. Burgess
(c) 1995
SAMS Publishing
ISBN: 0-672-30655-7
LoC: 94-69271
"Have you ever wanted to write your own operating system?
Or have you ever wanted to find out what it would take?
Or have you just wanted to see the source code with _real_ comments?
If so, then this book is for you! This book contains the ideas, suggestions,
and tools you will need -- plus a sample operating system, MMURTL.
You will see these features of MMURTL highlighted:
Micro-kernel
Message based
Real-time
Multitasking
Multithreaded
Cl
ISA 32-bit PC-compatible
The CD-ROM contains:
Complete MMURTL operating system source code
Sample applications, including source code
A 32-bit assembler, including source code
A 32-bit C compiler, including source code"
even bill joy in one of his interviews claimed that he can rewrite a BSD OS clone in just one summer.
Translation: It's only expensive on 90% of all deployed systems. (Yes, yes, I made the statistic up, but it's just to make a point).
HAND.
The micro/nano/etc. prefix does not determine the size of the kernel, but instead denotes how finely the kernel is chopped up.
A microkernel puts each subsystem in its own process/address space.
A nanokernel puts each function in its own process/address space.
A picokernel puts each line of source code in its own process/address space.
A femtokernel puts each machine language instruction in its own process/address space.
An attokernel puts each transistor in its own process/address space.
Beyond that, the benefits of increased modularity start to be outweighed by increasingly decreasing performance.
And kilokernels, megakernels, gigakernels, etc., are a whole 'nother story.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
No, it's definitively "As I sooned learned, Brown is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, ..."
I ROTFLOLed in the office when I got to that point.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
After seeing all the responses yesterday, I think I have a better idea of Ken Brown's motivation in coming to see me and also his motivation in writing the book. If you are curious, take a look at
www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/brown/followup
Andy Tanenbaum
"The proof of this is that he messed the design up."
Notice he never says, "I simply disagree with Linus". With Tannenbaum, it's never a matter of opinion... he's just right, and everybody else is wrong. Minix is apparently a work of genius, everything else is mediocre at best in his world.
Second-guessing who's behind it is a waste of valuable time. Unless you believe in fairy tales, it will almost surely never be known who exactly is financing the effort. We can infer that whoever it is, they have a desire to influence public opinion. That is, after all, why people write books.
A better use of time is to think what your Windows-running friends might like: burn copies of OpenOffice for Windows or Freeduc or KnoppiXMAME, all of which will run or boot from Windows machines.
Help someone new fall in love with free software...today!
Uh, at the time NT was being developed it was David Cutler of *Microsoft*.
yep, that's where he went after DEC job. Too bad his cool stuff was surrounded by crap & cruft...
The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is a half-assed supporter of economic freedom and liberty, and unfortunately negatively reflects on free-market ideas. In fact, they don't really support freedom at all. They are enemies of freedom, like Milton Friedman was critical in the development of the witholding tax. Far from being a libertarian, free-market supporter, and laissez faire supporter -- like his son, David Friedman, or Murray Rothbard -- Milton Friedman is a technician of the State, who works to make it more efficient in its task of robbing from and stealing from its victims (the tax-payers). The de Tocqueville Institution is a State-supporting Institution, supporting State grants of monopoly priviledge (patents/copyrights).
Unfortunately, there is this general opinion out there that the institution is a champion of capitalism. The de Toqueville institution is a champion of Statist Intervention.
For a real libertarian analysis of intellectual property "rights", see:
Against Intellectual Property. Stephan Kinsella.. Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol 15(2).
Finally, lest you think that free-market advocates are anti-GNU/Linux, see:
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Tanenbaum said Linux must be an original work because Linus did it wrong and did not follow Minix's example.
From ZDNet, here's who Microsoft funds:
Microsoft indeed has provided funding to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution for five years, a Microsoft representative said, without disclosing how much has been granted. Microsoft funds several public policy institutes, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute, the representative said.
as I posted elsewhere in this thread, here's who Microsoft funds, according to ZDNet:
Microsoft indeed has provided funding to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution for five years, a Microsoft representative said, without disclosing how much has been granted. Microsoft funds several public policy institutes, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute, the representative said.
Notice any patterns?
so says a old alt.folklore.computers post. Apparently, it could be had for a mere $18,000. I'd imagine that the prices had declined somewhat by late 1991, though.