Earth to Linux zealot. XFree86 is BSD software. That's right, it's under the BSD license, and has *nothing* to do with Linux! Wow.
Furthmore, you can't credit Linux with GCC either. GCC is worked on by many many people using many different systems. By your logic, you should be kissing Apple and Sun's butts since they infused quite a bit of help into GCC and GNOME. You should also kiss Troll Tech's butt for QT which let's KDE exist. And of course you should kiss SGI's butt for giving you GLX (part of XFree now) and OpenGL. So Red Hat helps out too, so what? Linux is owed nothing and deserves nothing.
If anything, Linux has set the open source movement back a few years by having inferior technology (ya ya 2.6 fixes this) and an unstable driver API preventing the much needed vendor made drivers.
Oh, and Linux is not the real world by the way. Look up, away from your monitor and breath. Meet world.
Tux is good(TM). Why? Because it is not a logo, it is a mascot that's associated to a brand (Linux). And as a mascot, it's near perfect, because pinguins are cool.
Actually, I can't stand Tux. Maybe Tux is good if you are trying to attract toddlers, but not if you are trying to attract computer professionals. A lot of people like Barny the purple dinasour too, but you go try to sell Enterprise software that uses a barny like logo. The first impression is that the software is either made by kids or for kids, or made by some deluded hippy types who almost certainly don't understand what makes the world go round.
I personally prefer the BSD devil, but that's not a good logo either due to the obvious social connections it has. The OS X logo is not bad, the SGI logo is nice. Even the cray logo, which is simply a font, speaks "supercomptuer" to me.
Tux most definatly does not speak fast or powerfull to me, regarless of how fast penguins are in real life.
Yeah, the same happens the other way around. I'm in Canada, and my friend here orders a lot of records. It actually costs *more* to order from the US due to customs charges as you describe, than it does to ship them from the UK!
Fortunately for me, I don't live in the US. What I meant was, "if I were hypothetically forced to choose the US or France, France would be it".
And yes, there is a backlog of people who are poor as dirt trying to get into the US. Most of them who do get in, will end up living in poverty and many of their kids will end up in the Army simply because that's the only way they can afford school.
Did you know that the US Army is now allowing in ANY foreigners and will give them Citizenship if they join? That's because they have too few people who enlist. So much for patriotic America.
You seem very very patriotic. Why don't you enlist? I'm sure there are many joyful Iraqies who would just love to see you in their sights.
You probably can't put GPL notices on your homework (your sig). Most universities have some stake in your work. But hey, go break the law. Pray to the GPL god.
Hint to the bigot. One violation does not make France worse than the US. The US has many many many more than one violation of UN treaties and sanctions. Add to that, it's the only country in the world that has been officially found guilty of international terrorism in the world court.
Of course, the US is so damn weasily that they don't even acknoledge the world court! Really, get away from your US propaganada and read the real news.
Except that when people are forced (yes, like you have a choice) to work 40+ hours a week they likely become tons less effecient and the added stress gives all sorts of health problems.
Of course, I guess in the US no one can afford health care, so the health problems probably dont' affect your economy at all. At any rate, I'd sooner live free in france then as a slave to the US government and corporations. Hell, if I had a choice, I'd even learn french!
The US should probably get 1st place hands down as weaseliest country, but no doubt the poll was US centric.
Re:Only cool when used correctly
on
CNet on WinFS
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· Score: 1
Umm. You'll still be able to dump them all under a header with WinFS as well. And cameras DO embed a lot of metadata into the photos. This data includes the camera model, focus length, and other such setting. Plus, later you could go and comment all your pictures. I do this for some of my vacations when I put them on a web page. It's not unreasonable.
I could be wrong (probably am) but I think Microsoft releases patches rapidly as hotfixes first. But then those hotfixes sit there a long while before getting rolled into a real windows update patch. Maybe some of the severe ones move faster, but I believe that's the process for most patches.
The huge multi-patch patches that the Linux community likes to make fun of are always distributed separately long before hand. The big patch packages are mainly for new installations so that they don't have to install 100+ separate little patches. If you patch regularly, you probably don't need most of the big patches.
The service packs of course don't fall into this catagory. They often add new features and change fundamental things. In a way they are more like point releases of windows since they can do things like update kernels and core libraries. That's why service packs can introduce incompatibilties for *sensitive* software like Oracle.
Anyways, I'm no expert, so please correct me if I've got anything wrong.
"I certainly feel that, at least applying the immediately obvious and most useful criteria, Microsoft does *not* fix bugs (release patches) more quickly than the Linux community."
A patch that requires me to get source and recompile does not count as a reasonable fix for me. In that sense, I wouldn't be surprised if they release patches at least on par with the open source community. I wound't be surprised if they are faster either.
I agree comparing to Debain or RedHats patch distributions would be most fair. And keep in mind that few people really *try* to patch MS systems. Most let the windows update patch away, which is not the fastest way. I have jumped ahead of windows update on a few occasions because I really needed something patched. I went to the Hotfixes to do that.
That's true, but it's still no trivial task. Russia sold them some technology, but that technology still required much modification. And designing the launch and reentry logistics is no small task either.
To credit the Russians with this accomplishment is belittling the Chinese. This is still a historic occasion, if only for the fact that even though "it's been done before" no nation up to now has done it. If it really was that easy, then surely a nation would have done this sooner.
Why anyone would try to belittle the Chinese instead of congratulating them is beyond me.
I'm sorry. But yes, it's because of America's miltary actions and other nasty things such as breaking international treaties (like the nuclear arms treaty).
It's also because of the "We are supreme" attitude many Americans have here. The original post was crediting China's accomplishments to Russia because they used Russian technology and at the same time was cheering American corporate interest in space.
Not only are such comments wrong (many other countries are also competeing for the X-prize), but they are also hypocritical (many American technological achievements are in fact due to others technology).
Most of the American *people* I have met have been really nice of course. And it's pretty unfair to them to get blasted for being American. But I don't think the original poster was one of these nice Americans.
This comes at a time when private American companies are gearing up their attempts at creating viable and cheap methods at putting men in space.
Typical American myopia. Maybe another countries company will beat you into space? Eh? Didn't think of that? Figures.
This is no trivial feat to be sure, but it would have meant a lot more if they had done it say, 20 years ago using their own hardware and launch infrastructure.
Blah blah blah. Say it with me. Third country putting a person in space. *Third*.
But hey, I don't mind following your logic. Let's see. German scientists got America into space in the beging. Go Germany!
An the shuttle? Wasn't that designed by a lot of people that came from a company called Avro? And wasn't Avro Canadian? And didn't Avro build a better fighter jet than America? (although it was destroyed, no doubt in part due to American pressure)
Ok Mr. zealot. I don't speak in dictionary terms so deal with it. By *use* I meant to distribute (i.e. use in a product). It's called interpreting words by the context. If *you* actually read the license you'd see that copy and distribute are referring to program binaries here.
This thread is not about corporations using GPL programs in workstations or similar. This thread is about corporations using GPL programs in their products, which the orignal article is suggesting is a dangourous practice. Basically, GPL software is only free for particular uses. A previous poster was stating that a lot of trouble with the GPL stems from the fact that many people think that free means that they can *use* (not modify) the program in whatever way they wish. This includes giving it away as Linksys did with their routers.
The way the GPL community uses the word free is definatly a misnomer. It is not free software, it is GPL software with numerous very specific restrictions.
Taken directly from the GPL. Granted part b) allows for recouperation of most of the costs I suppose. But none the less, you are required to provide a copy of the source code. Note that part c) is only far non-commerical people.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
* a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
But you *are* paying for GPL software. Even if you just *use* it in a commercial setting, you still have to provide a mirror of the code. If you derived a new work from it, then you much give out the derived work under the GPL as well.
These two acts are most definatly a form of payment. They simply don't take the form of money. Free is definately a misnomer, except maybe for people who use GPL software for personal or academic use. But then, it's only similar to freeware, becasue derived works still require payment in new source code.
True. But mono does run on FreeBSD, and if it doesn't already it could easily be made to run on Darwin. Give it time. Mac will have at least C#, the CLI, and maybe managed C++ if it gets ECMA as well.
"I don't think Roblimo's article was flamebait, as "you do. If it was Slashdot, I'd have moderated it +1 Interesting."
I'd moderate it as a Troll myself. Seriously, Windows is SO much more usable than Linux. Let's go over the strong points of windows.
Installing applications *just works*. It's mostly "next, next, finish" type operations, maybe selecting some customizations in the mean time.
In Linux:
a) No package for distribution of choice.
b) Program package for distribution X not the same as fro distribution Y. It may be compiled with different options.
c) Program has weird requirements, which may, depending on the distribution, require downloading and installing other things FIRST.
I could go on, but let's move on to CTRL-C CTRL-V. I can copy and paste almost ANYTHING in windows. In Linux, I'm always worried that maybe even text won't copy and paste properly. I don't dare even try to copy and paste complex objects between applications (I use GNOME). This is improving, but it is still not as good as Windows.
Hardware. Well, with windows you CAN install drivers for new hardware. Usually next next finish type thing + reboot.
With Linux. Well, *maybe* I can type some cryptic things on boot with RedHat to get new hardware to work. IF there is a driver provided. Otherwise my options are to compile a new kernel (!?!) or kernel module, or at the very least go editing some important files by hand somewhere. How is this better than Windows?
"The way Linux works is generally easier for me as a user, and being forced to do thing the MS way plain sucks."
And being force to do things the Linux way is better?
"I also ctrl+alt+arrow in order to switch workspace. Linux has all the little things that make an operating system worthwhile."
You know you can get workspace switcher for windows too, right? You sound as biased as Roblimo. And what little things are you talking about? Workspace switchers that I just mentioned you can get for windows? The bash shell which you can also get for windows? ssh and sshd which you can also get for windows?
Whenever I need to do *anything* on my crappy debian Linux box at work, I'm *always* worrying, "Will it work? Or will I have to go hacking at it to make it work and waste two hours of my time?"
"That's when the flood of users migrating to Linux will come."
Hmmm. In 10 years I guess Linux will surpass where windows is *now*. But you don't seriously think MS is going to do nothing for 10 years do you? Your statement is again, terribly biased.
In 10 years, people will probably be thanking MS for the.NET platform, which will also be used on UNIX (at least some of the core language parts of it will be).
I had JFS running on a gentoo installation as well. I found it to be very fast. When writing small files, I found it subjectivly faster than XFS.
I don't use reiserfs due to my lack of confidence in it's recovery ability. The only time I tried it, it crashed hard and even the repair tool couldn't fix it. Also, this seems to be the experience of many others who don't support reiser and the reason that Redhat decided not to support reiser. I guess that so long as you have no problems, reiser is fine.
"Sharing code to me means that you can add to it, but your changes must remain open."
Sure, and this is very different from *free* code. You do realize that if every piece of software was GPL, you'd have no job right? You seem to hate the very industry that allows you to live!
So what if a company takes your code and doesn't give anything back? It doesn't change the code you released. The only reason you would want to disallow this is to try to compete with the companies and force them out of business. Doing so would also probably land you on Welfare, so you couldn't even afford a computer to code on.
This is why I don't see the GPL as a good thing, and dont' agree with it theory behind it. But I'm clearly in the minority.
"As a good example of what Linus does right, compare the *BSD community to the Linux community. Regardless of technical merit, Linux has been far more successful while the BSD community forks again and again. Linus is the steady hand that everyone looks to. Linus has stayed above the arguments so that he can have the authority to mediate the arguments, rather than have Linux suffer a fork."
Umm. No. Actually Linux only became popular because of the AT&T lawsuit against BSD right at the start. Once it gained momentum it was hard to shake. Another factor was probably the GPL.
While a agree that RMS is a zealot, he still managed to convince a LOT of people that GPL is somehow free and good (and that anything corporate is the work of the devil). This helped fuel the already popular Linux.
By the way, a lot of sharing goes on between the BSD kernels. And Linux does indeed have forks. Each Linux kernel is slightly differet. For instance, Redhat has patches others don't have, and of course there is the ac branch the aa branch etc. Personally, I think the number of distros is a far worse fragmentation problem than having three versions of the kernel.
Slashdot Mirror
HUH?
:)
That's just weird man. Weird.
Earth to Linux zealot. XFree86 is BSD software. That's right, it's under the BSD license, and has *nothing* to do with Linux! Wow.
Furthmore, you can't credit Linux with GCC either. GCC is worked on by many many people using many different systems. By your logic, you should be kissing Apple and Sun's butts since they infused quite a bit of help into GCC and GNOME. You should also kiss Troll Tech's butt for QT which let's KDE exist. And of course you should kiss SGI's butt for giving you GLX (part of XFree now) and OpenGL.
So Red Hat helps out too, so what? Linux is owed nothing and deserves nothing.
If anything, Linux has set the open source movement back a few years by having inferior technology (ya ya 2.6 fixes this) and an unstable driver API preventing the much needed vendor made drivers.
Oh, and Linux is not the real world by the way. Look up, away from your monitor and breath. Meet world.
Tux is good(TM). Why? Because it is not a logo, it is a mascot that's associated to a brand (Linux). And as a mascot, it's near perfect, because pinguins are cool.
Actually, I can't stand Tux. Maybe Tux is good if you are trying to attract toddlers, but not if you are trying to attract computer professionals. A lot of people like Barny the purple dinasour too, but you go try to sell Enterprise software that uses a barny like logo. The first impression is that the software is either made by kids or for kids, or made by some deluded hippy types who almost certainly don't understand what makes the world go round.
I personally prefer the BSD devil, but that's not a good logo either due to the obvious social connections it has. The OS X logo is not bad, the SGI logo is nice. Even the cray logo, which is simply a font, speaks "supercomptuer" to me.
Tux most definatly does not speak fast or powerfull to me, regarless of how fast penguins are in real life.
Yeah, the same happens the other way around. I'm in Canada, and my friend here orders a lot of records. It actually costs *more* to order from the US due to customs charges as you describe, than it does to ship them from the UK!
Free trade indeed. Eh?
That was a pretty funny thread. I take it you know this kid in some sense?
This is the funniest thread I've seen in a while. Are you 16 or 15?
For the fun of it, here's an outside view. I think you lost all your *coolness points* on your first post.
I suppose you'll accuse *me* of being Nanogator now. Right?
Hehe.
Fortunately for me, I don't live in the US. What I meant was, "if I were hypothetically forced to choose the US or France, France would be it".
And yes, there is a backlog of people who are poor as dirt trying to get into the US. Most of them who do get in, will end up living in poverty and many of their kids will end up in the Army simply because that's the only way they can afford school.
Did you know that the US Army is now allowing in ANY foreigners and will give them Citizenship if they join? That's because they have too few people who enlist. So much for patriotic America.
You seem very very patriotic. Why don't you enlist? I'm sure there are many joyful Iraqies who would just love to see you in their sights.
You probably can't put GPL notices on your homework (your sig). Most universities have some stake in your work. But hey, go break the law. Pray to the GPL god.
Hint to the bigot. One violation does not make France worse than the US. The US has many many many more than one violation of UN treaties and sanctions. Add to that, it's the only country in the world that has been officially found guilty of international terrorism in the world court.
Of course, the US is so damn weasily that they don't even acknoledge the world court! Really, get away from your US propaganada and read the real news.
Except that when people are forced (yes, like you have a choice) to work 40+ hours a week they likely become tons less effecient and the added stress gives all sorts of health problems.
Of course, I guess in the US no one can afford health care, so the health problems probably dont' affect your economy at all. At any rate, I'd sooner live free in france then as a slave to the US government and corporations. Hell, if I had a choice, I'd even learn french!
The US should probably get 1st place hands down as weaseliest country, but no doubt the poll was US centric.
Umm. You'll still be able to dump them all under a header with WinFS as well. And cameras DO embed a lot of metadata into the photos. This data includes the camera model, focus length, and other such setting. Plus, later you could go and comment all your pictures. I do this for some of my vacations when I put them on a web page. It's not unreasonable.
I could be wrong (probably am) but I think Microsoft releases patches rapidly as hotfixes first. But then those hotfixes sit there a long while before getting rolled into a real windows update patch. Maybe some of the severe ones move faster, but I believe that's the process for most patches.
The huge multi-patch patches that the Linux community likes to make fun of are always distributed separately long before hand. The big patch packages are mainly for new installations so that they don't have to install 100+ separate little patches. If you patch regularly, you probably don't need most of the big patches.
The service packs of course don't fall into this catagory. They often add new features and change fundamental things. In a way they are more like point releases of windows since they can do things like update kernels and core libraries. That's why service packs can introduce incompatibilties for *sensitive* software like Oracle.
Anyways, I'm no expert, so please correct me if I've got anything wrong.
"I certainly feel that, at least applying the immediately obvious and most useful criteria, Microsoft does *not* fix bugs (release patches) more quickly than the Linux community."
A patch that requires me to get source and recompile does not count as a reasonable fix for me. In that sense, I wouldn't be surprised if they release patches at least on par with the open source community. I wound't be surprised if they are faster either.
I agree comparing to Debain or RedHats patch distributions would be most fair. And keep in mind that few people really *try* to patch MS systems. Most let the windows update patch away, which is not the fastest way. I have jumped ahead of windows update on a few occasions because I really needed something patched. I went to the Hotfixes to do that.
That's true, but it's still no trivial task. Russia sold them some technology, but that technology still required much modification. And designing the launch and reentry logistics is no small task either.
To credit the Russians with this accomplishment is belittling the Chinese. This is still a historic occasion, if only for the fact that even though "it's been done before" no nation up to now has done it. If it really was that easy, then surely a nation would have done this sooner.
Why anyone would try to belittle the Chinese instead of congratulating them is beyond me.
I'm sorry. But yes, it's because of America's miltary actions and other nasty things such as breaking international treaties (like the nuclear arms treaty).
It's also because of the "We are supreme" attitude many Americans have here. The original post was crediting China's accomplishments to Russia because they used Russian technology and at the same time was cheering American corporate interest in space.
Not only are such comments wrong (many other countries are also competeing for the X-prize), but they are also hypocritical (many American technological achievements are in fact due to others technology).
Most of the American *people* I have met have been really nice of course. And it's pretty unfair to them to get blasted for being American. But I don't think the original poster was one of these nice Americans.
This comes at a time when private American companies are gearing up their attempts at creating viable and cheap methods at putting men in space.
Typical American myopia. Maybe another countries company will beat you into space? Eh? Didn't think of that? Figures.
This is no trivial feat to be sure, but it would have meant a lot more if they had done it say, 20 years ago using their own hardware and launch infrastructure.
Blah blah blah. Say it with me. Third country putting a person in space. *Third*.
But hey, I don't mind following your logic. Let's see. German scientists got America into space in the beging. Go Germany!
An the shuttle? Wasn't that designed by a lot of people that came from a company called Avro? And wasn't Avro Canadian? And didn't Avro build a better fighter jet than America? (although it was destroyed, no doubt in part due to American pressure)
Ok Mr. zealot. I don't speak in dictionary terms so deal with it. By *use* I meant to distribute (i.e. use in a product). It's called interpreting words by the context. If *you* actually read the license you'd see that copy and distribute are referring to program binaries here.
This thread is not about corporations using GPL programs in workstations or similar. This thread is about corporations using GPL programs in their products, which the orignal article is suggesting is a dangourous practice. Basically, GPL software is only free for particular uses. A previous poster was stating that a lot of trouble with the GPL stems from the fact that many people think that free means that they can *use* (not modify) the program in whatever way they wish. This includes giving it away as Linksys did with their routers.
The way the GPL community uses the word free is definatly a misnomer. It is not free software, it is GPL software with numerous very specific restrictions.
Taken directly from the GPL. Granted part b) allows for recouperation of most of the costs I suppose. But none the less, you are required to provide a copy of the source code. Note that part c) is only far non-commerical people.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
* a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
But you *are* paying for GPL software. Even if you just *use* it in a commercial setting, you still have to provide a mirror of the code.
If you derived a new work from it, then you much give out the derived work under the GPL as well.
These two acts are most definatly a form of payment. They simply don't take the form of money. Free is definately a misnomer, except maybe for people who use GPL software for personal or academic use. But then, it's only similar to freeware, becasue derived works still require payment in new source code.
True. But mono does run on FreeBSD, and if it doesn't already it could easily be made to run on Darwin. Give it time. Mac will have at least C#, the CLI, and maybe managed C++ if it gets ECMA as well.
"I don't think Roblimo's article was flamebait, as "you do. If it was Slashdot, I'd have moderated it +1 Interesting."
.NET platform, which will also be used on UNIX (at least some of the core language parts of it will be).
I'd moderate it as a Troll myself. Seriously, Windows is SO much more usable than Linux. Let's go over the strong points of windows.
Installing applications *just works*. It's mostly "next, next, finish" type operations, maybe selecting some customizations in the mean time.
In Linux:
a) No package for distribution of choice.
b) Program package for distribution X not the same as fro distribution Y. It may be compiled with different options.
c) Program has weird requirements, which may, depending on the distribution, require downloading and installing other things FIRST.
I could go on, but let's move on to CTRL-C CTRL-V. I can copy and paste almost ANYTHING in windows. In Linux, I'm always worried that maybe even text won't copy and paste properly. I don't dare even try to copy and paste complex objects between applications (I use GNOME). This is improving, but it is still not as good as Windows.
Hardware. Well, with windows you CAN install drivers for new hardware. Usually next next finish type thing + reboot.
With Linux. Well, *maybe* I can type some cryptic things on boot with RedHat to get new hardware to work. IF there is a driver provided. Otherwise my options are to compile a new kernel (!?!) or kernel module, or at the very least go editing some important files by hand somewhere. How is this better than Windows?
"The way Linux works is generally easier for me as a user, and being forced to do thing the MS way plain sucks."
And being force to do things the Linux way is better?
"I also ctrl+alt+arrow in order to switch workspace. Linux has all the little things that make an operating system worthwhile."
You know you can get workspace switcher for windows too, right? You sound as biased as Roblimo. And what little things are you talking about? Workspace switchers that I just mentioned you can get for windows? The bash shell which you can also get for windows? ssh and sshd which you can also get for windows?
Whenever I need to do *anything* on my crappy debian Linux box at work, I'm *always* worrying, "Will it work? Or will I have to go hacking at it to make it work and waste two hours of my time?"
"That's when the flood of users migrating to Linux will come."
Hmmm. In 10 years I guess Linux will surpass where windows is *now*. But you don't seriously think MS is going to do nothing for 10 years do you? Your statement is again, terribly biased.
In 10 years, people will probably be thanking MS for the
I had JFS running on a gentoo installation as well. I found it to be very fast. When writing small files, I found it subjectivly faster than XFS.
I don't use reiserfs due to my lack of confidence in it's recovery ability. The only time I tried it, it crashed hard and even the repair tool couldn't fix it. Also, this seems to be the experience of many others who don't support reiser and the reason that Redhat decided not to support reiser. I guess that so long as you have no problems, reiser is fine.
"Sharing code to me means that you can add to it, but your changes must remain open."
Sure, and this is very different from *free* code. You do realize that if every piece of software was GPL, you'd have no job right? You seem to hate the very industry that allows you to live!
So what if a company takes your code and doesn't give anything back? It doesn't change the code you released. The only reason you would want to disallow this is to try to compete with the companies and force them out of business. Doing so would also probably land you on Welfare, so you couldn't even afford a computer to code on.
This is why I don't see the GPL as a good thing, and dont' agree with it theory behind it. But I'm clearly in the minority.
Linux does not constitute the whole Unix world. In fact, didn't RMS or someone claim that GNU/Linux is not unix?
More like Darl McBride has the whole OSS world groveling before him.
"As a good example of what Linus does right, compare the *BSD community to the Linux community. Regardless of technical merit, Linux has been far more successful while the BSD community forks again and again. Linus is the steady hand that everyone looks to. Linus has stayed above the arguments so that he can have the authority to mediate the arguments, rather than have Linux suffer a fork."
Umm. No. Actually Linux only became popular because of the AT&T lawsuit against BSD right at the start. Once it gained momentum it was hard to shake. Another factor was probably the GPL.
While a agree that RMS is a zealot, he still managed to convince a LOT of people that GPL is somehow free and good (and that anything corporate is the work of the devil). This helped fuel the already popular Linux.
By the way, a lot of sharing goes on between the BSD kernels. And Linux does indeed have forks. Each Linux kernel is slightly differet. For instance, Redhat has patches others don't have, and of course there is the ac branch the aa branch etc. Personally, I think the number of distros is a far worse fragmentation problem than having three versions of the kernel.
Linus is influential mostly because of luck.