2007-06-23 12:17:27

by Grozdan Nikolov

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: How innovative is Linux?

Hello gentlemen and ladies.

As a Linux user for many years now (regulars user, not a programmer), I want
to congratulated you all for the great work you all have done in making Linux
widely supported and compatible with a lot of hardware. Recently, I was on a
search to see how the Linux kernel itself compares to other Unix kernels
(*BSD, Solaris, AIX, etc) in terms of *real* innovation. After reading
various articles on the net about technology used in Linux and the other
Unixes, especially after reading the Solaris Vs Linux articles written by Dr.
Nikolai Bezroukov -
http://www.softpanorama.org/Articles/solaris_vs_linux.shtml and
http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Torvalds/index.shtml , I came to the
conclusion (and correct me if I'm wrong on that) that Linux is not innovative
at all when compared to the real Unixes in terms of technology. From what I
understand from the articles is that Linux rips off a lot of technologies
originally invented by other Unixes but it does very little original
innovation on its own. How come?

Isn't *real* innovation important anymore in Linux? Or did Linux became a
commercial "fast buck bitch" for various corporations like IBM, Intel, Red
Hat, etc and *real* innovation has stalled? A lot of stuff is ported to
Linux, but all of this stuff isn't Linux' own innovation rather existing
technology from other companies/Unixes. Solaris invented ZFS, dtrace, RPC,
PAM, NFS, RBAC, etc, FreeBSD invented jails (lightweight in-kernel virtual
machines), IBM/AIX invented volume manager... just to name a few. Linux'
record in innovation looks extremely unconvincing for such a mature stage of
development (over 10 years). What has Linux invented on its own? Ext and Ext2
were a rip off from the Unix UFS/FFS, in the early years Linux didn't even
had its own TCP/IP stack, the recently announced BTRFS is a rip off of ZFS,
the Linux kernel tracing tool is a joke compared to dtrace in Solaris and is
hardly a Linux *real* innovation, etc

Further, I'm concerned of the state Linux is now in. Linux doesn't have a well
defined API interface thus for its change in almost every "stable" kernel
release. In terms of technological innovation it isn't close to one of the
BSD kernels or Solaris, it just tries to mimic them. How about making Linux
fully POSIX/SVR4 compliant so that the Open Group can certified it as a
*real* Unix and not a rip off? How about innovating something new that no one
in the Unix camp has invented? How about defining a API that doesn't change
so often thus breaking a lot of stuff? How about having some sort of
quality-assurance program to ensure that the code in the Linux kernel is of
*very* high quality?

I also though that Linux' main role was to replace Windows and
corporate/proprietary lock-in but instead of doing that it began to replace
its own fathers and mothers (the other Unixes) and became a easy exploit for
$$$ hungry IPO's looking for a fast buck and a high fly. Seems to me that
*real* innovation in Linux isn't important anymore but the thing that has
become more important for Linux is commercial exploits and slaughter of other
fellow Unixes, even though Linux is inferior to their innovative technology.
To put it simple, Linux gets all the credits and recognition while the Unix
camps are doing the *real* innovative work.

I apologize if this mail looks more like a rant, but I really need these
questions answered because if not, I will be left in a state of shame that
Linux, in the early years was such a beautiful thing, but as time passed by,
it just became one big commercial exploit without *real* innovation.

Please CC me as I'm not subscribe to this mailing list,

Thanks!


2007-06-23 14:37:47

by Alan

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 14:17:15 +0200
Grozdan Nikolov <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hello gentlemen and ladies.
>
> As a Linux user for many years now (regulars user, not a programmer), I want


Please do not feed the trolls, thank you

2007-06-23 15:22:53

by Grozdan Nikolov

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Saturday 23 June 2007 16:43, you wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 14:17:15 +0200
>
> Grozdan Nikolov <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Hello gentlemen and ladies.
> >
> > As a Linux user for many years now (regulars user, not a programmer), I
> > want
>
> Please do not feed the trolls, thank you

heh, I'm not a troll, I just wanted to know what the Linux people think about
it and your perspectives on the issues, but it seems you all go hiding
instead of explaining and making a clear stand

2007-06-23 15:40:26

by Alan

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 17:22:26 +0200
Grozdan Nikolov <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Saturday 23 June 2007 16:43, you wrote:
> > On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 14:17:15 +0200
> >
> > Grozdan Nikolov <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Hello gentlemen and ladies.
> > >
> > > As a Linux user for many years now (regulars user, not a programmer), I
> > > want
> >
> > Please do not feed the trolls, thank you
>
> heh, I'm not a troll, I just wanted to know what the Linux people think about
> it and your perspectives on the issues, but it seems you all go hiding
> instead of explaining and making a clear stand

You sound like one - or very misinformed. Most of the Solaris and AIX
"innovations" you mentioned are far older, other things are bogus (eg
the LSB spec for Linux is based upon SuSv3 - the single unix spec), and
the unix nme is payware not free for use.

A few innovations that afaik first appeared the Linux kernel
- Making multiple hosts appear transparently as one IP address
- Futex fast hybrid locking
- Single pass checksum fragment and send fragments in reverse order
- Reiserfs - very innovative design, but innovation isn't neccessarily
success
- JFFS/JFFS2 - flash wear levelled file system avoiding all the problem
patents
- Loadable modules for a non-microkernel

I'd argue the lack of a stable kernel internal API is also an innovation

A bigger question to ask is "When is innovation good ?"

The reason everyone uses ext3 or on BSD UFS/FFS is the same reason we use
the paperclip today - its an extremely reliable, well understood solution
to the problem space. Is every office that uses paperclips inferior - or
smart ?

There are also lots of big innovations in Linux donated by other
organisations - from Sun NFS (The real NFS innovation was that Sun gave
the spec out and let people implement it for free) through to stuff like
RCU, stuff made freely available elsewhere and implemented in Linux, and
tons of stuff where Linux is the one that combined them in clever and
useful ways.

The basis of building great free software projects is sharing and mixing,
not sitting in a lab inventing something cool from scratch. Linux could
have innovated its own system call interface from scratch. If so I doubt
it would have caught on.

Now if you want really innovative OS work go look in the lab or at
projects most people have never heard of and don't run.

Alan

2007-06-23 16:12:29

by Torsten Duwe

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Saturday 23 June 2007, Alan Cox wrote:

> A few innovations that afaik first appeared the Linux kernel
> - Making multiple hosts appear transparently as one IP address
> - Futex fast hybrid locking
> - Single pass checksum fragment and send fragments in reverse order
> - Reiserfs - very innovative design, but innovation isn't neccessarily
> success
> - JFFS/JFFS2 - flash wear levelled file system avoiding all the problem
> patents
> - Loadable modules for a non-microkernel
- ALSA framework and drivers
- Direct Rendering Infrastructure
- hotplugging

> I'd argue the lack of a stable kernel internal API is also an innovation
The userland API _is_ stable; a stable intra-kernel API would *hinder*
innovation ;-)

> The basis of building great free software projects is sharing and mixing,
> not sitting in a lab inventing something cool from scratch.
Generally, OS kernels have adopted and improved each others' ideas since the
term was coined. Simply pulling out the Linux kernel and stating it has
re-implemented more features than it innovated itself simply isn't fair. The
same holds true for _any_ of the others!

BTW, PAM and NIS are userland. Certainly you don't want to compare even an
average Linux distro with a plain solaris, AIX or *BSD* installation?

Also keep in mind that the Linux kernel is highly portable (handheld to
mainframe), maybe only matched by NetBSD. This requires a major amount of
maintenance care and some extra work for each new feature. And BSDs are not
Unix, strictly speaking; Unix has "ripped off" BSD, as you would say.

You have simply fallen for some highly biased articles, if not propaganda.

Torsten

2007-06-23 16:19:57

by Grozdan Nikolov

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Saturday 23 June 2007 18:12, you wrote:
> On Saturday 23 June 2007, Alan Cox wrote:
> > A few innovations that afaik first appeared the Linux kernel
> > - Making multiple hosts appear transparently as one IP address
> > - Futex fast hybrid locking
> > - Single pass checksum fragment and send fragments in reverse order
> > - Reiserfs - very innovative design, but innovation isn't neccessarily
> > success
> > - JFFS/JFFS2 - flash wear levelled file system avoiding all the problem
> > patents
> > - Loadable modules for a non-microkernel
>
> - ALSA framework and drivers
> - Direct Rendering Infrastructure
> - hotplugging
>

hmm, wasn't loadable kernel modules first implemented in SunOS 4.x together
with the proc system ?

2007-06-23 16:42:23

by Torsten Duwe

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Saturday 23 June 2007, you wrote:

> hmm, wasn't loadable kernel modules first implemented in SunOS 4.x [...]
Yes, but that was pretty cumbersome. You had to resolve the symbols in user
space, using a hopefully matching /vmunix. Linux was first to feature an
in-kernel linker and symbol table, IIRC.

Torsten

2007-06-23 16:54:31

by Matthew Jacob

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

>
> > hmm, wasn't loadable kernel modules first implemented in SunOS 4.x [...]
> Yes, but that was pretty cumbersome. You had to resolve the symbols in user
> space, using a hopefully matching /vmunix. Linux was first to feature an
> in-kernel linker and symbol table, IIRC.
>
>

Err, uh, no- I believe that Solaris development for this at the very
least predates even 0.59 linux- I think it was Joe Provino at Sun ECD
near Boston who gave us a working prototype in early 1989.

2007-06-23 17:30:59

by jimmy bahuleyan

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

Torsten Duwe wrote:
> On Saturday 23 June 2007, you wrote:
>
>> hmm, wasn't loadable kernel modules first implemented in SunOS 4.x [...]
> Yes, but that was pretty cumbersome. You had to resolve the symbols in user
> space, using a hopefully matching /vmunix. Linux was first to feature an
> in-kernel linker and symbol table, IIRC.
>

building upon or improving existing technology is as important as
inventing new things. if every one insisted on dreaming up new things, i
doubt we would've accomplished anything significant (not just in OS,
anywhere ;)

> Torsten

-jb
--
Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.

2007-06-23 17:42:37

by Al Boldi

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

Alan Cox wrote:
>
> I'd argue the lack of a stable kernel internal API is also an innovation
>

Give me a break Alan; you are smarter than that!

Arguing the validity of a stable Kernel internal API is as ridiculous as
arguing the validity of the paperclip.

The paperclip allows you to attach things to each other, no matter which
version of paper you use.

Please wake up!


Thanks!

--
Al

2007-06-23 17:52:27

by Benny Amorsen

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

>>>>> "AC" == Alan Cox <[email protected]> writes:

AC> A few innovations that afaik first appeared the Linux kernel

The clone() call and the efficient 1:1 threading it brought was
definitely innovative. None of the other Unices had anything similar.

splice() is innovative as well, even though it took 10 years from
concept to implementation...


/Benny


2007-06-23 17:53:49

by Bernd Petrovitsch

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Sat, 2007-06-23 at 14:17 +0200, Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
[...]
> Please CC me as I'm not subscribe to this mailing list,

Perhaps you should change that and find most answers for yourself.

> Thanks!

Thanks!

Bernd
--
Firmix Software GmbH http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
Embedded Linux Development and Services

2007-06-23 17:56:54

by Diego Calleja

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

El Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:00:42 +0530, jimmy bahuleyan <[email protected]> escribi?:

> building upon or improving existing technology is as important as
> inventing new things. if every one insisted on dreaming up new things, i
> doubt we would've accomplished anything significant (not just in OS,
> anywhere ;)


Let's also not forget that many of the "innovative" features that Grodzan says
Linux has copied to Solaris and other Unixes, were actually not invented by
them. OS/2 already had dtrace in 1994 (it even had the same name), and many
of the traditional Unix features were copied^Wheavily inspired in multics.

2007-06-23 18:02:35

by Jeffrey V. Merkey

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?


There's a lot in Linux that was true innnovation:

Alan Cox's Networking Architecture.
VFS Architecture (best one out there -- even better than M$'s)
Scheduler Design.

Jeff



2007-06-23 18:02:56

by Satyam Sharma

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

> >
> > Grozdan Nikolov <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Hello gentlemen and ladies.
> > >
> > > As a Linux user for many years now (regulars user, not a programmer), I
> > > want
> >
> > Please do not feed the trolls, thank you

Absolutely. We had almost 900+ not-so-productive mails on
another thread recently ...

On 6/23/07, Grozdan Nikolov <[email protected]> wrote:
> heh, I'm not a troll,

Ok, Grozdan, but ...

> but it seems you all go hiding
> instead of explaining and making a clear stand

then what is this? Provocation is _standard_ troll tactics.

Why don't you try being innovative yourself?

2007-06-23 18:12:27

by Jan Engelhardt

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?


On Jun 23 2007 18:12, Torsten Duwe wrote:
>On Saturday 23 June 2007, Alan Cox wrote:
>
>> A few innovations that afaik first appeared the Linux kernel
>> - Making multiple hosts appear transparently as one IP address
>> - Futex fast hybrid locking
>> - Single pass checksum fragment and send fragments in reverse order
>> - Reiserfs - very innovative design, but innovation isn't neccessarily
>> success
>> - JFFS/JFFS2 - flash wear levelled file system avoiding all the problem
>> patents
>> - Loadable modules for a non-microkernel
>
>- hotplugging

Was not Windows 95 first here?


Jan
--

2007-06-23 18:15:44

by Grozdan Nikolov

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Saturday 23 June 2007 19:53, you wrote:
> On Sat, 2007-06-23 at 14:17 +0200, Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
> [...]
>
> > Please CC me as I'm not subscribe to this mailing list,
>
> Perhaps you should change that and find most answers for yourself.
>
> > Thanks!
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bernd

Perhaps you should change your rude attitude towards people who are seeking
for answers without actually looking for rants or flame-wars. If you have
read my replies to Alan, you should know why I asked these questions.... To
clarify something that might be incorrect or biased in the articles I've read
so far... if you could tell me a better place to ask about Linux internal
stuff, please tell me so......

As I'm not a kernel programmer I don't see the need to subscribe to the LKML,
I can contribute nothing to it. Yes, I do follow the LKML by reading it
(that's how I discovered the new CPU schedulers from Ingo and Con and gave
them a try, great piece of software, by the way). Reading kernel "patch
e-mails" doesn't really teach you who invented this stuff... there are
probably a lot of technologies which I'm not aware of their inventors, hence
the simple questions I asked to clarify it for myself...... but if you decide
that it's trolling because I'm not part of your "kernel development team" and
I don't contribute to it (maybe I don't have the skills?) then you are the
one who keeps the biased or wrong articles out there live longer by not
willing to answer or clarify some things to a person who's just looking for
the *correct* answers

Thanks !!!

2007-06-23 18:17:46

by Grozdan Nikolov

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?


>
> then what is this? Provocation is _standard_ troll tactics.
>
> Why don't you try being innovative yourself?

Because I've seen many times how people outside the kernel community get
ignored or even labled as trolls when asking something, so I thought that
provocation in this case could be better productive for me.

2007-06-23 18:36:44

by Grozdan Nikolov

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Saturday 23 June 2007 21:18, you wrote:
> There's a lot in Linux that was true innnovation:
>
> Alan Cox's Networking Architecture.
> VFS Architecture (best one out there -- even better than M$'s)
> Scheduler Design.
>
> Jeff

Thanks Jeff, so from reading all the responses here I can conclude that Linux
innovates stuff by itself and not only gets it from other places. Is it also
right to say that other kernels, be it BSD, Solaris, maybe AIX?, also benefit
from the Linux innovations? eg adding stuff from the Linux kernel into their
own kernels if their licenses allow it

2007-06-23 18:55:07

by jimmy bahuleyan

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
> On Saturday 23 June 2007 19:53, you wrote:
>> On Sat, 2007-06-23 at 14:17 +0200, Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
>> [...]
>>
>>> Please CC me as I'm not subscribe to this mailing list,
>> Perhaps you should change that and find most answers for yourself.
>>
>>> Thanks!
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Bernd
>
> Perhaps you should change your rude attitude towards people who are seeking
> for answers without actually looking for rants or flame-wars. If you have
> read my replies to Alan, you should know why I asked these questions.... To
> clarify something that might be incorrect or biased in the articles I've read
> so far... if you could tell me a better place to ask about Linux internal
> stuff, please tell me so......
>

well, i would say this - put yourself into the shoes of a kernel
developer who barely has time to keep track of the large volume of
development work, discussions, testing, etc. Then someone who claims to
be not a kernel developer, who isn't subscribed to the list comes along
and says 'there is _no_ innovation in the linux kernel'. What would your
reaction be?

I'm not a kernel developer myself, but i think there are lots of
resources on the internet where you can read watered down versions of
discussions happening on this list.

> willing to answer or clarify some things to a person who's just looking for
> the *correct* answers
>

Of course, everyone wants to learn from the gurus. But confronting them
in this way hardly seems the right way ;)

-jb
--
Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.

2007-06-23 19:06:23

by Grozdan Nikolov

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Saturday 23 June 2007 20:54, you wrote:
> Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
> > On Saturday 23 June 2007 19:53, you wrote:
> >> On Sat, 2007-06-23 at 14:17 +0200, Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
> >> [...]
> >>
> >>> Please CC me as I'm not subscribe to this mailing list,
> >>
> >> Perhaps you should change that and find most answers for yourself.
> >>
> >>> Thanks!
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >>
> >> Bernd
> >
> > Perhaps you should change your rude attitude towards people who are
> > seeking for answers without actually looking for rants or flame-wars. If
> > you have read my replies to Alan, you should know why I asked these
> > questions.... To clarify something that might be incorrect or biased in
> > the articles I've read so far... if you could tell me a better place to
> > ask about Linux internal stuff, please tell me so......
>
> well, i would say this - put yourself into the shoes of a kernel
> developer who barely has time to keep track of the large volume of
> development work, discussions, testing, etc. Then someone who claims to
> be not a kernel developer, who isn't subscribed to the list comes along
> and says 'there is _no_ innovation in the linux kernel'. What would your
> reaction be?

My reaction will be to clarify it to this person that this is not true (and
thanks to the some of you who already did), even if I'm under pressure from
development work/testing/patching... But this is just the type of person I
am. Everyone is different so I expected some "rude" reactions. But there are
people who are willing to clarify things (Alan Cox, Jeffrey Merkey, Diego
Calleja on the clarification of dtrace being used on OS/2, etc). Many thanks
to those... If some of you get annoyed (which is perfectly possible), then
just don't bother getting involved in this thread :)

>
> I'm not a kernel developer myself, but i think there are lots of
> resources on the internet where you can read watered down versions of
> discussions happening on this list.

If there are I'm unaware of those, thanks for the hint though

>
> > willing to answer or clarify some things to a person who's just looking
> > for the *correct* answers
>
> Of course, everyone wants to learn from the gurus. But confronting them
> in this way hardly seems the right way ;)
>
> -jb

2007-06-23 19:18:07

by Alan

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 18:19:43 +0200
Grozdan Nikolov <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Saturday 23 June 2007 18:12, you wrote:
> > On Saturday 23 June 2007, Alan Cox wrote:
> > > A few innovations that afaik first appeared the Linux kernel
> > > - Making multiple hosts appear transparently as one IP address
> > > - Futex fast hybrid locking
> > > - Single pass checksum fragment and send fragments in reverse order
> > > - Reiserfs - very innovative design, but innovation isn't neccessarily
> > > success
> > > - JFFS/JFFS2 - flash wear levelled file system avoiding all the problem
> > > patents
> > > - Loadable modules for a non-microkernel
> >
> > - ALSA framework and drivers
> > - Direct Rendering Infrastructure

DRI is based on SGI work and Mark Kilgard and the SGI folks definitely
did the real visionary work in that area.

> > - hotplugging
> >
>
> hmm, wasn't loadable kernel modules first implemented in SunOS 4.x together
> with the proc system ?

Proc type stuff is a lot older than Linux or Unix AFAIK. Loadable modules
ditto but the full load/unload/autoload stuff I've not seen pre-Linux.

2007-06-23 19:39:19

by Alan

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

> >- hotplugging
>
> Was not Windows 95 first here?

Hotplug for specialised systems at least is 1950's

2007-06-23 21:02:39

by Al Viro

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 08:23:43PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> Proc type stuff is a lot older than Linux or Unix AFAIK. Loadable modules
> ditto but the full load/unload/autoload stuff I've not seen pre-Linux.

Representation of process state and control of that state via files on
a filesystem? AFAIK, it's 80s stuff and at least one of the sources
had been research branch in Bell Labs - whether you call it Unix or not...

Do you have any references for that animal in earlier systems? A lot
older than Unix would mean 50s or 60s...

2007-06-23 22:02:27

by Carlo Wood

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 04:46:08PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> Now if you want really innovative OS work go look in the lab or at
> projects most people have never heard of and don't run.

Hey, I heard of one. I got a few friends that are sitting
in an IRC channel and have been working on a complete new
OS from scratch for like 10 years now (kernel, filesystem,
graphics drivers, libraries - everything). I consider them
to be totally nuts of course. When I ask them why are you
still doing this? Can't you use linux? Then the answer is
that there are still companies interested in operating
systems like that, precisely because they are not well-
known. It would be pretty hard to exploit vulnerabilities
in such a system (or that is their explanation anyway).

--
Carlo Wood <[email protected]>

2007-06-23 22:08:18

by Alan

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 22:02:29 +0100
Al Viro <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 08:23:43PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> > Proc type stuff is a lot older than Linux or Unix AFAIK. Loadable modules
> > ditto but the full load/unload/autoload stuff I've not seen pre-Linux.
>
> Representation of process state and control of that state via files on
> a filesystem?

I don't know about proc in that sense prior to v8 unix I was thinking
about the logical device stuff and filesystem objects/namepaces that
produced program generated data.



2007-06-23 22:16:18

by David Kane

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

The real innotation in Linux is that it is open source and yet popular
enough that there are versions that even a windoze user could easily pick
up.

David Kane

On 6/23/07, Carlo Wood <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 04:46:08PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> > Now if you want really innovative OS work go look in the lab or at
> > projects most people have never heard of and don't run.
>
> Hey, I heard of one. I got a few friends that are sitting
> in an IRC channel and have been working on a complete new
> OS from scratch for like 10 years now (kernel, filesystem,
> graphics drivers, libraries - everything). I consider them
> to be totally nuts of course. When I ask them why are you
> still doing this? Can't you use linux? Then the answer is
> that there are still companies interested in operating
> systems like that, precisely because they are not well-
> known. It would be pretty hard to exploit vulnerabilities
> in such a system (or that is their explanation anyway).
>
> --
> Carlo Wood <[email protected]>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [email protected]
> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>

2007-06-23 22:21:32

by Alan

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:13:55 -0600
"David Kane" <[email protected]> wrote:

> The real innotation in Linux is that it is open source and yet popular
> enough that there are versions that even a windoze user could easily pick
> up.

I think that is more a product of its time than the software. It isn't
the first openly available Unix-like OS. The others such as UZI and OMU
died because there wasn't the internet in its modern form to keep them
going, share them and build communities.

2007-06-23 23:15:43

by Jesper Juhl

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On 23/06/07, Grozdan Nikolov <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Saturday 23 June 2007 20:54, jimmy bahuleyan wrote:
[snip]
> > I'm not a kernel developer myself, but i think there are lots of
> > resources on the internet where you can read watered down versions of
> > discussions happening on this list.
>
> If there are I'm unaware of those, thanks for the hint though
>

A few places:

The LinuxChanges page at kernelnewbies: http://kernelnewbies.org/LinuxChanges
The kernel section of LWN: http://lwn.net/Kernel/
Kerneltrap: http://kerneltrap.org/
Kernel Traffic (unfortunately no longer updated): http://kerneltraffic.org/

And then you have list archives like :

http://lkml.org/
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/index.html


--
Jesper Juhl <[email protected]>
Don't top-post http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
Plain text mails only, please http://www.expita.com/nomime.html

2007-06-24 04:31:57

by Rik van Riel

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
> On Saturday 23 June 2007 21:18, you wrote:
>> There's a lot in Linux that was true innnovation:
>>
>> Alan Cox's Networking Architecture.
>> VFS Architecture (best one out there -- even better than M$'s)
>> Scheduler Design.
>>
>> Jeff
>
> Thanks Jeff, so from reading all the responses here I can conclude that Linux
> innovates stuff by itself and not only gets it from other places. Is it also
> right to say that other kernels, be it BSD, Solaris, maybe AIX?, also benefit
> from the Linux innovations?

Absolutely. Every operating system benefits from the
cross pollination of ideas that happens on mailing lists,
through white papers and at conferences.


--
Politics is the struggle between those who want to make their country
the best in the world, and those who believe it already is. Each group
calls the other unpatriotic.

2007-06-24 21:36:34

by Nikita Danilov

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

Alan Cox writes:

[...]

>
> A few innovations that afaik first appeared the Linux kernel
> - Making multiple hosts appear transparently as one IP address
> - Futex fast hybrid locking

DEC Firefly workstation, before 1987.

Nikita.

2007-06-25 09:39:26

by Hiro Yoshioka

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On 6/24/07, Alan Cox <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:13:55 -0600
> "David Kane" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > The real innotation in Linux is that it is open source and yet popular
> > enough that there are versions that even a windoze user could easily pick
> > up.
>
> I think that is more a product of its time than the software. It isn't
> the first openly available Unix-like OS. The others such as UZI and OMU
> died because there wasn't the internet in its modern form to keep them
> going, share them and build communities.

Developed by the community is very innovative.
Linux is the first OS developed by very large community. (Bazaar Model)

Regards,
Hiro
--
Hiro Yoshioka
mailto:hyoshiok at miraclelinux.com

2007-06-25 15:12:34

by Lennart Sorensen

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 08:15:33PM +0200, Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
> On Saturday 23 June 2007 19:53, you wrote:
> > On Sat, 2007-06-23 at 14:17 +0200, Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > > Please CC me as I'm not subscribe to this mailing list,
> >
> > Perhaps you should change that and find most answers for yourself.
> >
> > > Thanks!
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Bernd
>
> Perhaps you should change your rude attitude towards people who are seeking
> for answers without actually looking for rants or flame-wars. If you have
> read my replies to Alan, you should know why I asked these questions.... To
> clarify something that might be incorrect or biased in the articles I've read
> so far... if you could tell me a better place to ask about Linux internal
> stuff, please tell me so......

I fail to see what part of that reply was rude in any way. It simply
offered a perfectly valid suggestion.

Just because people give you something other than what you want, does
not make them rude.

It is also quite likely the reply was written before reading the other
comments. With the volume on lkml, reading all comments in a thread
before writing any replies is just not possible.

--
Len Sorensen

2007-06-25 15:15:59

by Jan Engelhardt

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?


On Jun 25 2007 11:12, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>
>It is also quite likely the reply was written before reading the other
>comments. With the volume on lkml, reading all comments in a thread
>before writing any replies is just not possible.

Perhaps the list needs to be split up, e.g. linux-politics@vger :)


Jan
--

2007-06-25 16:35:15

by Randy Dunlap

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:15:50 +0200 (CEST) Jan Engelhardt wrote:

>
> On Jun 25 2007 11:12, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> >
> >It is also quite likely the reply was written before reading the other
> >comments. With the volume on lkml, reading all comments in a thread
> >before writing any replies is just not possible.
>
> Perhaps the list needs to be split up, e.g. linux-politics@vger :)

I'm for that (including a place for GPL discussions), but I think that
people would still just overload lkml instead of using the split lists.

---
~Randy
(resent due to failure on first attempt)

2007-06-25 16:42:33

by Jan Engelhardt

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?


On Jun 25 2007 09:37, Randy Dunlap wrote:
>On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:15:50 +0200 (CEST) Jan Engelhardt wrote:
>> On Jun 25 2007 11:12, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>> >
>> >It is also quite likely the reply was written before reading the other
>> >comments. With the volume on lkml, reading all comments in a thread
>> >before writing any replies is just not possible.
>>
>> Perhaps the list needs to be split up, e.g. linux-politics@vger :)
>
>I'm for that (including a place for GPL discussions), but I think that
>people would still just overload lkml instead of using the split lists.

Then turn it around: the technical part becomes a separate list. Sort of like
netfilter and netfilter-devel.


Jan
--

2007-06-25 17:51:30

by jimmy bahuleyan

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> On Jun 25 2007 09:37, Randy Dunlap wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:15:50 +0200 (CEST) Jan Engelhardt wrote:
>>> On Jun 25 2007 11:12, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>>>> It is also quite likely the reply was written before reading the other
>>>> comments. With the volume on lkml, reading all comments in a thread
>>>> before writing any replies is just not possible.
>>> Perhaps the list needs to be split up, e.g. linux-politics@vger :)
>> I'm for that (including a place for GPL discussions), but I think that
>> people would still just overload lkml instead of using the split lists.
>
> Then turn it around: the technical part becomes a separate list. Sort of like
> netfilter and netfilter-devel.
>
>
> Jan

would be quite difficult in practice, since people would then argue that
their mails were in fact technical ;)

-jb
--
Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.

2007-06-25 22:57:37

by Adrian Bunk

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

On Sun, Jun 24, 2007 at 12:02:22AM +0200, Carlo Wood wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 23, 2007 at 04:46:08PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> > Now if you want really innovative OS work go look in the lab or at
> > projects most people have never heard of and don't run.
>
> Hey, I heard of one. I got a few friends that are sitting
> in an IRC channel and have been working on a complete new
> OS from scratch for like 10 years now (kernel, filesystem,
> graphics drivers, libraries - everything). I consider them
> to be totally nuts of course. When I ask them why are you
> still doing this? Can't you use linux? Then the answer is
> that there are still companies interested in operating
> systems like that, precisely because they are not well-
> known. It would be pretty hard to exploit vulnerabilities
> in such a system (or that is their explanation anyway).

Can you name such companies so that I'll never accidentally buy some of
their stocks? ;-)

There are already more than enough operating systems available that are
less popular than Linux...

E.g. a good combination of less popular than Linux and a very good
security reputation would be OpenBSD.

> Carlo Wood

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

2007-06-26 12:40:42

by Helge Hafting

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: How innovative is Linux?

Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
> Hello gentlemen and ladies.
>
> As a Linux user for many years now (regulars user, not a programmer), I want
> to congratulated you all for the great work you all have done in making Linux
> widely supported and compatible with a lot of hardware. Recently, I was on a
> search to see how the Linux kernel itself compares to other Unix kernels
> (*BSD, Solaris, AIX, etc) in terms of *real* innovation.
It certainly has an innovative licence - which is why
it is attracting developers and replacing most of those other unices . . .

Helge Hafting