[NCLUG] Re: Thoughts on Linux Users

Chad Perrin perrin at apotheon.com
Tue Nov 13 16:46:20 MST 2007


On Tue, Nov 13, 2007 at 03:24:21PM -0700, John L. Bass wrote:
> Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> writes:
> > On Sun, Nov 11, 2007 at 11:08:05PM -0700, John L. Bass wrote:
> > > 
> > > That the linux GUI is finally catching up to the Mac, some 25 years late,
> > > isn't a good thing. It means we have missed 25 years of ground breaking
> > > innovation.
> > 
> > I'm afraid I have to disagree with this part of your characterization of
> > the difference between Unix-like systems and Macs with regard to UI
> > design.
> > 
> > X is broken in a number of ways, and could reasonably be improved or
> > replaced by some quite drastic changes.  Much of the core design
> > philosophy, however, involves some advances that still have not been
> > touched by either Apple or Microsoft, twenty years later.
> 
> Actually, I made the same comment when the BSD folks split off from UCB
> to make FreeBSD a product. They were cloning a old design, rather than
> advancing the state of the Art in computer software. While their have
> been some structural improvements in Linux over the years, it's still
> an old "Me Too" design that has been mature for decades in the Sun Solaris
> and SCO OpenDesktop products.

Cloning?  As I understand things, they were continuing development of
something with a new direction for advancements and a particular
philosophy toward matters of licensing and project maintenance.  That's
not "cloning".  A fork is not a copy -- it's an evolutionary branch.

The above is re: FreeBSD, of course, not Linux.  Linux is more of a
"clone", at least in its inception.  Even there, however, there's
obviously an intent to build on prior art, provide a community model of
software maintenance, and allow licensing terms that differ from what
came before.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.


> 
> The advancement, would have been to put the energies which produced FreeBSD
> and Linux into a next generation redesign and architecture.

Go try Plan 9 from Bell Labs or Haiku, then.  You might complain about
Haiku reusing code from other sources and being too philosophically
derivative from BeOS, I suppose, though.  Maybe you should stick with
Plan 9.  Certainly, nothing from Apple or Microsoft comes close to the
innovative ideas coming from such directions.

In any case, I don't see what the big problem is.  The parts of Unix
design philosophy that work well should not be eliminated just for some
kind of ideological devotion to the idea of "advancement".  Meanwhile, a
lot of the new stuff showing up in projects like Plan 9 is being actively
incorporated into Unix-like OSes such as FreeBSD.

In other words, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.  If I *was*
inclined to throw the baby out, I wouldn't pick up MS Windows or MacOS X
as the shining example of new technologies.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Isaac Asimov: "Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is
completely programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest."



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