Linux Just Another OpenSource Photo-Copy Job?

“According to the study, it's safe to argue that Tanenbaum, who had years of OS experience and who had seen the Unix source code, could create Minix in three years. "However, it is highly questionable that Linus, still just a student, with virtually no operating systems development experience, could do the same, especially in one-sixth of the time," says the study, which was written by Ken Brown, president of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution.“ [1]

Linus and the author of Minix both swear up and down that the code is Linus' alone. But, this is gaurenteed to cause some flame wars in the near future.

[1] http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5216651.html

3 Comments

  • No, this won't cause flame wars. It's funny - that's what it is. People are laughing at that, Brown, poor guy who made a fool out of himself.



    I actually find it really funny. He didn't even understand basic stuff which 2nd year CS students get the hang of, hehehe.

  • Yea the only flame here is the one that jerk has lit on his own but... hope he has a can of gas handy to put it out...



    and I hope MS will get wise and keep out of funding any morons like him.... not saying this was... just that as MS at some time did send them some funds it now makes for one bad pr for ms... as some folks are going to tryn and say that ms funded sco and this guy to try and kill the Linux systems... which imho ms should be smart and leave it be.

  • In response to Denny, I am not sure MS really cares that Brown wrote what has written. Any bad press on a competitor, even if temporary in nature, keeps customers from shifting?



    MS has an ethical image problem, period. One book isn't going to change the history. MS is the biggest enemy to themselves. Whether it is Allchin ordering the deletion of emails, or stories of competition of who can arrive latest to the airport (with Bill G. won by leaving his car at the drop off zone to be pulled), the image cast is not one of a company that puts ethics first.



    If you look at the fuel behind the Linux movement, it is because of two main reasons. First, there is an attitude that MS doesn't listen to its customers. Customers are tired of the security hassles and upgrade mill. They want their current products fixed, and not wait until Longhorn (and before that XP, before XP, 2000, etc.), or upgrade to this or that new product. Second, they are tired of monopolistic behavior and the drive to have to control every single piece of the computer so that MS can become richer. People may put up with benovolent dictators at the start, but after a while they grow tired and disgruntled.



    If I could get my two cents in with Bill and/or Steve, I would state: (1) clean up the ethics act, instead of pushing right up to the line of what one can get by with legally, instill a new attitude of doing what is right morally and ethically; and (2) instead of trying to push technology, why don't you fix the products you currently have so that people can get more value out of their existing systems.



    Why can't MS just write an OS update that fixes the current problems and runs on the existing hardware? If they did that and made it reasonable price, they would get a healthy return on investment, start creating goodwill, and probably quash a lot of the movement to Linux.



    Just my two cents,

    TC

Comments have been disabled for this content.