From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED,FREEMAIL_FROM,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 4500 invoked from network); 19 Jan 2023 16:42:40 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 19 Jan 2023 16:42:40 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E20D24245D; Fri, 20 Jan 2023 02:42:33 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-lj1-f182.google.com (mail-lj1-f182.google.com [209.85.208.182]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 15F18423E2 for ; Fri, 20 Jan 2023 02:42:29 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-lj1-f182.google.com with SMTP id p25so2675551ljn.12 for ; Thu, 19 Jan 2023 08:42:29 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20210112; h=content-transfer-encoding:cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from :in-reply-to:references:mime-version:from:to:cc:subject:date :message-id:reply-to; bh=00Z5BLQmskObAze/q9pzPj68Qf0SDqDeL6qjMNtu85A=; b=TDFg+q+5P37rFTt+164gd33Y3lPKOAZg47+sA1IbXIyy1Uy7H6QhVBfB1X5UGcEbnY 9cz0z1bP4M7RKR3pq9k73U0QyxTIP4Eap2pyN/hQwjVQQCl6aesIhzvZXKXwNYNQy8WW lEHPwr1yEQhXF/SRw1oelSga3ZOOLD0DcparljF7D9r7UPF0Y1W73QpG04Oocli4g25Y uJdhithjdRnwk5vCPm5QfLypShPIHIRWO2P8TdWIEIGIWETgIACuK8bNIAw/ikv0BYHE KVNSa9h7PiPJin8ZDmOA7DowbCvw2Vife85Vw2CVue1uhRNMHtDzbZDx7AQNwsLFGPmu mRDw== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20210112; h=content-transfer-encoding:cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from :in-reply-to:references:mime-version:x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc :subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=00Z5BLQmskObAze/q9pzPj68Qf0SDqDeL6qjMNtu85A=; b=WbBXAyPklDbka0Uda6vI/lNFXjmkZt2HN0WmF5yuhALxm07MK/ZGfmwKn30PrgtrVZ w1QyKuqBlQyiV00O+7haLHT+XhK2YFcErQSz5nRnxcg36qDohxxdnyccMW/ReQT2gNYe FdgcLLLX4uTvBiGku7vqs9lKBEFoqwjt4FdGEiHtgDh3H/+BwvHSTRMNsFIOERoiP+Ah 3ER8Iqz5w1TCd/HdaxPN0UERtbV0Y1utOZ1E07gi1YQjRf0u1XZeXvk2qRlPHunQqcWQ vF4KWr+JnGawZqCGq6SuNfvmI7na2woqHCt9sox84jGI/qGwwQz5ayH3NP0vsvyU+8eJ zE/Q== X-Gm-Message-State: AFqh2koJOK7La523THUbOXwk5kNdmEwwvJniGK3G5DAYRxc3LoxiguYs fdNB+BSiOEhMR+ckL03r7YZujHzB7WbGW5lIkzpmIaQBGT0= X-Google-Smtp-Source: AMrXdXu78ndBY5Ax2NIPUql1p0euLg0bcKseEhvpO17oHIKV1k5NJUi/AOW3vG8EFBKVrb+0CxIodAb4GYjjHPxrQLo= X-Received: by 2002:a2e:9345:0:b0:28b:6936:1d56 with SMTP id m5-20020a2e9345000000b0028b69361d56mr551555ljh.445.1674146487432; Thu, 19 Jan 2023 08:41:27 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <202301180943.30I9hrOw030485@freefriends.org> <202301181513.30IFDDUJ015224@freefriends.org> <20230118151446.GD2964@mcvoy.com> <202301190802.30J82KwQ025718@freefriends.org> <20230119150434.GA626@mcvoy.com> In-Reply-To: From: Dan Cross Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 11:40:50 -0500 Message-ID: To: Warner Losh Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID-Hash: CTMIDKNYBRBNNELD3X33XDTBU5TNAVGA X-Message-ID-Hash: CTMIDKNYBRBNNELD3X33XDTBU5TNAVGA X-MailFrom: crossd@gmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: tuhs@tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: AIX moved into maintainance mode List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 10:21 AM Warner Losh wrote: > On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 8:04 AM Larry McVoy wrote: >> I had already been using Linux for a while by then I believe. I used >> it before it had networking. >> >> Pretty early on I got to be friends with Linus and was really impressed >> with his leadership. That's what sold me on Linux, he was the thing >> that was missing in the BSD world. If someone like him had appeared >> and unified the BSD world I think we'd all be running BSD. > > By the time even 4.3BSD was released, there were dozens of people that co= uld work on the kernel at a high level of skill. There were also a lot of gatekeepers. Perhaps not so much in CSRG, but certainly in the next tier out: if you weren't part of the in-crowd at USENIX and on USENET, it was hard to contribute. Ted has referred to this as kowtowing to the "Gods of BSD." He wasn't wrong, though I think the dynamic has changed substantially in recent years. > There was no one person who created it who could have the gravitas to pul= l that off. Let alone a decade later when it was freed up, by then there we= re hundreds. The dynamics of the situation were quite different: Linus alwa= ys was in charge because he wrote the whole thing... BSD was a victim of i= t's own success in the 80s and 90s in a way... I'm struck by the thing Ken said in the video that was linked earlier, so much of "success" has to do with luck. Unix was in the right place at the right time, spread through universities, and escaped into industry. It's one of the relatively few research projects that was truly successful in that sense. But consider that it also had something like five years to incubate in a lab before that happened, and the members of that lab had a vested interest in making it useful (after all, they were using it for their own consumption!). By the time BSD came along, Unix already had a well-defined "shape" and a certain degree of polish; contributing meant there was a bar you had to hurdle. On the other hand, Torvalds published Linux when it was still a toy, but critically, at a point where the industry was at a real inflection point, due to external factors. More capable research systems had been out there before, and open source BSDs were right around the corner, but they didn't win. I think this was mostly luck and timing. He also pretty much took from everybody, which made it much more of a "big tent" sort of thing as opposed to the faculty lunchroom vibe prevalent in the Unix world (what I've previously described as, "the old-school Unix mentality"). Periodically we see how this still rankles some, even on this mailing list. But it's interesting the way the "Gods of BSD vs the rebel alliance" thing seems to have inverted itself. Getting stuff done in Linux these days is pretty hard; oh sure, I suppose if you whip off a patch fixing a typo in a comment or something, someone will just apply it. But if you want to do something substantial, you have to be willing to invest a lot of time and effort in shepherding it through the upstreaming process, which implies you've got to have resources backing that effort. And there's definitely an in-group. Meanwhile, the BSDs seem a lot more accepting; maybe that's just me. At least FreeBSD and DragonFly appear that way. Anyway, it seems fair to say that Linux seems mostly beholden to the interests of big companies these days. Linus is personally responsible for much of Linux's success, but I think he will also be the thing that causes Linux's demise, though indirectly. He's as much of a cult of personality as he is a technical leader; when he's gone (and in the limit we're all mortal) who will step into his shoes? Then again, maybe I'm wrong: I thought this would happen when Jobs died, but Cook seems to have stepped into the role nicely and Apple's doing just fine. Steve Jobs chose wisely; perhaps Linus will as well. - Dan C. >> On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 01:02:20AM -0700, arnold@skeeve.com wrote: >> > In hindsight, I agree. But at the time, Linux was less than >> > five years old, and it wasn't so obvious. >> > >> > Larry McVoy wrote: >> > >> > > It makes perfect sense, it's a repeated story, commercial loses out >> > > to free. >> > > >> > > On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 08:13:13AM -0700, arnold@skeeve.com wrote: >> > > > Interestingly enough, Phil Hughes, who founded Linux Journal >> > > > in the early 1990s, predicted that this would happen one day. >> > > > This was in a private conversation we had. I thought he >> > > > was crazy, but he was right. >> > > > >> > > > arnold@skeeve.com wrote: >> > > > >> > > > > https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/unix_is_dead/ >> > > > > >> > > > > FYI. >> > > > > >> > > > > Arnold >> > > >> > > -- >> > > --- >> > > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.c= om/lm/boat >> >> -- >> --- >> Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/l= m/boat