Dennis Ritchie Interviewed 425
An anonymous reader writes "Unix.se has published an interview with Dennis Ritchie (inventor of C, co-creator of Unix)." Not very technical, but Dennis shares his thoughts on GNU, kernel design, and more.
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Dennis Ritchie Interviewed
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Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just makes the manuals thicker.
Ritchie's Plan 9 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ritchie's Plan 9 (Score:3, Informative)
--naked [slashdot.org]
Re:Ritchie's Plan 9 (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/plan-nine.html
Take it as you will when you decide whether or not to support this project.
GNU's take on Licenses (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GNU's take on Licenses (Score:2)
This isn't about being best in the world, but about helping to keep freedom.
Why not?
And what does this have to do with the argument? Apache license is indeed open to hoarding, but Plan 9 isn't even free.
Re:GNU's take on Licenses (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you mean "Freedom", as RMS's definition of "Freedom" is different than the standard definition of "freedom" (same for "Free" v. "free"). As soon as RMS writes a license that allows for true "freedom" (ie, I can do whatever the hell I want with the licensed software, including releasing it under a non-GPL license), I will take his views on "freedom" seriously.
Why should he be?
It's a perfectly valid comparative argument. If RMS deems a license non-compatible with the GPL, then it is by definition not "Free", and software licensed under that non-compatible license is not "Free Software". Apache's license comes into play to show the absurdity of this. The Apache license is a perfectly valid and acceptable Open Source license, allowing you to do things like read and modify the source code, publish your changes as you see fit (or not, if you see fit not to publish), etc. The same goes for the Plan 9 license (with a few minor caveats, but little different than any other Open Source license). I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure the Plan 9 license is officially recognized as an Open Source license. However, just as the Apache license is not a Free Software license, neither is the Plan 9 license. And that only really makes a difference if you're fanatical about Free Software. For 99% of the population, Open Source is good enough (you get the source code, you get the ability to change that source code, and you get the ability to redistribute your changes -- what more can you conceivably need?).
If RMS had his way, everybody would be licensing their code under the GPL. I won't bother to postulate whether that's a good or bad thing (IMHO, bad, but that's just a HO). What I will say is that it's short-sighted and naive. Software companies are not going to go away overnight (or even in the forseeable future, if you value useable software), but in a world of "GPL, and nothing but GPL" those companies cannot exist.
Welcome to RMS' utopia, where software is free and no programmer has to worry about how they're going to eat, where they're going to live, how they're going to afford clothing, or anything else. Software doesn't spontaneously write itself, but if you're not getting paid to write software, you have to spend time doing something else to be able to survive. How long has it taken to get HURD to a semi-useable state again? And how much is that due to programmers only being able to work nights and weekends (assuming they have no lives) on the code, rather than having a significant core of developers who work on the project as a day job with all of the trappings -- ie, wages?
Re:GNU's take on Licenses (Score:2, Interesting)
Thinking that software only gets written to be sold is very short-sighted. There are other things to do as well, like maintaining old programs, writing code for websites and to help companies work. Besides, GPL'd software can be sold. If you need an example of a successful business, look at ReiserFS.
If commercial software suddenly dies as a business I'm pretty sure I will be able to adapt. If you're saying you feel capable only of writing programs sold for money, then sorry, but you'll just either will have to learn to apply your skills somewhere else, or find a different kind of job.
Re:GNU's take on Licenses (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GNU's take on Licenses (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, that's a very good summary of GNU software. The freedom of the software is more important then the freedom of users. BSD applies the reverse philosophy. Which license is better, is subjective.
Re:GNU's take on Licenses (Score:5, Interesting)
>You know, that's a very good summary of GNU software. The freedom of the software is more important then the freedom of users. BSD applies the reverse philosophy. Which license is better, is subjective.
Close. The freedom of society to use the software is more important than any individual's freedom to use, or prevent others from using the software. That is usually called Socialism, versus Individualism. Welfare versus selfishness. Which philosophy is better, is subjective.
p.s. Personally, I dislike government mandated Socialism, but software, and "Intellectual Property" in general seems to be inflated in value and overly hoarded. Sharing information eventually increases compassion, so that charity should not need to be mandated from authorities.
Re:GNU's take on Licenses (Score:3, Insightful)
You know the story of the tragedy of the commons right? A public resource, if freely exploitable, gets exploited (and eventually destroyed) by a few abusers, and everyone suffers. A cap on unreasonable usage keeps the resource from going away and everyone benefits much more, even, in the long run, the abusers.
There's no supportable reason for basing your work on mine, but being unwilling to let other users base their work on yours. If your work is so much more important than mine, don't use mine. If mine is important enough to use, let other people discover it and use it too.
This isn't philosophy to me. This is practicality. I got into programming by being able to examine the source code of the programs on my Apple
And really, who does this hurt. Just the greedy assholes. No loss at all, imho.
Re:GNU's take on Licenses (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong.
I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure the Plan 9 license is officially recognized as an Open Source license.
Wrong.
Software companies are not going to go away overnight (or even in the forseeable future, if you value useable software), but in a world of "GPL, and nothing but GPL" those companies cannot exist.
One must ignore the existance of Red Hat, but you're already proven that you live a fact-free existance, so why not?
-russ
Re:GNU's take on Licenses (Score:3, Insightful)
> overnight (or even in the forseeable future,
> if you value useable software), but in a world of
> "GPL, and nothing but GPL" those companies cannot
> exist.
This is something I've always wondered about. If the GPL was the only license in the universe, would there be no software at all? It's kind of what you're asserting, and I don't think it's true. It's not like there would suddenly be no need for software, right? What it would do is make software so it wasn't sold as a product, and it would turn programmers into "true" service people. Programmers would be like plumbers, coming to your house to help you (or your company) fix software problems. Like plumbers, they would compete on rate and on skills.
shut up (Score:5, Insightful)
You, sir, have not even the faintest idea what you are talking about. There will always be a place for programmers, as 99% of software development is not done developing proprietary commercial software. People and companies will always need software, so there will always be people paying to have software developed, it doesn't matter how it's licensed, it's needed and will be paid for, or volunteer groups will develop it and/or businesses will help fund development. Just look at Mozilla, Linux, GNU, BSD(even more difficult as not all improvements make it back in), Open Office, Gnome, KDE, Konqueror fer Chrissake!, Gimp, Vim, Emacs, Wine(an open source reimplementation of windows!), MPlayer, Xine. Just browse around Freshmeat and SourceForge. There are some huge projects there, among all the little ones, done by volunteers. Then when businesses help out, even more gets done. IBM, HP, RedHat, etc. are all putting money into furthering Linux development, because it helps them. It might not make as much money over the short term as proprietary software, but proprietary software is a bad business.
Proprietary software is a bad business because you can't expect people to buy the same products over and over, forever. Physical products are a different matter, as they wear out, get damaged, etc. Think about it for a second. Businesses, schools, governments, all spend billions of dollars on the same software over and over again. Why should they do that? Some organizations that buy proprietary software spend so much(hundreds of millions of dollars per year) on software licensing, that they could fund development of their own software to replace said proprietary software. Depending on what they need, how much they spend, etc., after one year they could have already saved money. Being more conservative, a lot of organizations could look at things over the long term, and be saving money within 5 or 10 years by developing their own software, or helping develop existing free software.
Seriously, you're stupid if you don't see that. The only reason to stick with spending hundreds of millions on software is simply that that is the status quo. Governments and companies are starting to realize that. That's why so many European governments and companies, even the U.S. government and companies, are starting to get involved with "free software". They plan to save money, and have better software.
The things you are saying are unworkable, are already being put into practice.
How long has it taken to get HURD to a semi-useable state again?
Ok, now that's just absolute stupidity. Linux was developed, licensed under the GPL no less so there goes your implication that an OS kernel is too difficult a task to be completed by groups of volunteers, and HURD development was no longer necessary.
Not only are you flat out wrong, you are bordering on being, as another poster said, libelous, with your possibly intentional disinformation regarding software licensing.
Freedom's paradox (Score:5, Insightful)
This is is the paradox of freedom: maintenance of freedom requires the limitation of freedom. For example maintaining your right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness necessarily requires a limitation of my right to kill, imprison and otherwise abuse you -- even if your death would make me ever so happy.
Similarly, maintainence of your right to the freedom to use GPL software requires a limitation of my right to 'imprison' that same software.
You choose your poison, you pay your price.
Unabridged libertarianism is little more than the thinly disguised right of the strong to enslave the weak.
Re:GNU's take on Licenses (Score:5, Insightful)
The GPL doesn't prevent hoarding. I can keep my changes to your code and not release them if I want. The only thing I can't do is release binaries of the modified code. If I choose to emply 1000 coders to take the Linux kernel and make an in-house kernel that's much better, and keep it for in-house use the GPL allows this, it doesn't force me to release my changes, and if it did it would be unenforcable.
Re:GNU's take on Licenses (Score:3, Insightful)
Which I think means one can't release products linked to GPL-derivative code for which they haven't released the modifications. About the only good that can do for a corporation is if they want to run a service bureau with data in being proceseed into data out onsite. Which is as the GPL intended. This doesn't lock users into protocols and dependencies. I'd regard this as an example of the value of the GPL.
Re:Ritchie's Plan 9 (Score:5, Funny)
According to this the licensing terms of Plan 9 are unacceptable to the GNU Foundation.
Yeah, but according to the article the GNU foundation is unacceptable to Dennis Ritchie.
-a
Re:Ritchie's Plan 9 (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, my interpretation of the motive behind the license is most certainly profit, but intellectual rather than monetary. The point about requiring any source changes to be sent back to Bell Labs seems to be saying "here's our product - if you change how things work, tell us what you did." Strange way to profit (in respect to the normal method of profit, $$$), but certainly an interesting way to profit and (IMO) a more valuable profit overall.
This doesn't make me think any less of the project or DMR (for what little role he played in this project anyway) - I respect profit. I think what trips most people up is that it's not an advertised cost of the product the same way as a sticker price is on a box in a retail shop.
Re:Ritchie's Plan 9 (Score:3, Informative)
She has some great stuff. Her comics and drawings used to run in R.Crumb's "Weirdo" [12move.de] back in the 80's, and she's since come out with many of her own comics, including "Grit Bath", to name one of to several [reneefrench.com].
I was just cruising through her site, and came across this really weird rabbit [reneefrench.com]. There's other great stuff there.. check it out. Her stuff is definitely 'from outer space' ;)
I dig surreal black+white illustrations myself; have some of my own work posted here [3dsite.com] and here [3dsite.com].
Re: Ritchie's Plan 9 (Score:5, Funny)
> Please support his OS - Plan 9.
That's the one from Outer Space, right?
Re:Ritchie's Plan 9 (Score:2)
Steve
loads of things (Score:5, Informative)
try reading the papers [bell-labs.com]
user level file systems
Instead of having one protocol for interrogating the disks, one for the network etc. plan9 uses the 9p protocol. In this way the physical devices are abstracted and one can use a single set of tools to inspect them. It taes the concept of Everything is a file to it's logical conclusion.
Want to know where the mouse is : cat
Get slashdot homepage using the shell
conn = `{cat
<[4] $conn { # keeps it open
echo 'connect slashdot.org!80' >
echo 'GET http://slashdot.org/ HTTP/1.0' >
cat
}
I wrote an irc bot [proweb.co.uk] as an exercise in rc. It dangerously executes given commands and returns the results
There are also other great technologies.
Incremental backups are built in.
Acme is an interactive editor that does all sorts of interesting things.
The plumber - forget file associations. The plumber uses regular expressions and executes whatever commands you would like it to for a set of given strings. So if you see http://slashdot.org in ANY piece of on-screen text, right click and select plumb and it will open it. [hehe not it plan9's web browser - that is one area seriously lacking.
The really sad part is that Lucent's financial troubles means that people have been shed from Bell-Labs. No-one is being paid to maintain plan9 any more. The heroes remaining and some outside [Rob Pike, Russ Cox, Dave Pressotto, C H Forsyth, et. al.] are doing it in their own time. And doing a great job.
I could go on but I need to leave the house. [that always seems to be the case when plan9 gets mentioned here!]
Re:Ritchie's Plan 9 (Score:2)
Conceptual integrity.
Google, man, google.
It is clean.
Re:Ritchie's Plan 9 (Score:5, Interesting)
There are various bits of UNIX (and I include Linux here, as it's essentially a UNIX clone) that have been bolted on without regard for the elegance of the whole system. In particular, graphics, pseudo terminals and networking were all added late in UNIX's lifetime and considerably clutter the system and limit its capabilities.
Take the ubiquitous psueudo terminals as an example. Almost nobody actually uses a genuine VT220 (or whatever) as their input device. However, the output from every command-line program in UNIX goes through something that pretends to be such a device. The kernel has much elaborate stuff (the tty driver) built in to convince command line programs that they're talking to a real terminal. The kernel knows about command line editing, it knows how to print control characters nicely, and it knows what key means "word erase".
This is all crap! It adds unnecessary complexity to the kernel, and not only that, but every command line program that wants a a slightly more sophisticated interface (e.g. cursor-based editing) has to do it itself (c.f. GNU readline). This not only bloats the kernel and many of its applications, it also means that the commands are less versatile than they could be (requiring people to use tools like expect [nist.gov] to demangle their output).
Under Plan 9, there are no special system calls devoted to terminals or networking: instead, the interface to device drivers is made more versatile (all you need is open [bell-labs.com], read [bell-labs.com] and write to access a device driver, no fancy ioctls or fcntls required. This gets back to the original purity of the 7th Edition [bell-labs.com] programming interface: programs are a joy to write, and once written can be put to many more uses, as the currency of command line programs (text written to stdin/stdout) is also the currency of device drivers.
Because everything is unified under one hood (the name space [bell-labs.com]), I don't have to write a special program to get fancy functionality. Want to find out what programs have a particular file open? /proc/*/fd
grep filename
Plan 9 is all about the joys of writing less code, more cleanly, and finding it more useful when written; of having a box of tools that can be plugged together in a multitude of different ways, transparently and securely across networks; of having a clean user interface that is concerned principally with power and simplicity rather than appearance.
Of course in this day and age, when a word processor takes >2,000,000 lines of code and "features" are rated more highly than overall usability, it's not surprising that Plan 9 isn't that well known, or that Dennis Ritchie reverts to Windows NT in order to browse the web.
As for myself, I'll stick to Plan 9's (and Inferno's [vitanuova.com]) deep joy for as long as I possibly can!
Runs NT instead of Linux? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Runs NT instead of Linux? (Score:2, Insightful)
br>
Re:Runs NT instead of Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
He runs NT on his terminal.
Re:Runs NT instead of Linux? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Runs NT instead of Linux? (Score:2, Informative)
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600
Scary, isn't it? :-)
Re:Runs NT instead of Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
He needs to run Excel, probably Word, and perhaps Outlook (for corporate e-mail/calendar/etc integration -- although I don't know that AT&T uses Exchange, so perhaps not). There's probably a good chance there are other corporate standard applications he needs to run as well.
Beyond that, the PC is a dumb terminal for remote sessions.
Happens to be the same way my workplace is setup. I'm a Unix developer and spend all day editing files in vim via putty (once CygWin/Xfree86 has rootless mode we may go back to X - we don't have any licensed X Server software otherwise, but it doesn't impact us anyway) and compiling C++ code. Would I like Linux on the desktop? Sure... but since I need to do things like work on Word/Excel docs, use a crappy Windows based error reporting interface, and some other stuff my desktop PC runs Win2k.
Because, frankly, there is nearly no difference between running X or telnet on NT vs Linux. and since are servers aren't Linux-based (yet... we're trying), there would be no advantage to compiling locally either.
Right tool, right job. Otherwise you are a poor tradesman.
StarOffice? (Score:3, Insightful)
yup, i'm a nerd (Score:2)
Re:yup, i'm a nerd (Score:3, Insightful)
The template of my worklife! (Score:5, Funny)
Dennis Ritchie: I tend to come in late unless there's a meeting, but spend a fair amount of time tending to e-mail communication.
---
I just *knew* my worklife was approaching some asymptote!
Re:The template of my worklife! (Score:5, Funny)
[Scene: Clock reads 10:20, door opens, employee enters and sits at NT workstation]
Ok, now lets see what we have - No, I don't want to buy viagra online, Hmmm, No, don't want to make my own video descrambler. Nooo, don't need to copy any DVD's, hmmmm, well - Dixie's teenage sex sluts hot, wet and waiting for ME! - here's something from China, fiberglass sheetrock tape, that's weird - um, eat pizza and watch tv, already do that - mortgage quote, own a dollar store, penis pills, valentines, online casino....click, del, click, del.
Welp, time for lunch!
Re:The template of my worklife! (Score:5, Funny)
From the article... (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting how modern day critics claim the gnu project to be too political, and try to rephrase free software rhetoric to be more palatable (sic) for business and those of a less "leftist" mindset, and he has the same beliefs, but for such a different reason: he existed before computing and software were touched by politics. He was co-developing UNIX before printer companies decided to have software contractors signing NDAs and closing off the specs, or vendor lock-ins.
ah, no (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ah, no (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:From the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
What would the world be without gnu? Shudder.
I am typing this on a windows2000 box now but I have apache, perl, devc++, cygwin, and tlc running. Would these utilities be free today if Gnu or Linux never was born? I don't think so.
We would just have Visual Studio for an expensive price. VC or VB take your pick.
Free Software is great and it opens up the market and provides a scene. Especially if you do not have two dimes to rub together.
Re:From the article... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, and every other post (I exaggerate) is about how Richard Stallman smells.
I'm not sure the GPL is the best license possible, but hell, I've seen the free software ethic take off and provide me with more excellent programs than I'd ever be able to write myself -- or afford to purchase.
PS: I should note that Bell Labs provided the C and C++ programming languages free of charge too. Do you use them? how many of your programs -- how much of your OS -- is built on C or C++?
Re:From the article... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't like GNU for two reasons. The first is that it's almost entirely derivative, copying the work of others (e.g. UNIX, BSD and Windows) and then seeking to replace the original works for political reasons. The second is that it seeks to eliminate all non-free software, which would be bad for professional programmers (like me) who have to work for a living instead of living off of grants like RMS (who really does seem to live in a fantasy world of his own).
The free/proprietary ecosystem actually works pretty well. BSD sockets, for example, made the Internet what it is, and if it hadn't been readily available to be ported for free to all the commercial OSes, it isn't as if everyone would have started using BSD instead. As much as that would have pleased me at the time, it simply wouldn't have happened. A restrictive licence like the GPL would have simply regressed progress and probably allowed some horrid extensions to IPX or NetBEUI to remain dominant. Not only would that have left non-BSD users worse off, it would have made integrating with the Novell/Microsoft-dominated network standards much more difficult for OSes like UNIX and Linux (which, in a BSD-sockets world, had a leg up on Microsoft and Novell because of BSD's UNIX origins).
Truly free software of the BSD, X and Apache sort it isn't all take either. If you look at the backers of the academic research that produced these things, a lot of funding came from firms that produce(d) proprietary software and later used the results of that research (in addition to the state, of course). BSD also spawned Sun Microsystems (among others), which would probably not have succeeded if it had been forced to share all its extensions to BSD and UNIX with, say, IBM and DEC.
In short, I like the ecosystem that allows people like me to use and contribute to hobbyist open-source (especially non-GPL) sofware while also getting paid to write commercial software during the day. Removing either, as the FSF/GNU would like to, or erecting a Chinese Wall between the two (as the GPL does) is, in my view, bad for all concerned. In other words, I completely agree with Ritchie that it's too extreme. I also believe its approach is simply wrong-headed and, if successful, will regress development of new software and new ideas in the long run.
Re:From the article... (Score:4, Insightful)
I will, for this post, ignore the blatant pandering to the unwashed masses of Slashdot readership.
That being said, how dare you misrepresent Mr. Ritchie? He didn't say he felt that it was too political. He said that it was more extreme than he cared for. "I believe we should kill all the whales" is obviously more extreme than "we should only kill some of them", but they're equally political. They're also equally economic in nature.
And as somebody else has already pointed out, he was co-developing C when there was nothing *BUT* vendor lock-in.
Re:From the article... (Score:2)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Speaking of extremism...
-a
Re:From the article... (Score:3, Interesting)
The GPL is popular with companies for one reason - they can release the source and feel comfortable noone is going to steal it and improve it without that company being able to get those improvements back. It is not popular in the sense that the company can use GPLed software in its own software. In fact, that's a constant problem. There have been a number of times we've wanted to incorporate some open source into our projects, but there's just no way, because as a small company we can't afford to have a big company come along, recompile and say "COMPATIBLE WITH <project>!!!" and take our customers.
I think a lot of young developers have a habit of slapping a GPL on their software without really thinking about the consequences. I think a lot of young people who write open source are aiming for a public domain or BSD license, but don't know enough about the way things work to actually put the right license on it. In this sense, RMS has done an amazing marketing job - getting the word out about GNU and the GPL and "free" software. Kudos to him, but it does make things harder in the business world.
Oh, and please don't reply saying "you're just trying to steal all of our work". No. The point is not duplicating simple things that would save everyone time. This has been fairly common practice in successful hardware designs for years - you publish the specs openly and release a "reference" board, but make money from your own enhancements. Software could have gotten a lot further a lot faster if there had been an "reference" UNIX spec and a "reference" DOS spec back in 1982. It's a shame noone stuck to the OSF standards for open UNIX development... but on the other hand - look at how well the PC market is supported nowadays, versus the closed Apple market. This is directly due to IBM and Intel "opening" their design specs.
Re:From the article... (Score:2, Interesting)
IBM published the PC specs like ISA to allow third-party peripherals to be easily made for it, not to allow clones. It certainly didn't give up the PC market to clones out of generosity, it simply failed to understand that allowing Intel and Microsoft to own the most important pieces of the system meant they (not it) effectively owned the PC. A look at Microsoft's history with BASIC (i.e. port it to everything and sell it to everyone) could have given IBM a pretty good idea of what Microsoft had in mind for MS-DOS.
Secondly, Intel designs are hardly 'open'. The instruction set has to be published to be used (like APIs), and is much simpler than a modern OS's APIs, so it's simply much easier to clone a CPU architecture than an OS like Windows. There was also a licensing deal with AMD to help avoid legal issues of the sort faced by Microsoft (which probably now wishes it had followed suit and licensed Windows 3.x to some small competitor to appease monopolies regulators).
At the end of the day, the Intel market share is pretty close to the Microsoft one, but the existence of AMD keeps it out of trouble. Maybe Linux will eventually do the same thing for Microsoft, but unlike AMD CPUs, Linux is free and incompatible (AMD uses Intel's instruction set, ensuring Intel is in the driving seat, but Linux doesn't use Microsoft's APIs), so is much more threatening to Microsoft than a compatible product from a smaller firm with substantially fewer resources would be.
Re:From the article... (Score:2)
That would be "opening" in the sense of "fighting it tooth and nail" then?
Re:From the article... (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, when I think of a license, it tends to be "Give me credit, money, and sexy women." And then I go "Okay, nobody's going to like that license; how about I go with the GPL, which prevents people from blatently ripping me off." I think a lot of young programmers want to use a harsh nasty license, but settle on the GPL as it's acceptable and cool in the open source world.
The point is not duplicating simple things that would save everyone time.
But you make us duplicate your simple things.
Software could have gotten a lot further a lot faster if there had been an "reference" UNIX spec
If you want to make a reference spec, form a consortium and make it. Somehow, I don't feel like making a reference spec so you can take it, improve it and sell it back to me. I want to build the best system on the market, not the least common denomenator that everyone rips off. "Cool, you built an Unix kernel. But if you want to run it on a Sun, you have to buy our Unix system, which is a rip off of yours." Not my game.
Re:From the article... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the contrary, the GPL is explicitly non-exclusionary. Literally anybody can be in "our gang," even Microsoft (which does in fact sell GPL'ed software). It's counter-culture only because for the last twenty plus years the culture has been centered around the phrase, "What's mine stays mine." It used to be the other way around; see Bill Gates' letter to the hobbyists who were freely distributing his version of BASIC. At that time, Gates and co. were the counter-culturists.
Or when IBM and HP learn that they too can make billions on FOSS? "Big Business" is learning that it can be in their best interest to support FOSS developers; see, for instance, IBM's support for the Linux kernel development.
Issues bugging Linux distros.. (Score:2, Interesting)
There needs to be an unified effort, like the Freedom Software Alliance from OSS vendors to promote Linux. Sure, IBM does a good job. But more efforts are needed.
What the editors were thinking... (Score:5, Funny)
CmdrTco: But the article is short and doesn't give any insights into anything
CowboyNeal: Whatever, let's post the story and get drunk
This isn't a troll, I really think this must have happened.
Re:What the editors were thinking... (Score:2)
Re:An excellent qualifying statement! (Score:2)
Okay, all trolls from now on post "This isnt a troll, I really think this must have happened" at the end of your messages, and your troll posts will be moderated +4!
As for the rest of you, the non-trolls, go kill ajuda.
I shall bask here and do nothing, for I have accomplished many great things in the past and so my debt to the universe is paid.
Kernel design? (Score:3, Funny)
Not to nitpick, but there's just about one sentence on kernel design in the interview. Misleading storyline
Man... (Score:5, Funny)
Ritchie is a down to earth guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have expected an interview with him about how great he is, how great his invention C is, etc. However, I was really amazed. He seems rather low key and does not seem to have that superiority complex that plagues some idividuals. He seems like a human being with an interest in computers. I like this. It is a welcome read after listening to my professors make fun of people with their heads on tripods, when they should look in the mirror cause they have the biggest heads on the most massive tripods ever seen.
I would have liked to see longer answers and in more detail to some of his questions. Although, I can say tersness can be a desired trait.
Re:Ritchie is a down to earth guy. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ritchie is a down to earth guy. (Score:3, Informative)
Ten thousand geeks cry out. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ten thousand geeks cry out. (Score:2)
Re:Ten thousand geeks cry out. (Score:2)
100 cry back (Score:3, Interesting)
The Japanese Institution osakafu-u.ac.jp use it in their computer science labs for student use including assignments.
So, okay, 100ish users isn't mind blowing but it is a nice little community and I get to rub shoulders with and learn from some of the star names in Computing History.
I use XP as my terminal, plan9 doesn't support dual monitors and the web browser is based on the Netscape 3 codebase [bringing it up to modern standards is a huge mountain that none of us really fancies climbing].
Lament in this dept. recently has focussed on why Mozilla et.al. don't render troff.
I'm sorry, but (Score:2, Troll)
Someone has to say it. Draw your own conclusions, etc. People have accused me of trolling in the past, but when I see something like this, all that FUD about Windows, all the Evil Empire snide remarks, all the lame 'M$' jokes, all the misleading and childish comments I've ever read here dissolve into a little white pixel and things are good again. The person who invented Unix is doing what the rest of the world does - use a desktop computer and desktop software that actually works - to be productive instead of to feel technically and morally "superior" (whatever that means). As Dr. Evil once said: put that in your pipe and smoke it. Yeah, I said pipe.
Because, in the real world, people use computers to get things done. They're not used to make a political statement or fight for human rights in Burma. They're tools, not toys.
Sorry again. No, really.
Mod away.
Why are you here? (Score:2)
Case-by-case basis (Score:2, Informative)
I used Win98SE for quite a while for development work, but got tired of running out of "resources" every couple of hours (non-NT-based Windows's have a limited stack in which to store "resources" such as icons and other images). This was because I had too many programs at once. A reboot every couple of hours, not to mention not being able to have too many programs open at once, are not great for productivity.
I then tried installing Win2k, but reverted back to 98 after it refused to boot for some unknown reason, and was not able to be recovered (I barely even managed to save the data on the HD - last time I ever will use NTFS, as no common tools work well with it).
Now, I'm running Gentoo Linux. While there definitely was a learning curve, my productivity is a lot higher than it ever was while using Windows. In addition to handling lots of apps open gracefully, the command line (which I've always preferred, even in Windows) is a lot more powerful. I can do this because all of the apps that I use (mainly coding and web design apps) have great Linux equivalents.
If I was doing desktop publishing or something, however, I probably wouldn't use Linux - it doesn't have equivalent applications to MS Office (though OpenOffice is getting close). I probably wouldn't use Windows, either - I'd use a mac, which has a better Office port than Windows (all of the good coders at MS work in the Mac division). If I was doing game developing, I would probably work under Windows, since that would be the primary target platform.
The point is, use whatever best fits the job - in this case, he uses a combination of Plan 9 and NT. I use Linux. Somebody else uses Mac.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution (as much as Microsoft would like to have you believe).
Re:Case-by-case basis (Score:2)
Which tasks? If the task is editing MS Office documents, obviously it is better to use the native tasks. But if the task is doing spreadsheets and document processing, I'd argue Gnumeric on one hand and Emacs Info, LyX, SGML on the other are better.
Re:Case-by-case basis (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, it would be very cool if we had real standards for such things as rich documents (i.e., spreadsheets, word-processing documents), or for such things as 'groupware' (i.e. Domino/Exchange) email. However, the reality of things is that we don't, and the standard-making process that once produced DNS and HTTP has now been sufficiently subverted by commercial interests that it has become a rubber-stamping ground for BigCos. It is very unlikely that we will see sufficient traction for groupware or rich document standards - ever. So, in such a Darwinian market, the biggest fish, i.e. Office, will always win.
Re:I'm sorry, but (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm sorry, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Reality Check:
Some programmers (like me) have spent years working on products like Mac OS X so that you can use a computer as a tool. See, we believe that the machine should help you get something done, and get the heck out of the way otherwise.
For some people, that means having txtfiles config everything, because their brains are capable of modeling the operation of the whole machine in their head.
For others (like me) I'd rather see the computer go off and do the stuff I can't, and simplify the user interaction so that the user can keep their problem in their head.
What the original poster was saying is that too many geeks forget that "how the computer works" is the problem they use computers to solve, and most other users have totally different problems, and wish us geeks would stop imposing our problemset on them.
So if you want to tell MS and Apple to fuck off, don't do it because they serve an "ideology" different from yours. GUI/CLI design is not a zero-sum game.
Re:I'm sorry, but (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess you'd think that the boycott of Nestle baby milk, or not buying cosmetics products tested on animals, or not buying CDs because there the RIAA do things you don't like - I guess you'd think all those things are stupid yes?
Because really people will make political statements about things all the time. Most stuff is political, even if you don't realise it. Politics is just one facet of the interactions of humans. So, if people wish to take the piss out of Microsoft because they've done bad things, let them.
use a desktop computer and desktop software that actually works - to be productive instead of to feel technically and morally "superior" (whatever that means).
I'm under the distinct impression that believing you are the paragon of rationality who would never even conceive of using anything but the best tool for the job (in your opinion) actually makes you feel morally and technically superior.
Just because some people consider more than one factor when choosing a product, doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means they have different priorities to you.
Re:I'm sorry, but (Score:2)
Re:I'm sorry, but (Score:2)
Re:I'm sorry, but (Score:4, Insightful)
The person who invented Unix is doing what the rest of the world does - use a desktop computer and desktop software that actually works
I'm glad Dennis Ritchie validated your view of the world for you.
He uses Windows as an X-terminal and for web browsing and Office. Big deal - personally I think he is nuts since my favourite web browser, Galeon [sourceforge.net] runs on Linux, and Linux makes a much better X client than Exceed running on NT. I use OpenOffice, and on the rare occasion I need to use MS Office I can fire it up in vmware.
That is what makes a productive and useful tool for me. But hey, I'm not Dennis Ritchie, so what do I know?
Re:I'm sorry, but (Score:4, Funny)
Okay!
$ echo "Dennis Ritchie uses NT" | smoke
Just because Ritchie said it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just because Ritchie said it.. (Score:2, Funny)
Blasphemer!!
Burn him for a witch.
What is it about his latest OS, Plan 9? (Score:2, Interesting)
Could somebody more knowledgeble than I explain what's great about it?
Re:What is it about his latest OS, Plan 9? (Score:5, Interesting)
The correct machine for the job runs your code, be it your desktop, the server, the toaster down the hall in building 2.
I've played, I sorta like. It doesn't offer enough of an advantage over *NIX for me to change. Maybe when everybody has fiber to the desktop and people have evolved to want to share then maybe Plan9 will be more than a neat research too.
Re:What is it about his latest OS, Plan 9? (Score:5, Informative)
Plan 9 is supposed to correct what's wrong with the development Unix after Unix was "embrace and extended" by the Unix commercial vendors.
I used Plan 9 for about 9 months back in 1996. Here are some of the ideas behind it.
Everything in the system are files: This was a simple notion but powerful abstraction. Everything in the system is access through the file system API and all objects in the system have a representation in the file systems including low level network and graphics.
A per process private file name system: Plan 9 has the notion of a private file name space for each process. That means that I can create file system namespace on a individual process level.
A file system base network protocol call 9P All network services for Plan 9 are export as files to another machine.
A single sign on authentication system This has been featured a while ago. Check it out here [linuxworld.com]
With these simple abstraction, you can do really cool things:
Build upon this and taking the Unix Small is Beautiful approach to problem solving. Plan 9 allows each program to perform small tasks well and provide the way to unified them together through private file name space.
Plan 9's design has a lot of impact on Linux, probably more then Linus would admit. /proc file system, process as thread, and others. These abstract can be traced back to Plan 9. Seeing those implementation on Linux (a traditional Unix clone), it become evidenced why original Unix folks like Dennis Richite wanted to start a new project to correct the mistakes of Unix. ;)
Plan 9 From Bell Labs [bell-labs.com] is the Plan 9 manifesto. Good overview into the system and the rest of the documents. [bell-labs.com]
Yes, you are reinventing the wheel. (Score:4, Interesting)
Dennis Ritchie: (snip).... At the same time, much of it seems to have to do with recreating things we or others had already done; it seems rather derivative intellectually; is there a dearth of really new ideas?
Yes. One of the inventors of Unix is wondering why the GNU (and by extension Linux) community is rebuilding something he made 30 years ago. I've been wondering the same thing myself. Aren't there any better ideas in the past 3 decades?
Re:Yes, you are reinventing the wheel. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, of course, but not as many as you might think. Lots of people seem to miss this point, even Ritchie - when Stallman set out on the GNU project, his aim was not to build a gee-whiz cutting edge computer system, it was to produce free software that would be very useful to people. At the time, everybody used UNIX, so that's what it made sense to "make free". Also, there was a lot of experience with UNIX systems, and communications wasn't as good back then as it is now, so the modularity of UNIX meant the work could easily be split into various teams.
Even though the driving force was a desire for software freedom rather than cool features, Linux and the rest of the GNU system today have all kinds of stuff that wasn't in the old UNIX systems. In fact, stuff like /proc was stolen directly from Plan9.
Note that some of the ideas that might sound good at first, have been tried, and basically don't work, or don't work as well as you might expect. The microkernel for instance. The Hurd is of course a microkernel based system, yet we all use Linux. Why? Because it was there, and it was pretty good. And now highly modular monolithic kernels have many of the advantages of microkernels, and microkernels have steadily increased in size as performance issues weighed in.
Ditto for a lot of other ideas that seemed good at the time, but actually perhaps weren't. AppFolders for instance (my pet one) :)
Re:Yes, you are reinventing the wheel. (Score:3, Insightful)
Thirty years ago, they didn't have vi or emacs. Thirty years ago, they didn't have WYSIWYG wordprocessors. Thirty years ago, they didn't have C++ or Perl or Python. Thirty years ago, they used ASCII, and maybe a few hacks that replaced ASCII punctuation with accented characters.
Rebuilding what he made 30 years, on a modern system, could be done by a dozen undergrads in a semester. You aren't running a system they had 30 years. You're running a massively evolved version of that system that continues to evolve.
By the way ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was laughing when I read the one in Brazil.
Re:By the way ... (Score:2)
LMAO at his disclaimer about Stale Urine [blorf.com] .
Re:By the way ... (Score:2)
Well, you can. Try this [archive.org].
Unfortunately, the graphics are missing.
What ? (Score:5, Funny)
That's it. I am not using C, Unix and Unix Derivatives ever again. Oh, wait...
Other Unix? (Score:2, Troll)
Established [in spirit] 1 Apr, 2000; modified July 2002.
Another "interview" (Score:3, Funny)
Someone posted a parody on aus.tv of Dennis Ritchie being interviewed on an AOL chat session [google.com]. It's more a jab at the AOL'ers, but I thought it was quite good.
Why do the fathers of UNIX dislike Linux so much? (Score:5, Interesting)
It does make you curious as to what the exact arguments of these people against Linux are. Especially since Linux has become such a fine platform for desktop environments (KDE, Gnome) nowadays. In most people's experience, Linux has been more reliable on the desktop as well as the server for quite some time.
Re:Why do the fathers of UNIX dislike Linux so muc (Score:5, Interesting)
It does make you curious as to what the exact arguments of these people against Linux are.
Simple: technically Linux is not that impressive... hear me out before you moderate this as a troll:
Suppose a bunch of volunteers got together in a garage and built a clone of the space shuttle. This would be an amazing feat, but nobody would claim that this makes the design of the shuttle any less outdated or flawed.
Linux is a clone of a decades-old operating system... let me correct that, Linux is the best Unix clone out there, but to quote Rob Pike "Linux's cleverness is not in the software, but in the development model".
Linux has no novel user model, no new UI metaphor, no replacement for the X11 mess (still waiting for display postscript). It has no alternative to the all or nothing Unix security model (root/luser), it has not improved over the "everything is a file" innovation from Unix.
That is why innovators like Rob Pike, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson are not that impressed with Linux.
(heck, not even a decent replacement for the X11 mess... still waiting for
Re:Why do the fathers of UNIX dislike Linux so muc (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why do the fathers of UNIX dislike Linux so muc (Score:4, Insightful)
' "Pieces that are good and pieces that are not." What project is this NOT true of?'
Um...Unix? Unix V.6? Have you read the source for it? It's brilliant! It's occasionally scary and convoluted, but it's GOOD CODE! Linux is an unholy mishmash of some good code, and some deeply sucky code that barely works at all. Sendmail is good code. BIND is good code.
Linux taken seriously on the non-X86 platform is being left to the manufacturers. The various ports of Linux to Sparc processors, for instance, most definitely do NOT hold up! SunLinux will hold up, because it's being developed by Sun for Sun.
Why is it that whenever anyone points out some of the valid and legitimate problems with (a)Linux, or (worse!!!) (b) Open Source development as a philosophy they're categorised as either Microsoft apologists or obsolete? (depending on their respect in the *ix world)
Here's a trick. Go back and reread the article. Think about WHY Ken would say what he did. Think about WHY Dennis Ritchie is fairly unimpressed with Linux. Think about WHY Bill Joy is frightened by the future of computing. Quit dismissing them as 'old farts from before I was born' and you might learn something. God forbid, you might even become a better developer/admin/geek.
Without "C" (Score:2, Funny)
First there was Unix... Now there's AIX, AU/X, BSD, BSDI, Dynix, EP/IX, FTX, Hurricane, HP-UX, Irix, Linux, Mach, Minix, NextStep, Open Desktop, OSF/1, OSX, PC/IX, Plan 9, Polyx, Posix, QNX, Risc/OS, Risc/ix, SCO Unix, Sinix, Solaris, Sprite, SunOS, SVRx, Topaz, Tunis, Ultrix, Unicos, V, v10, Xenix, ..."
idea for Java in 1977? (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, maybe it's not exactly the same concept, but I still found it rather interesting...
Compiler geeks: flame away!
The ideas of java were around for awhile (Score:3, Informative)
Java was a bigger, more amibitious effort; a language and core library effort coupled with a virtual machine.
Resume (Score:5, Funny)
It must feel good to be able to put that on a resume.
Re:Resume (Score:3, Insightful)
uh (Score:2, Funny)
Or were you trying the old "early linux post == karma" trick?
Re:Maybe you should. (Score:2)