Bill Joy on Linux and Mac OS X 223
(rfm)2 writes "In a Wired interview, Bill Joy mentions he just got a new dual 2GHz G5 Power Mac with 8 GB RAM and half a terabyte of internal disk. He is clearly underwhelmed by Linux: 'Re-implementing what I designed in 1979 is not interesting to me personally. For kids who are 20 years younger than me, Linux is a great way to cut your teeth. It's a cultural phenomenon and a business phenomenon. Mac OS X is a rock-solid system that's beautifully designed. I much prefer it to Linux.'"
All high and mighty (Score:4, Interesting)
I haven't really followed Joy's career and what he's created, but if you look at everything on the net, TCP/IP, SMTP, et. al., they were initially dependent on unfounded trust. Once the masses got ahold of it, the evildoers expoited that trust.
For years, Sun shipped systems that were completely insecure right out of the box (blank root password, every inetd service enabled, etc...) It wasn't until the mid-90s that Sun started to do anything about it.
Granted, MS should have known better seeing as they were so late to the party, but Linux systems were no different until enough bitching occurred to make someone change the defaults.
What was that about not knowing your history?
The article might have been better titled... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slightly Egotistical (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, I don't know about that. Most linux users would happily agree if I weren't mentioning OS X in the same post.
You may have got yourself a perfect system and may be fully capable to maintain it. That's really really cool (no sarcasm), but I'm sure I wouldn't be able to duplicate that.
Drag and drop: I'm sure you understood me right: most Linux people use different file managers that don't allow drag and drop between them. But maybe I was vague. Anyway, drag and drop in a program is not impressive. It's system wide drag and drop, between programs, programs and the system etc. Not some programs yes, others no, depending on more rules than you want to hold inside your head. Printing, monitor resolution, file manager: the beauty of linux is you can build yourself a nice frankenstein monster and make it rock solid. But the level of commitment and knowledge this requires is totally beyond most people and you are here talking about your system as if that experience comes out of the box.
Do tell me what box that is. But be fair and describe the install process a bit. If it doesn't include lots of separate installs, tweaking and meddling in the occult (config files) I might be tempted...
Here, read a bit of this, and all the comments. Then realize that most things said are way over the head of people who as I put it aren't into Linux. http://www.linuxworld.com/story/37872.htm
I do enjoy a good rant. Today is a good day!
NOT Linux OR Apple, but Linux AND Apple (Score:4, Interesting)
We use the Apple lease program, which let's us (a very small school district in Massachusetts) buy new technology every 3 years.
The thing of it is, last night I bought 3 decent machines from Tiger Direct, and a switch for about $700.00 I'll install RH linux on them, and use them for all sorts of stuff (web server, DNS, DHCP, SQUID, etc...). I currently use an old linux box for SQUID in my lab. problems with it == none !! Now that 10.3 is using LDAP to authenticate, I might fiddle with that in our lab.
As a public institution, I feel we have a fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers (really) and Linux has a place in our schools.
Apple has made Unix available to the masses, but the cost of entry is something to consider. *sigh*
I used to fret about Linux VS OS X and now I say how do they best work together.
oh, and by the way, if anyone has any suggestions for me, listen to this:
98% of my students have computers with internet access at home. Out of those 98%, 95% have windows machines. I have fought like hell to keep Macs in our school, but the onslaught of windows feels almost inevitable (my strategy so far, is to buy as much OS X software as I can, so replacing it with wondows stuff would be prohibitive). What is an effective way to promote the use of elseOS, when "Everyone else is using Windows" ?
Re:I have to disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows has one advantage over Linux and OS X, and that is the amount of mindshare it currently has in the marketplace. Most everything else can only vaguely be termed a technical advantage - and if you've never spent a day or two in "driver hell", you really don't know just how lame the driver support can be. Also, OS X doesn't have driver problems because Apple has all the drivers set up in advance for the extremely limited subset of all hardware that works with Apple. Linux has driver problems because hardware manufacturers are often loathe to write Linux drivers.
OS X is slick, and the perfect Unix for a home user, and will probably surpass Linux for home desktop use - if Apple ever decides to release it for the x86 architecture. Unless they do that, they've limited their mindshare to people who can afford to buy an Apple. Sure, it's easy to use - but it's also expensive to use. And Apple will pound application developers for not adhering to the UI guideline - as a friendly service to their userbase.
Linux as a movement doesn't much care about being easy to use. It probably never will. Linux wants to "get it done", and it caters to a business/hacker audience. This makes Linux more suitable for an enterprise desktop or a performance-minded shop - nevermind the rest. Maybe someday it could succeed where Apple will probably fail - but I doubt it.
Not the UI (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I think when he says that Linux isn't interesting from a technological standpoint, he's not talking about how easily he can check his email: he's talking about architectural and technological innovation.
There are fundamental differences between the Darwin and Linux kernels that makes Darwin, in my opinion, a more interesting, and "better" design. This has nothing to do with UI.
On a related note: While Bill Joy may or may not be using his computer at home, I don't think it's fair to call him a "home user". I have no doubt that he's quite comfortable on the command-line, and if you read the rest of the interview, you get the sense he's using his G5 for more than just web-browsing.
Re:UI Guidelines for Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, lots. That's the problem. The KDE and GNOME projects have been working to have compatable UI guidelines, though so that should solve this problem.
2. Do Linux app developers follow them?
Sometimes. I'd say OSS follows a UI guideline as well as windows apps usually do.
THIS is the "new" and exciting bit in OSX! (Score:2, Interesting)
First, it's a mach kernel that can act like BSD.
Big difference.
And, it's not really the UNIX part that's so interesting.
It's nice to have as a foundation.
The beauty of OSX is its completely object-oriented layers above UNIX.
Written in Objective-C, a decent mixture between plain C and smalltalk, it lets you write VERY dynamic code.
You have services (one program can offer its capabilities to other programs). Say, one program can open and read PNG files. Sudenly all programs can handle them...
Everything is an object, can send/receive messages etc. And objects can be changed at runtime (say, you can modify the GUI of an compiled program, and even add buttons that connect to objects within the code..!!!)
Look at the really small software shops that crack out incredible code (omni, stone etc.). Not possible without these layers and APIs
This is the "new" bit about OSX.
But this was all developed by NeXT in 1989-93.
So it's not THAT new, but being lightyears ahead back then,
it's still an armlength away from all the other OSes right now.
This makes OSX exciting.
And this is exactly the part that is NOT open sourced at Apple
Cheers, Martin