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Apple Businesses Operating Systems BSD

Workingmac.com Interview With Jordan Hubbard 282

Posted by timothy from the short-and-sweetish dept.
LiquidPC writes: "workingmac.com has an interview with Jordan Hubbard (one of the founders of the FreeBSD project, and currently works for Apple on development of OS X). Questions range from 'How do open-source operating systems compare to closed-source operating systems?' to 'What does the future hold for FreeBSD?'" It's a quick interview, but a good read. Interesting that to talk about the Mac OS now is to talk about UNIX.
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Workingmac.com Interview With Jordan Hubbard More

Workingmac.com Interview With Jordan Hubbard

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  • MacOS X #1 in sales (Score:5, Interesting)

    by maggard ( 5579 ) <michael@michaelmaggard.com> on Tuesday August 21, 2001 @11:35PM (#2203089) Homepage Journal
    What makes all this really interesting is that MacOS X is now the best-selling* unix distribution.


    * Most units sold

    • It's not the most popular Unix yet. I think Steve Jobs said earlier that it will probably be the most popular by the end of 2001. Regardless, it's only a matter of time. They're shipping a lot of computers every quarter, and they've made no secret about the fact that Mac OS 9's days are numbered. Mac OS X 10.1 will be much more popular than 10.0. There are plenty of users who are waiting for the early-adopter phase to be over and for the apps to be coming fast and furious, and 10.1 is the key to that.

      This doesn't take a single thing away from any other Unix, though ... it's just that now we have a whole range of Unix to choose from, for any task that you could name.
    • ...when you consider that most unix installations have nothing to do with "use" in the sense of personal computer interactive operation. They're used for DB, web and other transactional and client/server computing as well as providing the operational guidance for other non-computer based interaction systems (traffic lights). By this standard, a non-trivial percentage of the world may be a "unix user" in some fashion or other.

      I'd also add that commercial UNIX licenses are far different from end-user personal computer licenses. A single commerical UNIX installation may have a many hundreds or thousands of user licenses attached to it. Is one installation with a 1000 client licenses a single sale or 1001 sales? A better sales comparison would add up processor and client licenses together or use dollars spent.

      Either way, Apple is only trying to mislead their way out of last place in the computer industry.

  • What I really want to know (Score:3, Funny)

    by grammar fascist ( 239789 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2001 @11:39PM (#2203103) Homepage
    What I really want to know is how he wrote so many books about absolutely nothing at all. If someone were to come up with run-length plot encoding, you'd probably get at least a 1000:1 compression ratio on most of them.

    Oh, wait. Wrong Hubbard.
    • I know your type of comment seems to be a running joke around here, but to mistake Jordan for L. Ron is completely foolish and mindless. It amazes me that the same 'jokes' always seem to be modded up; I wonder if everyone around here laughs at the same jokes over and over, even after they've worn thin and used in practically every Slashdot article ever written.

      Hey, why did the chicken cross the road?

      • Hey, why did the chicken cross the road?

        WHAHAHA, mod this sucker up, he's funny =]

      • Would it have been funny if he mistook him for Robert Jordan? The same joke would have applied.

        At least something of L. Ron's proof of the concept that a lot of people are complete idiots and will pay for just about anything could have been said.

        The fact that most of those imbeciles are in the entertainment industry was already an axiom.
      • Oh, I am terribly sorry. Have I hit a soft spot?

        First of all, the posting guidelines say that if you haven't got anything good to contribute, you can at least try being funny. I've never used BSD, so I decided to be funny. It seems to have actually worked, despite your protest.

        Second, I've been around long enough to hit the karma cap, but I've never seen anyone mistake Jordan for L. Ron. Even if I had been completely aware of my striking unoriginality, I would have posted my pithy joke anyway, assuming that it was about time to resurrect it. (Besides, I thought that the run-length plot encoding was pretty good.)

        Third - it was strapped to the elephant.

  • Why based on (Score:4, Interesting)

    by XBL ( 305578 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2001 @11:41PM (#2203114)
    FreeBSD 3.2? Why not the 4.x series?

    • If you programmed at all... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Amokscience ( 86909 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2001 @11:51PM (#2203138) Homepage
      you would know that it's because it takes a good length of time to get something as large as an OS ready. They wanted a nice stable, proven code-base to work from and so they picked a certain snapshot of FreeBSD and used it. That way you don't have to work out the nightmare of continuing to upgrade and merge old code with new code (which I get to do at work, wheeee). When Apple decided to go with OS X, FreeBSD 4.0 was likely in alpha stability.

      OSX did not pop out overnight (or even in the last 6 months). You've seen how 'fast' Mozilla has come along, no?
    • Because:
      1. Apple was concentrating on building a consumer operating system and didn't want to build on a moving target, so it restricted itself to one version. Writing a modern consumer OS with a GUI and other nice things like quartz and aqua and whatever is far more difficult than some server unix distro with a CLI.
      2. I imagine they just took the stabelest and most secure version they could find and newer versions are often not trouble free, because of the new not yet matured and in real life tested code.

  • Growth (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Thomas M Hughes ( 463951 )
    pN: What is your history with the FreeBSD project?

    Jordan: I started it along with three other folks back in 1992. It's grown quite a bit since then and so have most of us as well (too much sitting).

    How come geeks either seem to be really large (as in above example) or anorexic and needing a lot more calories? Is it just that some don't get enough exercise because they're distracted by coding, while others don't get enough food because they're distracted by coding?
    • Anyone who doesn't get decent regular exercise will generally fall into one of those two categories. Which one depends primarily on your body type and diet. The body adapts to it's environment and nothing in the average geek environment tends to promote physical prowess.
    • I'm not so sure this is actually the case y'know. Good stereotype, certainly, and while geekdom certainly has its' fair share at either end of the bellcurve I do think there are a fair number still somewhere in the middle.

      There are also quite a lot of sporty (mostly mountain bikes and snowboards) geeks who break the stereotype.

      Dave
    • Sigh...

      Jordan was young when he started with FreeBSD. He is older now. When you get older your metabolism changes and you have to work harder to keep your youthful appearance and shape.
    • Coming from someone who's been both, I see it as pretty simple.

      Before I joined the military, I was one of the skinny anorexic types. I worked tech support for DEC, so I didn't get any exercise. I ate a lot, but stayed skinny.

      Later on I started unloading trucks (hey, I came from a small town, after the DEC job ended after 2 years, there was little else to do) but it wasn' very stressful, and I remained the same skinny guy.

      When I joined the military (to do networking), I gained 40 pounds in technical school. I was only there for 2 months. Why? Because in basic I was getting a good workout, then stopped in tech school. I gained another 10 pounds at my first post (did mostly networking there).

      Now I'm over my weight limit. People consider me a big guy now. I've been in less than 3 years.

      So, I tend to think that for non-athletic types such as I, there isn't much of any middle ground. We're either over or under weight. The average weight seems to be reserved for those that get exercise. Most geeks I know abhor the stuff (as do I).

  • Hubbard crippling himself by working for Steve? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2001 @11:49PM (#2203132)
    A little while back when rumours that the complete source of Windows 2k had made it 'into the wild', many open source developers were faced with the daunting proposition of keeping an eye out to avoid any Microsoft-originated source code.

    Since he works for Apple, I have to wonder if Hubbard is not 'contaminating' any Open Source code he puts his fingers on.

    The arguement goes as so... The way I understand it, Hubbard is working on Darwin, Apple's 'open source' OS. Darwin is equivalent to FreeBSD with a command shell. X and your choice of window managers can be installed on top of it, but it won't be OSX. Now, presumably, Hubbard must be exposed to a *lot* of proprietary code in order to best optimize Darwin to run the OSX user interface. Does this invalidate his open source efforts? Does he have a special contract with Apple so that any OSS can be released under (I'm assuming) the BSD license? Does Hubbard safeguard himelf from seeing any non-OSS code while at work?

    It's possible, but somehow I doubt it. Anyone else know?
    • I doubt it's much of a problem. Almost all of Darwin is Open Source. Those parts that are encumbered are only done so, because of restrictive third-party licenses (such as Lucent's code that Apple uses in it's Airport 802.11 driver). Most of this encumbered code is being moved out the kernel proper and into loadable kernel modules (KEXT's), so that none of Darwin itself will be encumbered. And some of this encumbered code can be replaced by Open Source code. (Going back to the Airport driver, see Rob McKeever's Wavelan driver for an Open Source replacement [mac.com]
      http://homepage.mac.com/robm/WirelessDriver.tgz. )

      As to parts of Darwin (kernel or userland) being optimized for OSX and not Darwin proper, that is unlikely. It's not like NT 4 and up where the GUI is running in the kernel and they can do all kinds of funny tricks.

    • As far as I know, Jordan Hubbard does not actually write FreeBSD code. He is a doc writer, FreeBSD advocate, and release manager (Linux users might not be familiar with this concept).

      • nope (Score:2, Informative)

        by keepper ( 24317 )
        he writes quite a bit of code still..

        One of the things he's currently working on is the rewrite of sys install into something that is humanly understandable ... hehe

        Plus he's very involved in packaging it all together.. after all, he is the "release engineer" also..

    • Because he's being paid to WORK ON FREEBSD also... (Score:5, Informative)

      by keepper ( 24317 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2001 @12:17AM (#2203180) Homepage
      Damn, you would figure you guys would read a bit more before you post ( but heck, this IS slashdot ).

      Part of his duties, besides being involved in dariwn, are to keep working on FreeBSD.

      Why you ask?

      Because apple is source syncing many parts of Darwin with FreeBSD and there's soon to be a move to start syncing it with the 4.x branch.

      Besides, that was the numero uno premise jkh had before he went to work at apple. According to his emails to the freebsd mailing lists, we wanted to assure everyone that his role in freebsd would not be compromised by his work at apple. If anything, freebsd is gonna get more benefits out ot it.

      PowerPC port anyone?

      "FreeBSD... because a pc is a terrible thing to waste."
    • Not more than anyone else who writes software for a job.

      If you're company does X, you should think twice about working on Open Source project that does X.

      Apple has a stated policy about Open Source (Darwin etc and the APSL). I think that pretty much handles this case.

      I work for a company with a competitive closed source optimizing compiler. Even though I work in a different division, I hesitate at trying to add to GCC when futzing around at home.
    • One great myth of Copyright is that you can get contaminated by looking at the code. This is not true.

      Copyright protects a particular *expression* of an idea, not the idea itself (that's patent's job). Examine the Rogue Windows source, Apple source, and anything else you want, and write your own version. You just can't copy the code.

      It's actually slightly trickier than this. Copying code and file layouts, and other similar things, could still get you in trouble. However you are on safe grounds if you "keep the book closed while you write in the answers."

      That said, corporations (and individuals) are jealous of their own code. If they know you've seen their code, they may very likely take you to court. In in a civil case they don't have to prove anything, only to get a jury to agree with them. And you also have the phenomena known as "cryptomnesia". You think you're writing original code, but you're just transcribing what you saw last week. That's why some folks use "clean room" processes to reverse engineer stuff.

      But unlike some past cases where is was closed binary distributor versus closed binary distributor, FreeBSD and Darwin are wide open. Show me, Mr. Prosecutor, what part of the printout known as Exhibit A was created by your client. With the corporate backing of Apple, I don't think Jordan or FreeBSD will have any worries.
    • Most commercial developer's understand how to cope with these sorts of things. Lots of people have access source code they are not supposed to share, as well as code that they have the freedom to work on. Before Jordan worked for Apple he worked for WindRiver/BSDi/Walnut Creek. There he had access to the BSD/OS source code. It was never an issue.

      Just for reference, I was an opensource developer who was eventually given commit access to Darwin, and later I was hired by Apple, so I have some personal experience with this situation, but feel free to take my opinions with a grain of salt ;-)

      Louis
    • Even before jkh joined apple, there were apple employes with commit access to FreeBSD's source. Really, it's not an issue.
    • Now, presumably, Hubbard must be exposed to a *lot* of proprietary code in order to best optimize Darwin to run the OSX user interface.

      Well, no. You can take Darwin and replace every corresponding component in an OS X distribution, and it will work perfectly (except for CoreFoundation, because Darwin has only a subset called CF-Lite, but the remaining CF code is identical). Darwin is perfectly in sync with OS X release. Actually, the current Darwin is newer than the 10.0 release.

      If your assumption comes from the fact that Darwin is slow, then well, I'm sorry, but Mac OS X 10.0 is slow too :(

  • A quote which sums up why OSS will survive.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by moniker_21 ( 414164 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2001 @11:50PM (#2203136)
    "The developer has to have a personal interest in the features in question..."

    When you have people personally motivated to help support a peice of software I feel you get a superior product. Some mindless drone ordered to sit in front of a terminal to code a peice of software that he has no relation to is going to feel less motivtated to do a good job. So what if OSS has numerically less people developing for it then commercial sofware, at least it's poeple who actually care about the software and it's success. Think about it.
    • <paraphrase>
      When you have people being paid to help support a peice of software I feel you get a superior product. Some guy coding a peice of software in his scarce spare time is not going to be able to get as much work done and the product will not be complete. So what if OSS people care about their products more, they code only for their own needs and the "customer" comes second.
      </paraphrase>

      Extreme arguments can be made both ways. The ideal situation is to pay coders who also care about their product. Perhaps some innovative solution needs to come along where people can support open-source programmers with tips or something. If SourceForge adopted an optional donation system, we could see how well something like that would work on a large scale. Imagine: people being paid to do what they like! What a concept!
      • I remember seeing some site where you could put a bounty of sorts on a currently nonexistent program you needed or a feature you needed an existing program to have. I have no idea where the site was or if it still exists.
      • When you have people being paid to help support a peice of software I feel you get a superior product. ... So what if OSS people care about their products more, they code only for their own needs and the "customer" comes second.

        Complete non sequitor. Open source doesn't have a 'customer'. I know I've been droning on about this for ages, but the nugget of truth you're looking for is that the Open Source movement will never make software for Joe Public to use, because Joe Public needs things that we don't and vice versa. The fact that it lacks the ease of use features that Joe Public needs doesn't make it less good - it's designed by and for a community which doesn't need them, and doesn't value them.

        It remains true that Open Source software is by and large better engineered, better written, better suited to the purpose for which it was built, and generally just better.

      • > The ideal situation is to pay coders who also care
        > about their product. Perhaps some innovative
        > solution needs to come along where people can
        > support open-source programmers with tips or
        > something.

        Apple pays Jordan Hubbard and he also cares about the product. This is pretty standard Silicon Valley stuff from before the dot-com bubble got so big that nobody could see anything around it. Netscape used to be a really big happy gang of engineers who were building exactly what they wanted to build and being paid well for it. Microsoft doesn't want to compete with these kinds of companies, and has shown that it is willing to break the law to avoid competing with them.
    • Some mindless drone randomly hacking at code for a hobby, regardless of his motivation, isn't going to write great code either.

      Sure 90% of commercial software is crap. I think, however, it is probably more because 90% of everything is crap, than because commercial entities hire mindless drones. It is as senseless to attribute to all commercial software the traits of its weakest contributors as it is to attribute to all open source software the attributes of its greatest exponents.

      I have seen the worst code contributed as open source, stuff I would fire people for if it were submitted as paid work product. I have likewise seen excellent code produced commercially, and of course, vice versa on both counts.

      The ideal is to be motivated BOTH for love of the making and for personal incentives. I count myself lucky that I've never worked at anything for a living I didn't love. But a lot of that has to do with only picking the projects on which you love to work, and doing so without regard to the money. My theory has been that the money will take care of itself if you focus on excellence and passion in your work. But that doesn't mean that sucking the money out of the work makes it better.

  • Way too short (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Canyon Rat ( 103953 ) on Tuesday August 21, 2001 @11:53PM (#2203141)
    This interview just scratches the surface. Let's see if we can get Jordan to answer questions on /. I'm sure that would be much more interesting.

  • PairNetworks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tstock ( 213857 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2001 @12:18AM (#2203183) Homepage
    It's interesting that Pair Networks is asking the questions... they have about 300 FreeBSD servers, and have been hosting web sites since January 1996.

    Didn't expect many OS X questions :-)

  • Phew! Don't misread the title! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mr. Flibble ( 12943 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2001 @12:31AM (#2203204) Homepage
    I saw the Slashdot headline:
    Workingmac.com Interview With Jordan Hubbard

    as:

    Mac's working With L. Ron Hubbard

    I think we can all be thankful that the second title is not real!

  • snore (Score:1)

    by soellman ( 993 )
    what a boring interview.. nothing of substance in there at all.. ah well.
  • I was pretty disappointed that the interviewer didn't ask better questions. JKH is an interesting guy, and I'd rather hear him answer some less vague questions. All we got were vague answers, to the effect of "FreeBSD will probably go in the direction that its users want it to go".

    And can you believe they asked if OS X and FreeBSD would merge? Come on now...Although I'd sure like to see an open source Quartz!

  • OS Ramblings (OK, it's OT, so shoot me) (Score:4, Interesting)

    by IronChef ( 164482 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2001 @01:35AM (#2203292)

    OK, here's a weird, wacky idea.

    I think the Feds should fund the development of an operating system and office suite. The software would be released to the public, including source code.

    Sounds crazy at first, yes. But bear with me.

    My reasoning is this: simply put, an OS and office suite is IMPORTANT. Damn important, like roads, and telephone service. Like those other infrastructure elements, it makes sense to have some kind of government supported offering. We already rely on Federally-funded roads... the Post Office gets Fed subsidies and tax breaks... Why not get some support for them from the gov't for the computers on our desks?

    The idea is not to give the government control of OS technology though... the goal is to give US something WE can use, for nothing more than a couple bucks each in taxes. GovOS would give people a way to write a paper for school, or look at the web without being FORCED into buying an OS from some other big company. It would be an ideal solution for basic gov't employees -- those people who do nothing but prepare documents and send email all day.

    Of course, we would ALWAYS have the choice to go with MS or Apple or whoever, but GovOS would be ideal for poor people, or for schools that otherwise would have to lay out a fortune in OS licenses.

    The GovOS should be made compatible with as much hardware as possible. Its office suite should be made as inter-operable as possible with all the current document standards. Businesses that want to do work with the government would be required to submit files in GovOS-compatible format.

    Before y'all flip out, this really isn't any different that the current Free Software philosophy that permeates this site. I'm just saying, let's go a step further and throw some tax money at the problem. How much could it *possibly* cost to start with Linux or FreeBSD, and create a dirt-easy-to-install OS and office suite? A few hundred million? Like, the price of a few warplanes? It's nothin'. We're paying for far less useful things already. And the gov't pays Microsoft alone a hell of a lot in license fees. Imagine what could be developed if a small fraction of that money was used to hire decent programmers?

    GovOS isn't about restricting freedom. It's about increasing it, by providing a tax-funded public domain desktop computing infrastructure. OS plus office suite, with some well-paid professional developers behind it, in the public domain... It sounds good to me.

    I know a lot of you are going to say, "we don't need GovOS. We have Mandrake and Debian." To that I say those are fine products, but they *clearly* have not passed the ease-of-use test the mainstream demands. So let's throw a bomber's worth of money at one of them and produce something that anyone can install and use -- and rob Microsoft of a ton of money in the process.

    • Since when has it been the job of a government to create operating systems? Why should the users of existing operating systems be required to pay for its development?
      • Most of the govt's current functions were added on after the fact. Roads? Sewage and water treatment? The only thing government started out with was law and law-enforcement. Everything else you see today was added later. Why would an OS by such a far-fetched idea?

        • Because if it's the job of the government to create our operating systems, then it might also be their job to create out email clients, window managers, desktops and latest first-person-shoot-em-up games.

          Somewhere you have to draw the line, and without any criteria you can't do it. Which is why I asked my question, in an effort to get some criteria.

    • Re:OS Ramblings (OK, it's OT, so shoot me) (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You're a Libertarian's nightmare. Congratulations.

      But seriously, I don't want the government to use
      my money on on OS. I don't want the government
      to use my money at all. I want to keep it.

      The government is useful for spending money on things
      no private sector company in their right mind would
      spend money on. Like environmental monitoring.

      An OS is something the private sector can handle.

      • I'm actually pretty Libertarian at heart. And I admit this is a far-out scheme.

        But I think you can argue that an operating system is a vital commodity. It's infrastructure. It's like a road. And the government throws all kinds of money at those things, for the greater good. I'm a very pro-freedom kind of guy, but I do NOT want roads privatized.

        But putting all that aside, you might be able to justify it from a simple cost savings angle. The gov't has a zillion copies of Windows and MS Office. If they developed their own software to their own standards, they might save money in the long run. And if that software became freely available... well, cool. Options are good.

        An OS is something the private sector can handle.

        Considering the current Microsoft trial, I would say it has been handled badly.

    • Re:OS Ramblings (OK, it's OT, so shoot me) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hyrdra ( 260687 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2001 @03:18AM (#2203409) Homepage Journal
      Welcome to GovOS.

      Please enter your social security number, date of birth, tax identification number, and driver's license number. Please scan your finger print and prick your finger on the way out.

      Welcome, John Doe. GovOS has detected multiple documents which violate a newly established copyright protection law, called the DMCA. You have also visited several web sites which violate these laws. GovOS has added these offences to your criminal information file and has issued warrants for your arrest. Please wait while the police arrive at your location...

      Thank you for using GovOS, citizen!

      Gives a new meaning to illegal operation, doesn't it? Don't mix laws with operating systems, OK? Some things just don't have to be that efficient.

      • Please enter your social security number, date of birth, tax identification number, and driver's license
        number. Please scan your finger print and prick your finger on the way out.


        and this is different from passport how? if an os vendor is going to get all that info on me, i at least want it to be an os vendor i can vote for.


        now, NaderOS might be something i would pay an extra $2 a year in tax for... (RobinsonOS as translated for canadians)

          • Please enter your social security number, date of birth, tax identification number, and driver's license number. Please scan your finger print and prick your finger on the way out.
          and this is different from passport how?

          MicroSoft doesn't have the military, ATF, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. (I'm not saying they wouldn't do it if they could, you understand.) Or, as George Carlin put it, "Well, we don't have them, the army has them. That's right! The army has all the flamethrowers! I'd say we're ****ed if we have to go up against the army."

          • "MicroSoft doesn't have the military, ATF, FBI, CIA, NSA"

            They don't need it. The govt is perfectly willing to use all of it's might to enforce the wishes of MS. If the govt would refuse to enforce the property rights of MS you can bet your ass MS would raise an army of "enforcement agents" to track your ass down and make you pay.
    • the Feds should fund the development of an operating system and office suite.

      One of your points is that it wouldn't take very much money, by government standards. And that is true.

      But just because government is already spending piles of money it shouldn't spend, doesn't make it right to have government spend even more money it shouldn't.

      You know, safe cars are important. Instead of letting the car makers come up with safe cars, maybe the federal government should spend a few bombers worth of money on safe cars? And I hate it when little children fall into swimming pools. Should the federal government spend money on developing a really good fence to put around swimming pools? Just because something is good and worthwhile, doesn't mean that it is appropriate to have the federal government spend money on it. There is no end to cool projects they could fund, and if I approve of them doing the one I like, I have no moral grounds to disapprove of them doing the ones I don't like.

      Besides, I would hate to see a free software project made into a pork-barrel project. It would not be pretty.

      One of the problems: government loves attaching little strings to the money. Federal money for software development! But 60% of it must be spent in Senator Kennedy's district. And the new products have to be approved by a comittee that will check it to make sure none of the messages offend anyone. (And I mean anyone.) And the armed forces will make up a 10,000 page document of requirements that the program must meet, and it won't be shipped until it meets them all, and the requirements will be continually updated... the whole thing would be a nightmare.

      It is possible for government to do things quickly and efficiently, but that's not the way to bet!

      Now, an idea I would approve of: require all federal offices to gradually phase out proprietary software and phase in free software, over (say) the next 10 years. If a department finds that the free software doesn't meet its needs, it can fund developers to add the missing features. 10 years is very generous; they could do it much sooner than that if motivated.

      steveha
    • It boils down to fundemental differences in opinion as to what the role of Government should be. I am opposed to the intrusion of Federal and State Government into my private life, at any level. Hard to avoid it it seems but I can still hold this Philosophical opinion. Creeping government intrusion into "Free Software" would be an anathema to "Free Software"

      The Federal Highway system evolved from a military need/want to have a means to move troops within the borders of the US.

      The telephone system has been a private enterprise for quite some time now.

      The Post Office no longer recieves Federal subsidies.

      The answer is not to "throw some tax money at the problem". If the Government was using a *nix varient as the primary operating system and a *office suite, then it would be very simple to notate that correspondance with govt agencies by vendors and business should be in a file format that the choosen govt office suite could deal with, then your criteria for "Businesses that want to do work with the government would be required to submit files in GovOS-compatible format." would come to fruition. Without any Federal money needed to purchase software. Set up and training will still require money.
    • I think the Feds should fund the development of an operating system and office suite. The software would be released to the public, including source code.

      Notice, he didn't say the government should WRITE the OS, he said they should FUND the OS.

      I always thought that OS development would be best if it were done by a non-profit foundation. Sort of like a "PBS" for computers, except much more useful. It could put out a default platform and publish the source code. It would maintain a basic standardized structure for configuration files, etc. If the government gave it some funding, it could mandate that all government computers use this OS, giving developers a reasonable installed base to target.

      Most of all, the government can take all the money it gives to MS, Sun, and the $3.50 it gives to Apple for OS licenses, and channel that directly toward OS development that meets its needs.

      Of course, we'd all have to look forward to "If you like the way we just fsck'ed your boot drive, please contribute! For $1000, you become a Charter Member and get a free stuffed penguin!"

      OK, maybe the concept needs work...

    • Assuming this isn't flamebait, ...

      I think the Feds should fund the development of an operating system and office suite. The software would be released to the public, including source code.

      You know, that kind of thinking has worked SO well in Russia, Cuba, and Detroit. (And FYI, I've been to all three.)

      Why, and I ask this seriously, do you think that the government would be any better than the private sector at making an OS? Before you answer, think: are your kids better off at a private school or a public school? Would you rather hand over your 401(k) and pension to social security, or have your social security handed over to the people who look after your 401(k) and pension? Is your home bathroom cleaner than a public toilet? [Last question void for male college students living in group housing.]

      GovOS isn't about restricting freedom. It's about increasing it, by providing a tax-funded public domain desktop computing infrastructure.

      Really? Government cannot create its own wealth, it must take it from those who can. Government cannot create freedom. It can protect freedom, or it can take it. And if you've ever been auditted by the IRS or have the Department of the Interior declare your subdivision a wetlands, you know which one government bureaucracies most likely choose. In this case, it would take our money (and hence our earned property and freedom) for its own purpose, which would, incidentally, attack a company inwhich many taxpayers have invested. Thus, you are robbing people doubly, by holding a loaded IRS to their heads to make them fund something that decreases their wealth more. This is something most government bureaucrats can only dream of. Salud!

      Remember, nothing is free; everything comes at a price, whether it's money, time, sweat, or demoralization from living with complete b*tch. However, you point that out yourself with:

      So let's throw a bomber's worth of money at one of them and produce something that anyone can install and use -- and rob Microsoft of a ton of money in the process.

      ... in which you equate government programs with robbery. Milton Friedman, using Adam Smith's notebooks, couldn't have put it better.

      I agree, an OS and office suite that is usable is important; too important to be put in the hands of the government.

    • OK, here's a weird, wacky idea.

      I think the Feds should fund the development of an operating system and office suite. The software would be released to the public, including source code.


      Get with the program, kid. The era of Big Government is over.

      It's time for Faith-Based Computing solutions.

      "God is my co-processor."

      Spearheaded by privately-funded initiatives with matching funds provided by Federal block grants, the vital task of providing operating systems and userland utilities will be managed by religious institutions with a proven track record in this area of expertise.

      VaticanOS, based on RC-DOS; Windows for Prayer Circles 3.11; WinME (Methodist/Episcopal); *BSD (Behold, Shiva the Destroyer); ScientologOS (now with 30% fewer Body Thetans and censorware in the kernel); MacintoshenOS (with Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox compatability layers); Shi'ia and Sunni Linux...

      Let a thousand pustules bloom...

      k.

  • You hear this a lot (Score:3, Informative)

    by Pinball Wizard ( 161942 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2001 @02:52AM (#2203386) Homepage Journal
    Jordan sez--

    and that's a pretty big difference when it comes to how one copes with problem analysis and recovery when you hit something the operating system does not handle well or at all.


    However, I have yet to see a single sysadmin tweak the source of a Linux or BSD kernel because they found a bug or performance bottleneck. I mean really, who expects the average sysadmin to go in and fix a kernel if something breaks. No, they submit bug reports and hope someone else fixes it soon. Just like in closed source.


    Not to disparage open source software, but to think the average maintainer is going to dive in and fix things when he notices a problem is stretching things a bit. The people who actually can fix things in the code generally are not sysadmins.

    • I have yet to see a single sysadmin tweak the source of a Linux or BSD kernel

      Sorry, your logic doesn't hold up. I've never personally seen or driven a Ferrari Testarossa - should I claim, then, that they don't exist?
    • However, I have yet to see a single sysadmin tweak the source of a Linux or BSD kernel because they found a bug or performance bottleneck.

      Well, maybe you don't work with people who are very good at what they do. I know the IT folks here where I work have submitted patches to Red Hat to fix issues they have come across in the field. (At least one of them got "the letter" due to this.)

      Another feature of Open Source is that you can hire someone else to go out and fix the bugs for you much faster than the closed source "wait until the next version" folks will. My company currently is looking offering a bounty for a bug fix to an Open Source piece of software we use. We'll probably get a fix for that in a month, for a reasonable price (much less than we would pay for a one year service contract with some companies).

  • With OS X being the only user-friendly unix-based OS out there, in a few years we may be talking about the death of Linux too.....
    • Nonsense. OSX takes Windows share, not Linux share. Totally different demographic. Linux may still take Windows share too, but OSX will take Grandma and people who are doing graphics work and people with Aeron chairs and new VWs, while Linux will take people who build their own PCs and can actually make a Windows machine work effectively by knowing all the arcane workarounds and failure modes and what to fix if it breaks.

      There will be no death of Linux. (and this is from someone who expects to be running OSX, thank you...) In fact, Linux will siphon off all the people who are truly gifted in the computer domain. (OSX will siphon off Grandma- and many people who are truly gifted in other domains. Artists, writers, inventors- hell, there's a guy designing a new type of autogyro, a real airplane, using a brilliant flight sim (http://www.x-plane.com/ [x-plane.com])... on a G4 Powermac. (fullsize pic: http://www.x-plane.com/images/misc/fullsize/cc2.jp g [x-plane.com]))

      Linux is going to get many of the people who program the programs that make computers go. There will be no death of Linux, just because OSX is all that and an autogyro design tool ;)

  • So let me post a question to all of you: do you really think apple has done it, they've presented Unix in a way that makes it pretty, nice, easy, and usable by the masses, including those who don't know where the "any" key is on a keyboard? If anybody could do it, it's apple. I miss 7.5.5 though, I really do. Maybe I'm just too old school.
    • I think they have, with certain caveats. For one thing, nothing is foolproof. Fools are just too damned clever for that. Also, some people have a knack for breaking things. My father, for example, is a retired engineer who has this absolute talent to improve anything to the point of disaster. I also have a brother who could break an anvil using duct tape and a toothpick.

      So given the caveats that anything that works can conceivably be broken, I think Apple has almost done it. There are still one or two missing features, and there are still a couple things (like speed), that will be improved in 10.1. Like anything worth having (democracy, love, wealth, a harem), it's a work in progress, and will never be COMPLETELY perfect ... partly because needs change, so the definition of perfection isn't static. Still, it's one heck of a start, and there's been quite a bit of improvement between 10.0.0 and 10.0.4. Let's call it "cautious optimism" for now.

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