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All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

zdnet.com

21–30 of 206 posts

Re: All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

#21
post #4

A win for open source. I was just thinking the other day that it's a shame that Linus is not a billionaire. Seems he's doing just fine however: "Finnish-American software engineer and hacker Linus Torvalds has as estimated net worth of $150 million and an estimated annual salary of $10 million. He earned his net worth as the principal force behind the development of the Linux kernel." Source: https://www.therichest.c…

I don't think its so much a shame that Linus isn't a billionaire than it is we have billionaires at all.

There is limited rational or ethical reason for one human being to accumulate so much centralized wealth. There is being rewarded for hard work / skill / innovation and there is exploiting people to become rich, and the line between those is very hard to distinguish when talking about individuals making more than 9 figures off of the endeavor.

It is also worth considering you don't make billions operating a nonprofit or making a valuable software product (or any product, in general). You make billions founding or investing early into a multinational corporation that amasses more wealth than many nations.

And that is where I think the conversation breaks down - people take personal offense to conversations about wealth and equality but we aren't talking about people wielding the influence of themselves as individuals, we are talking about people who control more assets than some nations, that can potentially have financial influence on the world stage greater than the combined influence of millions of fellow humans.

Re: All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

#22
post #12
post #4

A win for open source. I was just thinking the other day that it's a shame that Linus is not a billionaire. Seems he's doing just fine however: "Finnish-American software engineer and hacker Linus Torvalds has as estimated net worth of $150 million and an estimated annual salary of $10 million. He earned his net worth as the principal force behind the development of the Linux kernel." Source: https://www.therichest.c…

Interesting, that site says his background is actually Swedish(-speaking, at least). >Born Linus Benedict Torvalds on December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland, Torvalds is the son of journalists Ana and Nils Torvalds who belong to the Swedish-speaking minority.

A lot of Finns speak Swedish as their mother tongue

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish-speaking_population_of...

Re: All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

#23
post #21
post #4

A win for open source. I was just thinking the other day that it's a shame that Linus is not a billionaire. Seems he's doing just fine however: "Finnish-American software engineer and hacker Linus Torvalds has as estimated net worth of $150 million and an estimated annual salary of $10 million. He earned his net worth as the principal force behind the development of the Linux kernel." Source: https://www.therichest.c…

I don't think its so much a shame that Linus isn't a billionaire than it is we have billionaires at all. There is limited rational or ethical reason for one human being to accumulate so much centralized wealth. There is being rewarded for hard work / skill / innovation and there is exploiting people to become rich, and the line between those is very hard to distinguish when talking about individuals making more than…

>>> You make billions founding or investing early into a multinational corporation that amasses more wealth than many nations.

Or you buy land in the 80s.

Re: All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

#24
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, that site says his background is actually Swedish(-speaking, at least). >Born Linus Benedict Torvalds on December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland, Torvalds is the son of journalists Ana and Nils Torvalds who belong to the Swedish-speaking minority.

When I visited Finland for this year's Worldcon (SF convention) I learned that all Finns learn Finnish and Swedish, the two official languages of Finland. Knowing some German, I found the Swedish street signs more helpful than the Finnish ones!

:)

Yes, since Swedish is a Germanic language, I suppose. I know a bit of German too, and have noticed that when I read words in Scandinavian languages, I can sometimes guess what they mean, due to their being similar to corresponding German words.

Had been reading on Wikipedia about different human languages and their backgrounds and histories a while ago, and was interested to see that Finnish and Hungarian had stuff in common. They are both Uralic family languages according to Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_language

Re: All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

#25
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its so much a shame that Linus isn't a billionaire than it is we have billionaires at all. There is limited rational or ethical reason for one human being to accumulate so much centralized wealth. There is being rewarded for hard work / skill / innovation and there is exploiting people to become rich, and the line between those is very hard to distinguish when talking about individuals making more than…

>>> You make billions founding or investing early into a multinational corporation that amasses more wealth than many nations. Or you buy land in the 80s.

Just not in Tokyo. That would be a bad investment by the 90s.

Re: All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

#26

Ronald Minnich (if you don't know him see [1]) comments : [1] https://share-ng.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/san... ----------------- "The semiannual TOP500 Supercomputer List was released yesterday. It also shows that China now claims 202 systems within the TOP500, while the United States claims 143 systems." My fellow Americans: Did you ever want to directly experience the transition to being a Tier 2 cou…

Trump is not the problem. It is all the non-elected dark figures behind it all.

Re: All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

#27
post #4

A win for open source. I was just thinking the other day that it's a shame that Linus is not a billionaire. Seems he's doing just fine however: "Finnish-American software engineer and hacker Linus Torvalds has as estimated net worth of $150 million and an estimated annual salary of $10 million. He earned his net worth as the principal force behind the development of the Linux kernel." Source: https://www.therichest.c…

The linked article looks like SEO spam to me. There's no sources and the article looks like it's a rehash of Linus's wikipedia page. Given that his employer is the Linux Foundation, I'd be surprised if they were paying him $10 million per year, especially as it looks like only in 2015 did their salary expenses even exceed $10 million (https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460...).

Re: All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

#28
post #21
post #4

A win for open source. I was just thinking the other day that it's a shame that Linus is not a billionaire. Seems he's doing just fine however: "Finnish-American software engineer and hacker Linus Torvalds has as estimated net worth of $150 million and an estimated annual salary of $10 million. He earned his net worth as the principal force behind the development of the Linux kernel." Source: https://www.therichest.c…

I don't think its so much a shame that Linus isn't a billionaire than it is we have billionaires at all. There is limited rational or ethical reason for one human being to accumulate so much centralized wealth. There is being rewarded for hard work / skill / innovation and there is exploiting people to become rich, and the line between those is very hard to distinguish when talking about individuals making more than…

Blame the SEC for this one. Their accredited investor regulation gave the future to the rich. Seed round, series A, B, C, etc should be a vehicle for class mobility. Instead it's a way for the rich and powerful to accumulate more wealth.

With YC and other incubators acting as a filter for where investors should put money, it matters more which zipcode you were born into than your overall intelligence and creativity.

People talk about bitcoin, but it's the only 'startup' that regulation didn't prohibit people from investing in. Facebook should have made millenials/gen x rich. Github should have made developers rich. The list goes on and on.

Re: All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

#29
post #4

A win for open source. I was just thinking the other day that it's a shame that Linus is not a billionaire. Seems he's doing just fine however: "Finnish-American software engineer and hacker Linus Torvalds has as estimated net worth of $150 million and an estimated annual salary of $10 million. He earned his net worth as the principal force behind the development of the Linux kernel." Source: https://www.therichest.c…

It’s hard to say anyone should be a billionaire, frankly, let alone deserve it. Sad to see this attitude on HN.

Re: All 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux

#30
post #2

Serious question (not in IT), what else can they run?

They could likely run any of the BSD variants. Some form of commercial RTOS might also be viable. Even Minix might be an option (hire away some of those Intel folks!) though I'm not sure of its hardware support.

That said, why bother? Linux is customizable enough to strip out almost everything extraneous for nodes and has the largest pool of experienced developers, and it's unlikely that any of the other options would have any performance advantage - and less likely that they could keep any performance advantage once it was identified.

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