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Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

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Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#31

Post by tikhonj »

fidotron wrote: post #28
donw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind if I ask what you don't like? I upgraded a few months ago, and while I had to turn a few annoying bits off, it's overall much better than Snow Leopard.

It's 99% that I hate (and I don't use that lightly) them screwing up Expose (to me this was the OS X killer feature on laptops) and the changes in scrolling. 1% is the unwelcome increase in skeuomorphism. Generally I don't get on with iOS either, so iOSification is a trend I'm not into. I accept that may not be a popular opinion, but there we are.

You should check out KDE--I think you'd like some of the standard window manager features there. They have some effects reminiscent of Exposé (as well as a bunch of other options). And the current version of KDE is also, overall, the best environment I've ever used (out of Unity, Gnome 2, Windows 95+ and OS X Leopard and Lion).

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#33

Post by dhimes »

DHowett wrote: post #12

Not working for Apple is possibly the best decision Linus could have made. One can argue that Linux would have kept moving forward without him, but it's really a shame when great talent leaves the open-source community. The man might be opinionated, and some might not like him, but where would we be without his continued contribution?

Not working for Apple is possibly the best decision Linus could have made...

... for us

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#34

Post by ma2rten »

fleitz wrote: post #22

To know whether it was the right decision or wrong decision would require knowledge of Torvalds decision making framework. Clearly, the personal offer from Jobs himself makes it apparent that both sides knew that money was not the motivating factor for Linus otherwise a guy in a suit with a briefcase full of cash would have sufficed and a personal call would have been unnecessary. I'm not sure what the veneration abo…

Actually I'd think that he would get completely the same job as he has right now, except that works on Darwin instead of Linux and that he gets more money. However, it's quite understandable that he declined, because he'd never leave the project he himself started and saw grow.

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#35

Post by Produce »

fleitz wrote: post #22

To know whether it was the right decision or wrong decision would require knowledge of Torvalds decision making framework. Clearly, the personal offer from Jobs himself makes it apparent that both sides knew that money was not the motivating factor for Linus otherwise a guy in a suit with a briefcase full of cash would have sufficed and a personal call would have been unnecessary. I'm not sure what the veneration abo…

To be fair, I think the veneration is more about working at a company which makes products which are in millions of peoples' conscious minds. Nobody pays attention to ball bearings. Why are we talking about ball bearings? Oooh look, an iPad!

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#36

Post by kamechan »

the other reason, cited in the wired article that it seems this was based from here http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/03/mr-linux/, is that Linus also didn't like the Mach kernel.

The relevant paragraphs are here:

"Torvalds has never met Bill Gates, but around 2000, when he was still working at Transmeta, he met Steve Jobs. Jobs invited him to Apple’s Cupertino campus and tried to hire him. “Unix for the biggest user base: that was the pitch,” says Torvalds. The condition: He’d have to drop Linux development. “He wanted me to work at Apple doing non-Linux things,” he said. That was a non-starter for Torvalds. Besides, he hated Mac OS’s Mach kernel.

“I said no,” Torvalds remembers."

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#40

Post by beatle »

fleitz wrote: post #22

To know whether it was the right decision or wrong decision would require knowledge of Torvalds decision making framework. Clearly, the personal offer from Jobs himself makes it apparent that both sides knew that money was not the motivating factor for Linus otherwise a guy in a suit with a briefcase full of cash would have sufficed and a personal call would have been unnecessary. I'm not sure what the veneration abo…

Linus doesn't have any experience with microkernels and BSD. Jordan Hubbard was a better hire in retrospect.
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