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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

#61

Post by veyron »

astrodust wrote: post #55
jkuria wrote: post #23

sneaky how he rips off the wired article by saying "apparently...this and that..". We are seeing too much of this kind of journalism lately. You see a catchy article somewhere then rewrite it by saying "so and so reported this. Apparently they found out that...

Apparently this article rips off the Wired article and that's the unfortunate trend in reporting these days.

There's clear value-add here: for some reason, I couldn't find a discussion surrounding the Wired article.

The real reason why the trend is pervasive is because oftentimes one article from one source doesn't reach all corners of the internet. Middlemen cascade the messages.

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#62

Post by kleiba »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #30
azov wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably over 80% of shiny content that users consume on Apple devices is served by Linux servers. Ever heard of that little thing called cloud ? It's powered by Linux for the most part. By making operating system a commodity Linux changed computer industry forever, and it's not going anywhere. Don't underestimate it.

nit: a big chunk of the web is powered by FreeBSD.

How big?

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#63

Post by mendocino »

codehalo wrote: post #58
Danieru wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair apple's CUPS is pretty critical for printing under linux. And then there is webkit.

Apple bought CUPS

Google bought X.

X being pretty much everything they do besides Search. Not sure if that is much of an argument.

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#64

Post by harshreality »

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?

Something else to ponder:

We probably wouldn't have git or mercurial, and dcvs (would monotone be the frontrunner?) would still be slow and not fun. Github (under any name) and the explosion of dvcs code sharing probably wouldn't exist either. Sourceforge might still be relevant.

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#65

Post by fpgeek »

beatle wrote: post #40
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.

Trying to hire both wasn't an option?

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#66

Post by stevejohnson »

stevejohnson wrote: post #57
robot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the book called 'Just for fun' by torvalds, you will find some details of this conversation. Jobs had to replace the notoriously old Mac OS design, with a new kernel. He had linux and BSD as the base kernels in mind. He offered the job to Torvalds to base the new OS on Linux. Linus, though did not want to build a closed source system, no matter what was offered. So he declined. Then Jobs had to base the n…

That's not how I read it. Jobs never had the BSD or Linux kernels in mind, he just wanted Linus to somehow "get all the open source people to like Apple" and stop maintaining a separate ecosystem.

To whoever downvoted: I actually have read "Just For Fun" in its entirety, and that comment was in fact my honest assessment of what I read in that text. If you want me to come back in a couple of hours with a citation, fine.

Jobs tried to recruit Linus after NeXTSTEP was already an established OS.

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#67

Post by beatle »

fpgeek wrote: post #65
beatle wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Trying to hire both wasn't an option?

of course there's value in hiring Linus that's why Steve tried to hire him.

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#68

Post by jonhendry »

robot wrote: post #54
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…

If you read the book called 'Just for fun' by torvalds, you will find some details of this conversation. Jobs had to replace the notoriously old Mac OS design, with a new kernel. He had linux and BSD as the base kernels in mind. He offered the job to Torvalds to base the new OS on Linux. Linus, though did not want to build a closed source system, no matter what was offered. So he declined. Then Jobs had to base the n…

Uh, no.

Jobs already had a Mach kernel, with a BSD user layer. And that's what they kept. I don't think Linux was ever seriously considered. NeXT's OS made heavy use of Mach messaging, and other features, that would be missing in Linux.

The original article says the offer happened in 2000, which would be kinda late to be changing the OS X kernel so dramatically.

And why would he need Linus to do a kernel when he had Avie Tevanian, from the Mach project and NeXT? Linus isn't the only "kernel guy".

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#69

Post by jonhendry »

freyrs3 wrote: post #50
Danieru wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair apple's CUPS is pretty critical for printing under linux. And then there is webkit.

To be more fair Webkit started as a fork of some of KDE's libraries.

Yeah, but it's being used, and developed, a hell of a lot more now than it was as part of KDE.

Re: Linux Creator Linus Torvalds Declined to Join Apple

#70

Post by jonhendry »

DHowett wrote: post #47
mathnode wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urr what OS do you think powers iCloud?

Windows, because Apple uses Azure[1] in the iCloud infrastructure. [1] http://www.infiniteapple.net/apple-icloud-azure-use-tested-c...

As I recall Apple was going to make use of both Azure and Amazon's cloud stuff.
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