It's so sad that all the work on Minix3 has stopped.
Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award
71–80 of 104 posts
Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award
#72I want to appreciate Andrew Tanenbaum for making possible the world's most popular OS, Intel ME. This system has been made absolutely right in every its piece except license. Minix under GPL would not let megagorporations to backdoor every functional x86 chip on the planet.
>right in every its piece except license.
But then it would not be the "most popular OS" right? Whats your logic here?
Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award
#73Not to mention MINIX is hidden away in almost every modern Intel CPU as part of its Management Engine. This little known fact makes it one of the most widely distributed operating systems.
ACM should call on AST to disavow this before receipt of any award.
Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award
#74Err, perhaps I'm missing something, but if the ACM Software System Award is presented to an institution or individual(s) recognized for developing a software system that has had a lasting influence, how come Linus hasn't got his yet?
Perhaps a consolation prize that Linus doesn't need...
Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it “inspired” Linux because Linus was unhappy with Minix. Linus wanted UNIX and Minix was not what he was looking for. I don’t think emulating Minix itself was ever his goal. He chose the Minix file system originally but this was just pragmatic as that is what his drive was formatted with. The earliest versions of Linux were written on Minix though. Credit where credit is due. Interestingly, Linus was unaware o…
The whole flame war between the two is worth a read [1], at least for historical reasons; very different points of view. And while Linus disagreed with Tanenbaum's POV, I Tanenbaum's criticism to Linux made it actually better. [1] https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.minix/c/wlhw16QWltI#9f3c...
My favorite thing about that whole thread is the unanimous consensus among everyone involved that we will all be running GNU/Hurd in 2 years so these stopgap OSes are just academic hobbies.
Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award
#76I'm genuinely surprised this hasn't happened already!
Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
This type of thing always seemed to be in the very cool but pointless basket, to me. A lot of systems researchers were absolutely obsessed with clustering, network transparency, distributed systems, and viewed them as the pinnacle of the operating system. I never understood why. I completely understand the coolness factor mind you, I just never could see why it was so important that your server-laptop-phone-network s…
Very strongly disagree with you here. We should have had a distributed OS like Amoeba/Plan9/Inferno/etc. allowing us to manage all our chosen set of devices using a single uniform interface i.e. "A Namespace" (in Plan9/Inferno speak). Such namespaces can themselves be connected into "Hierarchical Namespaces" and so on. This is a natural and easy way to let users keep their control over their devices while still being…
> We should have had a distributed OS like Amoeba/Plan9/Inferno/etc. allowing us to manage all our chosen set of devices using a single uniform interface i.e. "A Namespace" (in Plan9/Inferno speak). Such namespaces can themselves be connected into "Hierarchical Namespaces" and so on. This is a natural and easy way to let users keep their control over their devices while still being connected to the "Greater Internet".
Why should we have?
> But the Industry manipulated us into the Cloud model so that they could retain control and make money off of us. It was all Business to the detriment of a better User Experience via Technology.
The choice was not cloud or distributed single system machine, they were and are orthogonal.
Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award
#78Hell yeah! Well deserved. I had a blast with some of his books. Especially _Operating Systems: Design and Implementation_ and _Computer Networks_. Legend
Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very strongly disagree with you here. We should have had a distributed OS like Amoeba/Plan9/Inferno/etc. allowing us to manage all our chosen set of devices using a single uniform interface i.e. "A Namespace" (in Plan9/Inferno speak). Such namespaces can themselves be connected into "Hierarchical Namespaces" and so on. This is a natural and easy way to let users keep their control over their devices while still being…
> We should have had a distributed OS like Amoeba/Plan9/Inferno/etc. allowing us to manage all our chosen set of devices using a single uniform interface i.e. "A Namespace" (in Plan9/Inferno speak). Such namespaces can themselves be connected into "Hierarchical Namespaces" and so on. This is a natural and easy way to let users keep their control over their devices while still being connected to the "Greater Internet"…
> Why should we have?
Because that is what an OS is supposed to do viz. provide a uniform interface and transparent access to various Compute, Storage and Network resources wherever they might be. A Distributed OS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_operating_system) is a natural extension to a Single Node OS. Note that we have in a sense realized our distributed OS in the IaaS and PaaS layers of a Cloud network. However they are done in such a manner as to take control away from us unless of course you use some open source offerings setting up which is much more complex than a distributed OS should be.
Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award
#80Along with K&R (and K and Plauger’s “Software Tools”), the Dragon book, Bentley’s Programming Pearls, and Holzmann’s Beyond Photography, AST’s books were the most formative in my life (I started coding in 1976 but was self-taught until early 80s when I got to college and read all these brilliant works). Long overdue recognition; so many people benefited from the lucidity of these minds.