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Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award

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Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They meant 2 centuries, for the while well have to deal with these stopgap academic hobbies OSes /j

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award

#82
post #4

Not 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.

I'm curious if this is actually true, considering various ARM MCUs and SOCs seem to dominate in quantity. Considering these largely run some sort of Linux or RTOS, I'd be curious to see if MINIX or Linux is more widespread?

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award

#83
post #70
post #57

I 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.

What keeps it from becoming a free software backdoor?

GPL would theoretically force ME to open its source code.

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award

#85
post #57

I 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.

A different license wouldn't change that. They would just find some way to do it with BSD or some other OS.

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award

#87

Well-deserved, congrats Andrew. I still have his distributed systems textbooks from way back when, and still wish Minix had won and its microkernel model had become the basis of the FOSS *nix ecosystem. Also in case anyone is not aware, Andrew runs the election science blog Electoral Vote [1], using an electoral college poll model to analyze and predict US elections. One of the better US political sites out there. [1…

People should know that electoral-vote.com is not just an election science blog at this point; Andrew and his co-writer Christopher Bates publish a very cogent summary each morning of the previous day's political news and its possible effects on US politics. You could read only their dispassionate but witty daily posts and be a reasonably well informed American citizen.

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award

#88
post #4

Not 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.

> Not to mention MINIX is hidden away in almost every modern Intel CPU as part of its Management Engine.

Sometimes I wonder how the world would be today if MINIX was distributed with a FLOSS license similar to Linux. I think the Linus Torvalds vs Andrew Tanenbaum debate could have been a pivotal moment in tech history by the way MINIX missed a huge opportunity to step up in the history.

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award

#89
post #4

Not 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.

> Not to mention MINIX is hidden away in almost every modern Intel CPU as part of its Management Engine. Sometimes I wonder how the world would be today if MINIX was distributed with a FLOSS license similar to Linux. I think the Linus Torvalds vs Andrew Tanenbaum debate could have been a pivotal moment in tech history by the way MINIX missed a huge opportunity to step up in the history.

And now, Minix is sadly abandoned.

Re: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Receives ACM Software System Award

#90

I’ll never forget this. I was listening to a talk by Reed Hastings (Netflix Founder/CEO) at (I think was) Stanford. He was explaining how he came up with the idea of Netflix. A student asked: “when did you realize you had to switch to the internet”. At which he replied: “that was the idea from the beginning. We knew networks were going to become what they are today. Look, there’s a saying in a CS textbook that says:…

Imagine naming your company "Netflix" and saying "naw, the internet is a fad."
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