Is Linux/Open Source getting stronger or weaker?

L

lordsegan

Gawd
Joined
Jun 16, 2004
Messages
624
I can't tell.

On the one hand... there seems to be increasing standardization in Linux, and projects like Ubuntu seem to rock.

On the other hand, it seems like the crazy geographic distribution of hackers today (instead of concentrated on the west coast of the united states back in the early days) might be weakening the community?
 
On the desktop? No, still going no where.
Everywhere else? Doing fine, great even.
 
I think it's doing pretty good, but a lot of it is hidden. Lot of people will bash linux and say nobody uses it in the enterprise and it's just a toy.

In reality, lot of enterprise products actually USE Linux in the back end! ESX server for example.
 
heatlesssun said:
Except iOS devices true. However there is Windows 8 on the way, I do think that's going to offer a lot of challenge to Android devices.
Click to expand...

If iOS is noted derived from Linux, what is it based on? NetBSD or MacOS? (This is NOT a a troll. I've always wondered about that.)

x509
 
x509 said:
If iOS is noted derived from Linux, what is it based on? NetBSD or MacOS? (This is NOT a a troll. I've always wondered about that.)

x509
Click to expand...

No, this is a very fair question. I'm not an OS X expert (iOS being a derivative of OS X), but OS X is a BSD derivative I believe and that has origins in UNIX. However iOS/OS X are proprietary and that's where I was coming from.
 
x509 said:
If iOS is noted derived from Linux, what is it based on? NetBSD or MacOS? (This is NOT a a troll. I've always wondered about that.)
Click to expand...
Mac OS X has its origins in NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, which is based on the Mach kernel and BSD userland. iOS is a subset of Mac OS X, with touch and mobile specific APIs added.

OS X and iOS are not derived from Linux (which is a kernel) at all. OS X is Apple's Darwin kernel (Mach/BSD) and BSD/proprietary userland. OS X is a certified Unix.
 
lordsegan said:
On the other hand, it seems like the crazy geographic distribution of hackers today (instead of concentrated on the west coast of the united states back in the early days) might be weakening the community?
Click to expand...

Since when was there a concentration on the West Coast? Sure, that's where the Silicon Valley/Bay Area but OSS has always had a pretty broad geographical distribution. Linus Torvalds was in Finland when he started the project. MIT has been a major source of hacker culture & innovation.
 
I keep putting it on older folks computers that I make who just pay their bills, internet, email, youtube and things of that nature...It works great and I don't get any calls about spyware or any kind of virus.
 
pxc said:
Mac OS X has its origins in NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, which is based on the Mach kernel and BSD userland. iOS is a subset of Mac OS X, with touch and mobile specific APIs added.

OS X and iOS are not derived from Linux (which is a kernel) at all. OS X is Apple's Darwin kernel (Mach/BSD) and BSD/proprietary userland. OS X is a certified Unix.
Click to expand...

I seem to remember that NextStep was based on NetBSD. BSD = Berkeley System Distribution, which, if I remember correctly, was a re-implementation of AT&T's System III, but royalty-free, plus some extensions. I believe that TCP/IP was one of the extensions.

All this is bringing me back almost 30 years, when I worked for one of the early JAWS companies. [Extra credit to the first man who knows what JAWS stood for.]
 
ameoba said:
Since when was there a concentration on the West Coast? Sure, that's where the Silicon Valley/Bay Area but OSS has always had a pretty broad geographical distribution. Linus Torvalds was in Finland when he started the project. MIT has been a major source of hacker culture & innovation.
Click to expand...

And don't forget that UNIX was developed in New Jersey, by AT&T.
 
x509 said:
I seem to remember that NextStep was based on NetBSD. BSD = Berkeley System Distribution, which, if I remember correctly, was a re-implementation of AT&T's System III, but royalty-free, plus some extensions. I believe that TCP/IP was one of the extensions.
Click to expand...
Yes, BSD userland, Mach kernel, and later versions added some BSD functionality to the kernel, but it was still primarily Mach.

But NeXTSTEP != NetBSD. Two separate OSs.
 
x509 said:
I seem to remember that NextStep was based on NetBSD. BSD = Berkeley System Distribution, which, if I remember correctly, was a re-implementation of AT&T's System III, but royalty-free, plus some extensions. I believe that TCP/IP was one of the extensions.
Click to expand...

Not quite. Anti-trust regulation stopped AT&T from making money distributing or "supporting" Unix for a number of years. At this time, licensees were shipped source (only paid licensees). The community played a big part in keeping things moving - very much like the Open Source community of today.

The guys at Berkeley ended up making major advancements& improvements but it was still only available to people who had AT&T Unix licenses. In the mid/late 80s they did a series of releases trying to remove the AT&T owned code. There were a few iterations & some legal wranglings but, eventually, they managed to get a clean release out.

The important distinction is that BSD didn't start out with the intention of replacing AT&T's code, they just wanted to make things better & eventually had a whole new OS. Grandfather's axe, yada yada.
 
Ubuntu success does not equate the linux success. The Ubuntu camp is a bunch of asses who don't contribute back to the community. They break more shit than they fix.

Linux is still going strong. Most windows users couldn't care less if they can't install the latest game on their PC. Most places I worked only use windows for desktop PC, exchange and sharepoint. All other important tasks run on Unix/Linux. Mostly Linux clusters these days.
 
pxc said:
Yes, BSD userland, Mach kernel, and later versions added some BSD functionality to the kernel, but it was still primarily Mach.

But NeXTSTEP != NetBSD. Two separate OSs.
Click to expand...

So, since we are playing "UNIX genealogy," is MacOS derived from NeXTSTEP or NetBSD?
 
lordsegan said:
I can't tell.

On the one hand... there seems to be increasing standardization in Linux, and projects like Ubuntu seem to rock.

On the other hand, it seems like the crazy geographic distribution of hackers today (instead of concentrated on the west coast of the united states back in the early days) might be weakening the community?
Click to expand...

Yes and no.

Yes in that Ubuntu specifically have brought in more device driver backing and recognition.

No, in that Ubuntu's influence strong arms other *nix distros...and Ubuntu insists on doing some of the most stupid things at a billionaire's whims. See: Weyland.
 
GORANKAR said:
On the desktop? No, still going no where.
Everywhere else? Doing fine, great even.
Click to expand...


I agree. I stopped caring after some people stole the KDE name and applied to a half-baked attempt at a "desktop environment" but I see my coworker switching Linux distros every other month and complaining about each one. On openSUSE we would leave a Node.js app running overnight and the entire DE would lockup.. same code worked fine in MacOS and I presume Windows (similar code seems to run without a problem on runlevel 3 RHEL + xvfb) then he tried Ubuntu and all I heard were complaints about the new Gnome. We got him a Mac and then he decided to take a 2 month vacation in Argentina.
 
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