

The Linux kernel trumps the moonshot by a few orders of magnitude - mgorsuch
http://discursive.com/2013/05/30/dont-give-me-this-we-used-to-do-big-things-crap-we-do/

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betterunix
By this logic, janitorial work should trump the Linux kernel -- there are far
more janitors out there than Linux developers. Janitors are everywhere. We
rely on them all the time.

The difference between the lunar missions and the Linux kernel is easy to see,
if you bother to pay attention. Decades of research in numerous fields were
required before the Apollo missions could happen. Experts in numerous fields
had to collaborate on the mission. There were no mistakes to learn from --
nobody had done a lunar mission before. By comparison, the Linux kernel only
represents expertise in one particular field, it is certainly not the result
of cutting-edge research, and there is nothing particularly special about
writing a kernel.

~~~
general_failure
I agree with you. Linux is possibly a bad example, there's nothing special
about writing it.

That said, we have made major progress in many fields and I disagree that
nothing important is done anymore. Consumer aviation comes to mind. The safety
standards they have met is truly mind boggling. Wireless and Internet
Connectivity is another - wimax has a huge impact in developing countries.
IMO, just these two things have made massive impact on how we do things in
everyday life. Much more than the space program to daily life.

~~~
gngeal
_I agree with you. Linux is possibly a bad example, there's nothing special
about writing it._

Are you sure about it? Wasn't it one of the first really large software
projects with the distributed development model? (Were there any predecessors
to that?)

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tshepang
By the time Linux was born, the GNU project had produced a large collection of
tools, enough to have its founder claim that the last major missing piece for
it to be a complete OS was a kernel.

~~~
gngeal
Well, yes, but the individual GNU tools are to a large degree independent. I'm
not an insider, but to me it seemed that the kernel development effort really
pushed the limits in the area of distributed development of a single large
code base. (I'm not sure, though, how exactly did the kernel code base measure
with the contemporary GCC code base, which is probably the closest in
complexity from all the GNU stuff.)

~~~
tshepang
Yes, GCC is most likely the single largest of all GNU tools (~6 million SLOC).

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JacobiX
Some background: "At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and
required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities." Sure
the Linux kernel is a valuable project but in terms of engineering effort IMHO
the comparison isn't fair.

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apalmer
Can't cosign this one, I think its a grave underestimation of the import of a
species being able to escape however briefly from their home planet.

100 years from now, linux will probably have gone the way of the doodoo bird,
certainly by 500 years from now it will have... 500 years from now the
question of whether or not man has ever set foot on the moon, and when that
first occurred will still have impact

~~~
krapp
I completely agree. A million years from now, there will likely still be human
artifacts on the moon. Where will the linux kernel be in a million years?

~~~
jerf
Well, hopefully, on the moon, right there in the artifacts.

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brudgers
Thankfully:

    
    
      linesOfCode != progress
    

Linux is awesome.

Putting people on the Moon is beyond fucking awesome.

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joemaller1
I'm trying to come up with a pithy response, but I'm kind of speechless. Sure
Linux is a triumph, but... Seriously? Is the author trolling?

~~~
Nelson69
I too wanted to dismiss it outright, there are some big differences and the
first is that simply not that many people really work on Linux.

As I ponder it though, I think it becomes more challenging. Linux' emergence
has changed the psychology of the software industry and other industries. You
really have to ponder before Linux and after Linux to start to capture the
magnitude. Before linux, when you bought a computer you paid a company to make
it boot and make it usable. If you wanted to seriously program your PC, you
had a relatively small set of options: C, Pascal, Assembly, maybe BASIC and
then some like databasey type programming platforms of sorts. You had to pay
money to get those tools, not a small amount. You want to look under the hood?
Go to a university and maybe that'll scratch that itch. Programmers were the
nerdiest of the nerds, now they have a degree of coolness in society (a small
one but still some and they make movies about Hackers and stuff.) Things were
just very different, Linux and GNU and others have had and made a gigantic and
revolutionary impact that really has changed the way software dudes think.
Maybe GNU would have done this if Linux didn't show up. Maybe something else
would have come along, seems like there is a social component and people were
ready for it to happen.

That being said, they barely had computers and landed some dudes on the moon,
that was some real fucking cowboy shit. Strapping dudes on to a bomb,
controllably blowing it up and launching them to the moon and then bringing
them back? Alive, with relatively low casualties. That's really big, a whole
lot of people making careers out of that work and a whole lot of luck. The
luck makes me think of it as bigger, if we did it 100 more times, I know we
would have killed a lot more people in the process and it would have maybe
looked a bit more reckless in retrospect.

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stox
The Alcatel-Lucent 5ESS switch code is larger, more mature, has probably had
more developers over its lifetime, and still, pretty much, runs the whole
phone network.

~~~
johansch
...for the 4.4% of the global population who lives in the country you
implicitly refer to. ;)

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mturmon
"This is a silly game show to play, but if I had to choose between a Saturn V
with three dudes and a lunar landing module strapped to the top of it and a
DVD with the Linux kernel, I’d point to the DVD as having a bigger impact."

I think he should have stopped after the first comma. Why compare incomparable
things? Pick one axis, thing A is better. Pick another axis, thing B is
better.

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D9u
The author seems to have some sort of conceptualized ideal regarding _"The
Linux kernel"_ and it's ubiquity, even though the wide array of devices using
some variant of _"The Linux kernel"_ illustrates the fractured nature of Linux
and its myriad incarnations.

Some would say that _"The Linux kernel"_ is a bloated monstrosity and not a
good example of technological wizardry.

To state that _The kernel is the largest, most complex collaborative effort in
the history of the species,_ while failing to note that the typical jet
fighter aircraft uses systems which nearly double the SLOC of a Linux kernel,
also serves to illuminate the author's scope of knowledge.

    
    
        *The latest F-35Bs, including Yuma’s copy, are also flying with a temporary software suite known as Block 1B. The Marines have said the jet won’t be capable of flying and fighting in real combat until it has the Block 2B software that is only now entering testing. With 24 million lines of code — 9 million more than originally envisioned — there’s no telling how long testing could take.*
    

<http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/marines-jsf/>

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craigyk
Sorry. Wrong. If we were to undertake a serious challenge, like get to Mars,
or go 100% renewable power in 15 years, I'd take that over the linux kernel
any day all day.

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tenpoundhammer
I totally agree with this post,but the reasons people think this way is
obvious. It's much easier to look at a ginormous rocket blasting off in a
fiery cloud of steam and crushing noise as something BIG, than it is to see an
operating system kernel as big.

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gnok
I suspect a lot of us are very uncomfortable with that claim. I think the
moonshot and the kernel are both independently amazing feats that don't need
to be compared against one another for validation.

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cleverjake
I think the issue is that to the average person, there is nothing inspiring
about the linux kernel.

The space race created a large amount of respect for science/research in the
public eye - something that results in more kids enrolled in science and math
programs. The long tail effect of sending people to the moon is a lot hard to
measure than KLOC.

~~~
masklinn
> I think the issue is that to the average person, there is nothing inspiring
> about the linux kernel.

There's nothing inspiring to a non-average person either, it's not like the
linux kernel is a work of discovery and greatness. It's nice, it's a free
unix, it's everywhere and it's convenient, but it's not really blazing new
trails or anything.

And if the linux kernel didn't exist, people would be using something else.
Most of the mindshare would probably live in FreeBSD since Linux gained its
ground and staked its early marks during the BSD uncertainties of the early
90s.

~~~
cleverjake
Im confused as to what your point is - could you clarify?

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robomartin
Maybe I am reading this wrong. It seems to be about the US, as opposed to
humanity, not having done anything important in a while:

"the fact that the US doesn’t have a manned spaceflight program is a step
back. But then he said, “our generation hasn’t done anything like land someone
on the Moon… we used to do big things.”"

Then he goes on to put-up Linux as an example of the US (???) having done
something great? Did I read that wrong?

Linux is not a US development. It didn't even start in the US. It's the result
of collaboration from nearly every corner of the world.

As for humanity not having done something great. Please. Billions of people
are connected like never before via the Internet. Never in the history of
mankind was the dissemination of information, knowledge and culture accessible
to so many for so little. And this is just the beginning.

~~~
Sujan
I don't think US vs. humanity was the point of the article. The argument stays
the same if you replace it with any other popular (technical) achievement in
the country you are talking about ("Wirtschaftswunder" in Germany, Concorde in
France, ... I don't know any others. Ignorant me.).

Still, your conclusion is absolutely right and exactly what is expressed in
the article with the example of the Linux Kernel.

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angersock
Erm...author isn't taking into account like any of the spinoff tech from the
space race, are they?

Linux was a hobby OS that popped up right as legal concerns starting hurting
the BSD folks, right? Had that not been the case, it probably would've been as
interesting a footnote as Minix or Hurd is today.

Are they just feeling insecure about the kinds of problems their generation is
solving?

~~~
BrentRitterbeck
_Are they just feeling insecure about the kinds of problems their generation
is solving?_

Yeah! Figuring out the ad you are most likely to click on next is the best way
forward for mankind. This is obvious.

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davexunit
This article incorrectly refers to Linux as an operating system.

~~~
cjbprime
> This article incorrectly refers to Linux as an operating system.

No, it doesn't. If you're going to be "that guy", please consider at least
being obnoxious _and_ correct.

