
Linux is obsolete (1992) - ramgorur
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/6e6f6d1b-95c3-46df-8a26-b7efd8ee4b57/entry/linux_is_obsolete_a_must_read_debate_between_andrew_s_tanenbaum_and_linus_torvalds34?lang=en
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willvarfar
VERY MISLEADING TITLE.

I'm all for people reading up on the famous discussion, but with this link-
bait title it seems that IBM is announcing that Linux is obsolete, which is
far from the case here. Someone who can blog at IBM is just linking to a
22-year-old discussion without actually offering an opinion or anything new.

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yoha
The title is misleading, should add the date of the important content: 1992.

> "Portability is for people who cannot write new programs"

I like the fact that Linux has now been ported on a bunch of other
architectures and it does not contradict the meaning of the quote. Focusing on
portability gets you exactly what you want: a portable program; if you want a
great and usable software, focus on that. The (relatively) easy portability is
a by-product of a good design chosen for maintainability.

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jacquesm
The battlefield was not 'technology', micro-kernels are technically in many
ways that you can actually measure superior to macro-kernels, just not in the
one that everybody is always focussing on (raw throughput, which hardly every
is the actual bottle-neck).

The battlefield was 'community', and because of Linux's more open nature it
won that particular battle hands-down.

The problem seems to be that people interpret Linux's widespread adoption as a
triumph of technology.

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yoha
The same goes for Microsoft's and Apple's OSes. The intrinsic quality of a
technology is poorly correlated with its commercial success. There are a few
cases where a great technology did make a huge difference, but most people do
not care if what they are using is efficient, maintainable, or more often that
you would think, easy to use (what does matter is the steepness of the
learning curve around t=0).

The few cases where great technology made it to a broad use is when it opened
_new_ ways of doing things. I may be wrong but I think that personal computer
advertising was quite poor but still gradually got users because of what you
could do with it. Yet, is was really cumbersome to use at the time.

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jacknews
The thing is, linux IS obsolete. The winner may not be microkernels. Maybe
exokernels or library OS's or whatever. But it's taking a long time to realise
(the essence of the technology will likely win eventually, despite the
competing incarnations), and so it looks like linux is winning.

