Staying on the cutting edge (The Age) [LWN.net]

Staying on the cutting edge (The Age)

Posted Oct 8, 2004 16:47 UTC (Fri) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

A quote from the interview:

Even though de Raadt was aware of Linux, he says not a single person at the San Diego conference spoke about it. "There wasn't one single person, I believe, who ever mentioned Linux at that thing. So we are really saying that we were here before the Linux people were. Now, on some other mailing lists, he (Linus Torvalds) was already starting to build - Linux was already a thing that you could download, install and run. But in our mindset, it was a very weak System V. It was a Minix derivative at this point. At the time of this conference, Linux still used this Minix file system code. Well, the same file system layout, and half the code was borrowed. And you have to remember that Linux was infected by the fact that it used Minix source code.

Staying on the cutting edge (The Age)

Posted Oct 8, 2004 18:22 UTC (Fri) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link]

Erm, I don't believe Linux ever used Minix source code. From what I recall of the Minix licensce that would have been a bad thing.

I could be wrong though. I followed Linux for awhile in the very early days and then lost track of it until the early 1.x series.

Staying on the cutting edge (The Age)

Posted Oct 8, 2004 18:42 UTC (Fri) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

Linux derived from Minix code: that's news to me. Anyone able to confirm?

I thought that was thoroughly debunked in response to the ADTI "book".

Staying on the cutting edge (The Age)

Posted Oct 8, 2004 20:10 UTC (Fri) by oseemann (subscriber, #6687) [Link]

in the article (which now needs some kind of reg; but was readable like 2 hours ago) theo says that linux contained the minix filesystem code which was eventually replaced.

Staying on the cutting edge (The Age)

Posted Oct 10, 2004 23:04 UTC (Sun) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

Right. I know that he is making such an accusation, but I'm wondering if
anyone can confirm (or deny) that Minix filesystem code really was actually
used instead of a separate implementation which read/wrote the same on-disk
format. I brought up ADTI because they were paid by someone (maybe SCO,
maybe Microsoft) to make similar accusations, but they were almost
universally denied by the Linux, Minix, and Unix authors.

Linux never had any Minix code

Posted Oct 11, 2004 3:57 UTC (Mon) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

Nope, even Linux 0.01 had no Minix code. This was recently proven, and the irony is that it was a guy that Microsoft/SCO shill Ken Brown hired who proved it, by doing a thorough source code comparison between Minix and Linux 0.01. No match. The author of Minux, Andy Tanenbaum, is fully in agreement with this analysis. Read more on what Prof. Tanenbaum had to say about claims that Linux is not Linus's work.

Not that Theo is bad for believing otherwise, as Eric Raymond wrote several times (falsely) that Linux once had Minix code in it. He was misinformed.

Linux implemented the Minix filesystem, but Minix had an extremely simple filesystem, not that hard to code up independently from the explanation in Tanenbaum's book.

Linux never had any Minix code

Posted Oct 12, 2004 8:16 UTC (Tue) by sean.hunter (guest, #7920) [Link]

I wouldn't consider either Theo or Eric S. Raymond any sort of authority on Linux

Staying on the cutting edge (The Age)

Posted Oct 8, 2004 23:01 UTC (Fri) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

Andrew Tanenbaum himself has written a long (and interesting) essay on
his home page, establishing that there has never been Minix code in Linux
(except for trivial things such as constant declarations, file names
etc.). Either Theo doesn't know what he's talking about or the conspiracy
runs deep...

Staying on the cutting edge (The Age)

Posted Oct 8, 2004 18:26 UTC (Fri) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link]

I was primarily a lurker on the various BSD lists in final days before the creation of OpenBSD. Two things were clear to me at the time. One, Theo was a very difficult person to deal with and two, he was doing the vast majority of the work. Given that combination I found his expulsion (And from what I recall it was an expulsion) from the fold rather silly.

He may have been a pain to deal with but he was right more often then not and he didn't just talk, he got things done. And in an enterprise where nobody is getting payed that is worth dealing with a difficult personality.

Staying on the cutting edge (The Age)

Posted Oct 8, 2004 18:45 UTC (Fri) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

He doesn't mention that besides starting his own repository, he also sabotaged the official NetBSD repository on his way out.

It's a fine thing to do lots of work and to be right most of the time. It's essential to accept that you're not always right and to listen to others as they explain why not. That might be the most important difference between him and Linus.

Staying on the cutting edge (The Age)

Posted Oct 9, 2004 22:15 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

He doesn't mention that besides starting his own repository, he also sabotaged the official NetBSD repository on his way out.

Whaaaat?!??

[makes mental note to never, ever cross Theo, and preferably to stay on another continent]

Staying on the cutting edge (The Age)

Posted Oct 10, 2004 11:13 UTC (Sun) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

he also sabotaged the official NetBSD repository on his way out.

Which sounds even more impressive when you remember they'd removed his commit bit. Or are you saying he broke into their server?

Staying on the cutting edge (The Age)

Posted Oct 11, 2004 20:11 UTC (Mon) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link]

From what I recall they removed his ability to commit before he made the final break. It should all be in the list archive from around that time, assuming there is an archive on line some place. It was mostly played out in a very public and ugly way from what I recall.