that old GNU/Linux argument
Björn Persson
listor3.rombobeorn at tdcpost.se
Tue Jul 22 12:58:33 UTC 2008
Timothy Murphy wrote:
> I think it is misleading to say that Torvalds was "dissatisfied" with
> Minix. The fact is, Tanenbaum (bizarrely) declined to port Minix to the 386
> on the absurd grounds that there were millions of 286's around the world,
> and people would continue using them indefinitely.
"Port" can't be the right word here. A 386 runs 286 code natively so there's
no need to port it. You probably mean that he didn't want to make use of the
more advanced features of the 386.
What I've heard is that Minix was meant for teaching. Tanenbaum deliberately
made it simple so that students could understand the whole kernel in
reasonable time.
Those who wanted Unix on their PCs used Minix because it was the only
Unix-like OS available for PCs. Some people wrote patches to improve it, but
Tanenbaum didn't incorporate their patches because he wanted to keep Minix
simple. Tanenbaum's license wouldn't allow anyone to redistribute patched
versions of Minix, so those who wanted an improved Minix had to get the
patches separately and apply them.
So I don't know if Linus was dissatisfied but some people certainly were.
There was a pent-up demand for a more advanced Unix-like OS for PCs that
would allow people to help improving it, and then Linux appeared on the scene
and provided the last piece that made GNU usable.
Björn Persson
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