Steve Jobs Tried to Hire Linux Creator Linus Torvalds to Work on OS X

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by burgundyyears

Back to the original topic - a loss for Torvalds if you ask me.
...

A shame - he could have been a positive, lasting influence at Apple.

Because he hasn't been a positive lasting influence at the head of the Linux kernel project ?

Wow, what a shortsighted opinion.

[burne]

Originally Posted by ScottishCaptain

XNU is not a microkernel. It is a monolithic kernel. It has extremely distant roots in mach and BSD, but both sources were heavily modified by the guys at NeXT to the point that XNU resembles neither internally.

A microkernel-kernel has a small central process, allocating memory and passing messages for processes running on lower privilege-levels. Allmost all kernel-extensions and processes on your Mac live in separate universes, and have no other way to communicate with eachother than passing messages. The two notable exceptions to that rule are IO-kit and the network-stack, which each consist of many separate functions, but these share the same universe.

This was done for purely practical reasons. Getting from one 'universe' to another takes anything from 100 to 400 cpu-cycles. When opening a file from an application that doesn't matter a lot. Parsing the file will take millions or billions of CPU-cycles anyway, so the overhead is minimal.

When redrawing a screen or pumping out networktraffic at a gigabit per second the overhead gets considerable. So, most of the hard work in IO-kit and the network-stack is done in the same privilege-space.

But: is OS-X microkernel or monolithic? Open activity monitor. Select CPU. Click on the column titel bar and select 'Sent Msgs' and 'Rcvd Msgs' for display.

300 billion messages a day says XNU is mostly a microkernel architecture.

[kumaran.vijayan]

Given the interesting discussion on kernels, I thought that everybody here might find this talk by lucy (I can't find her full name anywhere) to be pretty interesting. Note, there's some fairly technical stuff in here. I couldn't quite keep up with it at some points, but it's a pretty interesting talk nonetheless.

http://chaosradio.ccc.de/24c3_m4v_2303.html

[foodog]

Originally Posted by Peace

This.


I also wonder why this story wasn't in Steve's Biography.

because it wasn't that important.

[sbrhwkp3]

Of COURSE the guy didn't want to work at Apple. This is a man who was so frustrated with the Desktop OSs out there, that he wrote his own.

[lseven]

Well, Apple stock has only gone up 5000% since 2002. At least Linus still has his dignity.

[Mr. Retrofire]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

What's fragmented about Linux, the kernel?

The file system, because it has no HFS+ "hot files" B-tree.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by Mr. Retrofire

The file system, because it has no HFS+ "hot files" B-tree.

Which one ? XFS, ReiserFS, JFS, ZFS, nilfs, ext2/3/4, btrfs, NTFS, UFS or vfat ?

[burgundyyears]

Originally Posted by wikus

Did you just call someone a patent troll on an Apple forum?

Sure - a patent troll is, in my view, a shell of a company that employs almost no one and produces nothing that sits on patents and sues companies that actually make useful things into submission to exact tribute. Apple manages to be a little better than that.

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

Because he hasn't been a positive lasting influence at the head of the Linux kernel project ?

Wow, what a shortsighted opinion.

No, I don't think I said that. His paying-the-bills job he spent several years on at Transmeta was pretty obviously a waste of time with no lasting influence compared to what a job at Apple could have offered. I'm not sure even Linus would dispute that at this point.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by burgundyyears

No, I don't think I said that. His paying-the-bills job he spent several years on at Transmeta was pretty obviously a waste of time with no lasting influence compared to what a job at Apple could have offered. I'm not sure even Linus would dispute that at this point.

Maybe you're mistaking about why he took up the job ? Some people don't care about lasting influences, they are simply looking for a challenge. What Transmeta was attempting was unique and challenging, and I can see why someone like Linus wanted to try it out.

And it seems to me Apple was offering to kill off Linux outright. I doubt anyone that was sane of mind would have accepted such an offer.

A loss for Torvalds ? Not really, after being made aware of the conditions. The guy's life basically revolves around this great accomplishment that is Linux, and you would have him forgo it for some money ?

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Originally Posted by Xtremehkr

No, not really. I've never found Linux to be all that compelling by itself. I think it's been effectively utilized by private companies to make something better, like OSX, but I've found the linux community to be overly optimistic and somewhat annoying in general.

Linus has his ideas but free isn't a good business model.

I know it's hard for so many of you to imagine, but a few of us on this planet don't believe God put us here to spend our entire waking lives collecting material possessions and money that we CANNOT take with us once we depart our rather short lived lives here. It's a waste of time and a waste of life and more importantly, a waste of the opportunity you were given to learn and grow. Greed breeds division and separation of people and classes and ultimately souls, not unity with everyone and God. People who think the Star Trek fictional universe is impossible (it'd be the WalMart Enterprise, eh?) and that socialism is "evil" while materialism is somehow "good" seem to get this information from their God Mamon (aka Money) who fails to tell them how they can make use of those material goods after this life or perhaps tells them they have no life after this one so why not spend it with money, yachts and supercars?

Clearly, Linus was interesting in BUILDING something of use to everyone, a real free information legacy, not trying to force people into endless purchases of new computers because the old one isn't supported anymore while collecting BILLIONS of dollars to hoard while putting Americans out of work and contracting out sweat shop jobs in China.

Linus is trying to better mankind, not rule mankind. So while you may think he wasted his time and Steve Jobs was 10,000x the man he is, Steve Jobs is also DEAD and his money is still HERE where it does him NO GOOD WHAT-SO-EVER. Maybe the Devil is patting him on the back right now for pushing greedy behavior to such high heights? Is that his reward?

Well, since most of you free market capitalists don't believe in life after death, I won't need to read your retorts since you won't remember writing them after you're gone anyway.

[Xtremehkr]

Originally Posted by MagnusVonMagnum

I know it's hard for so many of you to imagine, but a few of us on this planet don't believe God put us here to spend our entire waking lives collecting material possessions and money that we CANNOT take with us once we depart our rather short lived lives here. It's a waste of time and a waste of life and more importantly, a waste of the opportunity you were given to learn and grow. Greed breeds division and separation of people and classes and ultimately souls, not unity with everyone and God. People who think the Star Trek fictional universe is impossible (it'd be the WalMart Enterprise, eh?) and that socialism is "evil" while materialism is somehow "good" seem to get this information from their God Mamon (aka Money) who fails to tell them how they can make use of those material goods after this life or perhaps tells them they have no life after this one so why not spend it with money, yachts and supercars?

Clearly, Linus was interesting in BUILDING something of use to everyone, a real free information legacy, not trying to force people into endless purchases of new computers because the old one isn't supported anymore while collecting BILLIONS of dollars to hoard while putting Americans out of work and contracting out sweat shop jobs in China.

Linus is trying to better mankind, not rule mankind. So while you may think he wasted his time and Steve Jobs was 10,000x the man he is, Steve Jobs is also DEAD and his money is still HERE where it does him NO GOOD WHAT-SO-EVER. Maybe the Devil is patting him on the back right now for pushing greedy behavior to such high heights? Is that his reward?

Well, since most of you free market capitalists don't believe in life after death, I won't need to read your retorts since you won't remember writing them after you're gone anyway.

Yes, I don't disagree with that. But I live in a world where I've seen both a Steve Jobs and a Linus Torvalds make what I consider to be valuable contributions to the world.

I think that the two can co-exist quite well, I was wondering what Torvalds had against OSX out of pure curiosity because there wasn't much detail given. It turned out that it wasn't any flaw or problem with OSX, it was just an ideological difference.

Torvalds turned down Jobs offer and the world kept turning. OSX is a good product that has produced good results and Linux also appears to be doing very well, so there's no requirement to side with one or the other. Both can co-exist quite well.

[MrNomNoms]

Originally Posted by Rocketman

This story is really about, but does not address, the path not traveled. What would it have taken, to get him to say yes? A different kernel? A bigger salary? Continued open source of non core OS technologies?

Mac OS is after all is said and done BSD UNIX with a windowing environment, a few proprietary APIs and a few proprietary services, most of which actually work with open BSD just fine.

Rocketman

Meh, I think the original poster of the article ( link ) wanted something to justify his oxygen allowance rather than contributing something worthwhile. Nothing would have gotten Linus to leave his project because he likes what he has - he has his own project, a team he works with, he can set the hours he works, the direction etc. if he were to work at Apple he would give up all that freedom to become another number in a larger corporation. IMHO, if I was Linus I would have made the same decision - keep working on the thing I love and be able to to my own thing.

[alephnull12]

Well, there is a lot of debate here. All I can say is, I find OSX to be hands down the best client OS out there at the current time -- the only problem being, you have to run it on Apple hardware, which probably makes it a difficult sell for many cost-conscious business customers. I've tried various Linux client implementations out there, and all seem rather slow and somewhat unreliable on equivalent hardware compared to OSX.

As a server (I've done some minimal experimentation), I think it's probably correct when some people say that linux is a much better alternative. However, I currently run a linux-based server for basic tasks, and have really no reason to run all of the GUI implementations of Ubuntu or Suse or whatever on top of the server. I basically do everything on the server by SSH.

So, from a small user perspective at least, currently I have no compelling reason to run a machine with desktop Ubuntu or other desktop versions of linux.

Large users may of course see significant cost benefits from running Linux clients on cheap hardware of course, but that's a different market from mine.

[speedylomeli]

Originally Posted by Winni

The last time anybody had to compile a Linux kernel was like ten years ago. You're really spreading last decade's news here.

But yes, Ubuntu IS getting there - and, sadly, OS X is losing it rapidly. It's apparent that OS X is nothing but an afterthought for Apple and that iOS is their future. And that won't be my future. I'm preparing to migrate the Macs in our house to Ubuntu.

----------



Exactly. It only took the Steve Jobs fan club eleven years to dig up that little gem and talk about it.

Are you on crack buddy, and I'm downgrading to windows 98.

[AppleHater]

Originally Posted by Hellhammer

I think your conclusion is far-fetched. Torvalds working for Apple would not have meant that OS X would have become another Linux. I'm pretty sure Steve would still have made the final decisions on ideas - Torvalds being the guy who turns ideas into actual code.

I think Torvaids is a bad match for Apple. I'm not knocking his achievement, but general direction he pursues is the opposite of Apple's. I don't see this combo working out at all.

[hafr]

Originally Posted by lseven

Well, Apple stock has only gone up 5000% since 2002. At least Linus still has his dignity.

Yes, everything Linus Torvalds has done clearly points at him caring a whole lot about making money.

I'd say Steve Jobs is a plastic surgeon with his own private practice who moonlights at the ER, and Linus Torvalds an ambulance nurse.

[javierbds]

* It was really a non-starter if SJ wanted Linus to stop working on Linux ...
* Microkernels was also one of those ideas that looked great on academia but was not working well in practice at that time (I believe).
* Also Apple has this conflict of moving from tech friendly to mass products (it is hard to do both at hte same time, as Linux also shows).

I still have the feeling SJ was trying to kill two birds with just one stone ...

[blow45]

Originally Posted by kurosov

Not to mention he is one of the above.

lol, very damn funny!!!!

[rrgjl]

I get the ideology behind supporting as much of the (old) hardware as possible, but I actually tend to agree with Steve that this is not the way you want to go when trying to achieve a decent user experience.
What I have noticed when using Linux--and I have tried several times in the last decade or so, being truly interested in trying something new--is that the experience is far from as smooth as the experience you get in both OS X and Windows. I've used Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint, and some other distro's that I forgot about. All of them had this issue, with several different kinds of hardware. And not to mention the small bugs and annoyances, things not working as they should. Not having graphics support for the video card you are using. Your wireless just not working properly, as in: not willing to connect with all networks that you used to be able to connect with on Windows, and losing connection every few minutes.
These are just two of the little things that really annoyed me when using Linux. Now, I can definitely say about myself that I'm quite at home in the computer world, as I've studied IT for a while, and have simply always been passionately interested in anything technology related.
Some of the issues I had with Linux, I was able to fix. Sure. But seeing my background, and adding up to that the fact that some issues might have possibly been solvable but so time consuming I actually longed for Windows, I think gives you a sense of the issue that Linux has. Linux will never be great, because it doesn't speak to the masses. Linux requires people with a lot of patience, and either a lot of knowledge themselves, or at least having someone around with the knowledge and spare time to invest into getting the system to work properly _always_. Windows has similar issues, but of course it has had a huge market share since day 1, and thus a lot of support from both other manufacturers and programmers as well as knowledgable people in the general public. They have also really gone forward with Windows Update, integrating updates for many of your hardware components, so the user doesn't have to search for drivers himself (and these drivers actually do their jobs pretty decently, in contrast to some Linux drivers). Also I think that we have seen a tremendous narrowing in the amount of different chips being used by different manufacturers, which of course boils down to less different kinds of hardware and thus greater chance of decent support.
Another important point against this whole 'we want to support as much hardware as we can' is that I don't really think that much people long for this. It's not necessarily a capitalism thing; but I do think that people actually like to chance it up every few years. Heck, I've probably never had a computer for longer than 1,5 years. Not because I needed it, but definitely not because I'm a mindless zombie just eating away at everything Apple or any other manufacturer throws at me either. People just like new stuff, they like the magic that comes with new stuff (especially new Apple stuff ), they like the new greater speed of it, they maybe only really like the design of it. So what? I've seen people pay millions for supposedly great Van Gogh paintings. I might like them, but I would never ever, even if I had the money, pay such an amount for a friggin' painting. Some people do. It's not all about rationalism, it's about emotional beings living in a dynamic world that is constantly changing, and they are changing with it. Call it the age of abundance, I don't really care for those flashy tag lines, but it's not about being rational, structured, dull and careful anymore, and I think Apple was a bit ahead of the curve--their greatest time still to come.

[chris200x9]

Originally Posted by damir00

Presumably Jobs is happy with his side of the outcome, and Linus is happy with his choice.

Still, a bit of a shame, Linus could have been building the best, most consistent and most widely used Unix variant ever created. Instead he (more or less) presides over the most fragmented. Figure there's gotta be a couple of "what if" regrets in the back of his mind somewhere, regardless of what is said publicly.

In the end, virtually nobody gives two hoots about what kind of kernel is underneath the skin.

Oh man that's rich even counting all the iProducts I think linux is the most widely used, used in desktop != used. I bet even the most diehard apple fan has more things running linux than darwin in their home.

Hint: think embeded.

[rrgjl]

Originally Posted by chris200x9

Oh man that's rich even counting all the iProducts I think linux is the most widely used, used in desktop != used. I bet even the most diehard apple fan has more things running linux than darwin in their home.

Hint: think embeded.

Have you ever condisered this might be mostly due to the nature of Linux, and not per se about being either good or bad? Especially these 'embedded' devices you talk about could work just as well in a world without Linux. There is nothing inherently "Linux-ish" about them. Apple products are however inherently "Apple-ish". So yes, them not being in the world would make a difference.

[Yujenisis]

Originally Posted by wikus

Did you just call someone a patent troll on an Apple forum?

You may not like Apple's use of patents to fight competitors but they are not patent trolls.

Wikipedia sums up the widely accepted definition of a patent troll:

Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company who buys and enforces patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered by the target or observers as unduly aggressive or opportunistic, often with no intention to further develop, manufacture or market the patented invention.[1]

Like it or not, they are not considered patent trolls by anyone other than anti-Apple fanboys. (It's a good bias detector, I've found).

This of course has nothing at all to do with the arguement that they are abusing the patent system or being anti-competitive. There are certainly strong arguments on both sides there.

[chris200x9]

Originally Posted by rrgjl

Have you ever condisered this might be mostly due to the nature of Linux, and not per se about being either good or bad? Especially these 'embedded' devices you talk about could work just as well in a world without Linux. There is nothing inherently "Linux-ish" about them. Apple products are however inherently "Apple-ish". So yes, them not being in the world would make a difference.

I almost took yorur bait 7/10. Anyway your response doesn't even make sense, this is not about the systems being "Linux-ish" this is about the poster I replied to saying apple created the most used UNIX variant which is pure BS, numbers don't lie.

Unless of course you split hairs about linux being a UNIX clone and not a variant, in that case the poster is right.

[rrgjl]

Originally Posted by chris200x9

I almost took yorur bait 7/10. Anyway your response doesn't even make sense, this is not about the systems being "Linux-ish" this is about the poster I replied to saying apple created the most used UNIX variant which is pure BS, numbers don't lie.

Unless of course you split hairs about linux being a UNIX clone and not a variant, in that case the poster is right.

Your argument was that Linux is widely used. The point I was trying to make, is that this does not have anything to do with Linux itself, but simply there being no decent alternative. There is no competition.