Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:12:48 -0800 (PST) | | From | Tim Smith <> | | Subject | Re: Comments on Microsoft Open Source documentk |
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On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Dave DeMaagd wrote: > What is so not true about that??? For something to be good, it does not > necessarily have to be innovative. Innovation is good, but if you can > take a feature that someone else has, and do it better than them, that > that is really great. That is why Linux is being noticed. It does things > that other OSs do, and tries (and often succedes) to do them better.
Exactly. Linux is good because it is an excellent implementation of an already proven set of ideas. There isn't a lot in it, from a programming point of view, that is innovative. If you want innovative, run Hurd, or some research OS. If you want something *useful*, run Linux.
My guess is that when they are writing the textbooks 50 years from now, Linux will be mentioned much more in the business textbooks than in the computer science textbooks, and Linus will be more remembered as a genius of management and organization than as a programmer. Sure, he's a great programmer, but there are plenty of equally good programmers around. There are very few people who can manage a successful project the size of Linux, even without the handicap of the people working on it being distributed all over the planet and communicating via a flakey network.
--Tim Smith
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