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SubjectPlan-9 and Ken Thompson interview as it relates to Linux
When the news broke today that Microsoft and AT&T were going to do some
work together the entire issue of how someone looks at Linux became very
clear. It is not that Ken Thompson is some evil Linux basher, its just
that for most of his working life, the way he has been judged by those who
pay him is based on the commercial use of his work (for this reason
Plan-9 is not so good).

I would guess that Ma Bell is his number one lady, and anyone she likes,
he likes. If something is bad for Bell (and now that may be bad for
Microsoft) it will be bad for him. After all, if we like a place well
enough to stay there for a lot of years, we will become biased.

Its not that Linux is above all this. Linux has good and bad points. The
best point for me is that I can use it without paying big dollars for it.
I come from a Mainframe background where we had one day (24 hours) of
scheduled downtime a year( Christmas day)! Uptime was six months at a
time, no problem. Now I am the NT Admin (MCSE and all) and I see NT
servers with 1500+ users up for months with no problems.

Running Exchange on a Compaq 5000 series box with no downtime for four or
five months is normal. My Linux servers are lucky to stay up for four or
five weeks. But is that bad? The NT servers are top of the line
machines with 1GB ECC memory, hardware RAID, Hot swappable hard drives.
You do not log in at the console or otherwise mess with them boxes. Total
cost for one of these boxes is well over $10,000us (hardware + software).

My Linux box is a "clone" with an investment of about $900us. I am working
on its console with X or whatever all the time and the hard drive is a
refurbished unit I got on a warranty exchange. But the box runs GOOD!

If we compare Linux with anything else: NT, VMS, Solaris, we are always
going to come up short in some area. It is just the way things are, you
cannot please all the people all the time. Linux users should set the
goals, not people who would not use the system if you gave it to them! ;)

(Of course Linux users should come up for air every now and then to make
sure that someone else has not come up with something wonderful.)

I am a Linux user and I want those working on it to worry about me. If
you keep us happy we will do our best to make sure that no matter what
owners of other systems say, we will clog every FTP mirror on the planet
when 2.4 comes out. Those working on Linux have done myself and many
others a great service and I thank them for it. If someone makes bad
remarks about Linux then they are being critical of those who have given
of their lives for others. In all Linux is a noble effort.

As for the rest of them, if they can't take a joke.....



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