As I said, it means that code would be written to Linux specifically. What works on linux, what is fast on linux, etc., would be what people write to.
So if someone invented a new kernel that is better than linux, it would have two problems: The usual problem of getting adoption and interest in a new project, but also the problem of all existing code being designed with linux in mind.
Whereas today, people generally try to write code that runs well not just on linux but also on other kernels. Not because they have lofty ideals necessarily, but because there are other kernels.
If we had only linux, that wouldn't be the case.
This is the basic question of standards. Open source is great - as I said above, I have been a huge supporter for a very long time - but standards are an orthogonal issue to open source, and just as important. Writing to standards instead of the bugs/idiosyncrasies of a single implementation is the only thing that makes it easy for new implementations to show up. And standards are dead when there is a single implementation.
A Minix monoculture never happened. But what would actually have been wrong with it?
Think of all of Tanenbaum's design decisions that Linus ended up changing. One big reason we know, in detail, what would have been wrong with a Minix monoculture is that it never happened.
Assuming that Minix adopted a reasonable license and fixed outstanding issues that make Linux currently better, I'm asking you to tell me what's wrong with that. We have a de facto monoculture of Windows on the PC right now and I don't think that's better.
azakai|13 years ago
So if someone invented a new kernel that is better than linux, it would have two problems: The usual problem of getting adoption and interest in a new project, but also the problem of all existing code being designed with linux in mind.
Whereas today, people generally try to write code that runs well not just on linux but also on other kernels. Not because they have lofty ideals necessarily, but because there are other kernels.
If we had only linux, that wouldn't be the case.
This is the basic question of standards. Open source is great - as I said above, I have been a huge supporter for a very long time - but standards are an orthogonal issue to open source, and just as important. Writing to standards instead of the bugs/idiosyncrasies of a single implementation is the only thing that makes it easy for new implementations to show up. And standards are dead when there is a single implementation.
fpgeek|13 years ago
Think of all of Tanenbaum's design decisions that Linus ended up changing. One big reason we know, in detail, what would have been wrong with a Minix monoculture is that it never happened.
slurgfest|13 years ago