I agree with david and keith ... the amount and quality of java discussions,
mailing lists, user groups are proof that this guy is talking thru his ...
ooooh lunchtime ...
-----Original Message-----
From: Li Bing-QCH1550 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tuesday, October 19, 1999 11:30 AM
Subject: Java is Dead
>Linus on Linux
>
>Java is dead, NT is next, and more. Linus speaks
>
>Summary
>
>SunWorld Senior Editor Robert McMillan caught up with Linux creator Linus
>Torvalds recently to get his take on Sun, Linux, NT, and Java. And though
we
>asked him, no, Linus would not say anything about his new job at the
>ultra-secretive Transmeta. (2,000 words)
>
>By Robert McMillan
>
>
>
>SunWorld: What's the relationship between the Linux community and
Microsoft?
>
>
>Linus Torvalds: I guess it counts as fairly hostile, mainly because a lot
of
>the Linux users are fairly fed up with Microsoft. I mean, they wouldn't be
>Linux users otherwise.
>
>The users of Solaris tend to be Unix users. Most Linux users are ex-DOS or
>Windows users. And there are a lot of people there who really dislike
>Microsoft. But at the same time, most of the developers are certainly not
>anti-Microsoft. For example, me, I don't care. I think it's tasteless that
>they have such a strong market, but at the same time I've actually never
>been a Microsoft user myself.
>
>SW: Microsoft has said that they have no plans to port their
applications --
>Internet Explorer for example -- to Linux because there is no customer
>demand. Is that true?
>
>LT: That's not the reason, I'm fairly certain. They're doing HP-Unix
>versions. I mean, dream on. It's not because they think that HP-Unix people
>would like Internet Explorer. That's not the issue.
>
>The real reason is just that when you do a port to HP-Unix, you aren't
>porting to something that is in any way a rival. HP-Unix has absolutely
>nothing to do with Windows NT. It's politically the right thing to do.
>
>They very much know about Linux; and they very much don't want to port to
>it. And the reason they don't want to port to it is they know that on PCs,
>NT and Linux have about the same user base.
>
>SW: How big a threat is Linux to Windows NT?
>
>LT: I honestly don't know. But with NT you are already seeing signs of bad
>design -- like, NT 5.0 has been slipping for a while. From all I've heard,
>they have this behemoth that is so big, they couldn't get it to build
>reliably when people made changes. They definitely have problems
maintaining
>a sane source base.
>
>SW: Linux has a large source base, too. How is it any better off than
>Windows NT?
>
>LT: A useful Linux distribution could be half the size of NT, but if you
get
>a CD, it's probably 100 million [lines of code]. But the packages are
>independently developed, so they aren't a maintenance nightmare to each
>other. I don't care that GCC [GNU C Compiler] is a few hundred thousand
>lines of code, because it doesn't impact me. Microsoft has this one tree
>that they have to maintain. It shouldn't be a problem for them, but it
>obviously is.
>
>The kernel
>SW: It seems that a great deal of your work is devoted to keeping the Linux
>kernel clean.
>
>LT: For very selfish reasons, I don't want to clutter up the kernel because
>it makes it so hard to maintain. And nobody's ever been in that position,
>when it comes to NT. So what I think will happen is that in five years,
>Microsoft will come out with the `new-new' technology -- something
>completely new, because Windows NT will be where Windows 95 is right now,
>which is too complex and too fragile. Because nobody knows all of it, and
>it's really hard to maintain. I don't think NT gives you many benefits
right
>now. The only benefit you get is that it runs most Windows programs. And
>assuming Wine [a Windows emulation package] starts working reliably, that
>benefit is gone.
>
>SW: A few years ago, Sun had visions of taking on Microsoft on the desktop.
>Is there anything to be learned by their failure?
>
>LT: One thing is that if you go after Microsoft, you don't do that by
>selling an expensive system. You need to give an NT person a reason to run
>your operating system. And Solaris was never that. Solaris was never
>something that a Windows person ever had any reason to switch to. It was
way
>too expensive; it didn't give a Windows user much at all. It was completely
>unsupported, in reality, on PC hardware. Solaris x86 was there, but let's
>face it, it wasn't Solaris.
>
>Merced
>SW: How will Linux get ported to Intel's next-generation microprocessor
>architecture, Merced?
>
>LT: There are already people...for example at CERN, the European
high-energy
>physics laboratory -- they are already using Linux to a large degree. All
>the CERN math libraries have been ported to Linux. And I know, for example,
>that they've already been talking to Intel, saying, "whatever happens, we
>want to run Linux on Merced too."
>
>The big thing, actually, is to port the GCC compiler to Merced. I suspect
>there probably is already some project somewhere. They're doing it under a
>non-disclosure agreement (NDA) at this point. When Merced is actually
>released, I suspect that within quite a short time frame you will find GCC
>for Merced.
>
>Probably what will happen is that, yes, we won't have Linux for Merced when
>Merced comes out, but I bet Linux will be running on Merced faster than
most
>others [operating systems] within half a year.
>
>SW: Will Merced bring any major changes to Linux?
>
>LT: Linux is already 64-bit. It's actually the easiest 64-bit type, little
>endian, which is exactly what we have for Alpha right now. The EPIC-ness
>[Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing] of Merced -- VLIW [Very-Long
>Instruction Word] as everybody else calls it -- is a problem for the
>compiler. It's a problem for the tool chain, but it's completely irrelevant
>to the kernel itself. It doesn't create any problems in that sense.
>
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