Re: Ken Thompson interview in IEEE Computer magazine (fwd)

Raymond A. Ingles (inglesra@frc.com)
Tue, 4 May 1999 12:05:24 -0400 (EDT)


On Tue, 4 May 1999, Richard B. Johnson wrote:

> Ken doesn't muck around with Linux. He has much more expensive toys
> to play with than some Intel boxes. He mentioned that he heard that
> Linux was unreliable (except perhaps on Intel machines), but Win-NT
> was much worse.

Actually, he said the opposite: "My experience and some of my friends'
experience is that Linux is quite unreliable. Microsoft is *really*
unreliable but Linux is *worse*. In a non-PC environment, it just
won't hold up."

His comments on Linux are only two paragraphs of a seven-page interview,
but they'll probably generate the most heat.

> Also observe that if you invented Unix, and somebody else came along
> 20 years later and rewrote it, you'd be pretty damn critical.

And he does have a new baby in Inferno. Still, note that he said linux
had problems in a "non-PC environment". I don't know what he's tried
Linux on, but his current focus is on set-tops, embedded system, and so
forth. I can imagine that he'd feel Inferno better suited to such tasks.

Sincerely,

Ray Ingles (248) 377-7735 ray.ingles@fanucrobotics.com

"The meek can *have* the Earth. The rest of us are going to the stars!"
- Robert A. Heinlein

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