Re: Linux/Pro [was Re: Coding style - a non-issue]

[Davide Libenzi]

On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Larry McVoy wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 30, 2001 at 05:13:38PM -0800, Davide Libenzi wrote:
> > On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > Wait a minute.
> > Wasn't it you that were screaming against Sun, leaving their team because
> > their SMP decisions about scaling sucked, because their OS was bloated
> > like hell with sync spinlocks, saying that they tried to make it scale but
> > they failed miserably ?
>
> Yup, that's me, guilty on all charges.
>
> > What is changed now to make Solaris, a fairly vanishing OS, to be the
> > reference OS/devmodel for every kernel developer ?
>
> It's not.  I never said that we should solve the same problems the same
> way that Sun did, go back and read the posting.

This is your quote Larry :

<>
If you want to try and make Linux people work like Sun people, I think
that's going to be tough.  First of all, Sun has a pretty small kernel
group, they work closely with each other, and they are full time,
highly paid, professionals working with a culture that is intolerant of
anything but the best.  It's a cool place to be, to learn, but I think
it is virtually impossible to replicate in a distributed team, with way
more people, who are not paid the same or working in the same way.
<>

So, if these guys are smart, work hard and are professionals, why did they
take bad design decisions ?
Why didn't they implemented different solutions like, let's say "multiple
independent OSs running on clusters of 4 CPUs" ?
What we really have to like about Sun ?
Me personally, if I've to choose, I'll take the logo.

- Davide