ess0
June 24th, 2007, 01:46 AM
When asked about the technical advantages of Linux, many of its users will quickly point out that it offers a secure and stable platform for computation to take place. Personally, I certainly agree; I use Debian myself as a server to store my backup files, and it is perhaps the most reliable system I have had the pleasure to use.
What I wish to emphasize, however, is the reason that Linux has these technical advantages. Though it is extremely likely that users of Linux already know the origin of many of Linux's design philosophies, perhaps they have not thought about the importance and great effect the influences of Linux have had on its development.
The reason is Unix.
Linux, in fact, inherited the security of Unix, just as it inherited the multiuser interface, its emphasis on text files, its infrastructure, its core and its foundation. When we think of the elegance and simplicity of Linux, we what we are really thinking of is the design and ideas of a predecessor, a predecessor which implemented these ideas at a full scale before the Linux kernel ever reached its infancy, and a predecessor which undoubtedly inspired and lead to the growth of many open source operating systems today. The sheer influence that Unix has on Linux leads to a great irony: the GNU project, an organization which heavily advocates the development of free software, was heavily inspired by a proprietary operating system (Unix) when it developed many of the core utilities that are required by Linux in order to operate.
Let us consider this with greater depth. Many users of Linux use essential utilities like bash, gcc, make, and various text editors (such as Vim and GNU Emacs) on a regular basis. The next time you make use of these applications, however, I would like you to consider what inspired the creation of these applications. Each one of these applications do have a predecessor (in manner very similar to that of Linux), a predecessor that of course ran on Unix. sh, cc, make, vi, and emacs all were designed and written before the GNU project was even conceived, and the X Window System once ran on Unix long before the formation of X.org even took place.
It is of course quite acceptable to discuss the ingeniousness of the design of Linux to a friend or a colleague; but one should never forget the origin of these ideas, or the operating system that undoubtedly contributed significantly to birth of open source computer operating environments as we know them today. Indeed, we have in recent years added to the core functionality that Unix once provided, but in order to discover the origins of the true technical philosophies of Linux, we are forced to look further into the past...
What I wish to emphasize, however, is the reason that Linux has these technical advantages. Though it is extremely likely that users of Linux already know the origin of many of Linux's design philosophies, perhaps they have not thought about the importance and great effect the influences of Linux have had on its development.
The reason is Unix.
Linux, in fact, inherited the security of Unix, just as it inherited the multiuser interface, its emphasis on text files, its infrastructure, its core and its foundation. When we think of the elegance and simplicity of Linux, we what we are really thinking of is the design and ideas of a predecessor, a predecessor which implemented these ideas at a full scale before the Linux kernel ever reached its infancy, and a predecessor which undoubtedly inspired and lead to the growth of many open source operating systems today. The sheer influence that Unix has on Linux leads to a great irony: the GNU project, an organization which heavily advocates the development of free software, was heavily inspired by a proprietary operating system (Unix) when it developed many of the core utilities that are required by Linux in order to operate.
Let us consider this with greater depth. Many users of Linux use essential utilities like bash, gcc, make, and various text editors (such as Vim and GNU Emacs) on a regular basis. The next time you make use of these applications, however, I would like you to consider what inspired the creation of these applications. Each one of these applications do have a predecessor (in manner very similar to that of Linux), a predecessor that of course ran on Unix. sh, cc, make, vi, and emacs all were designed and written before the GNU project was even conceived, and the X Window System once ran on Unix long before the formation of X.org even took place.
It is of course quite acceptable to discuss the ingeniousness of the design of Linux to a friend or a colleague; but one should never forget the origin of these ideas, or the operating system that undoubtedly contributed significantly to birth of open source computer operating environments as we know them today. Indeed, we have in recent years added to the core functionality that Unix once provided, but in order to discover the origins of the true technical philosophies of Linux, we are forced to look further into the past...