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Torvalds didn't add anything to CS. He just wrote a Unix-like kernel. The kernel took off and the project grew to include thousands of devs and became the big

by gkya 10y ago

Torvalds didn't add anything to CS. He just wrote a Unix-like kernel. The kernel took off and the project grew to include thousands of devs and became the biggest OSS project ever, but still, it's a kernel, not much different in essence from any old Unix kernel. Git? Again, popular project, nothing new. It was even started contemporaneously with Mercurial, which is essentially equal to it, and both are no new inventions at all, DVCS was here since the 90's. Stallman did Emacs in whose invention AFAIK he did take part, and then he took part in implementing some other innovative projects, though I don't really know his CS career (I mostly know him as the face of GNU and FSF). IDK but having created a popular project should not be equal to a big innovation in the field.

hutzlibu 10y ago
"IDK but having created a popular project should not be equal to a big innovation in the field." So you seriously think that "new" is better, then "well done"? I don't think it makes sense to compare those 2 things and value one higher than the other. Of what use are innovations, if you can't use them in a "popular project"?
- gkya 10y ago
  > So you seriously think that "new" is better, then "well done"? No. But Linux is not more well-made than, say, the kernel of any modern BSD, or that of illumos, etc. Git is not technically superior to Mercurial et al. Torvalds' success is certainly a big, admirable one, but it's a different kind of success than that of Berners-Lee. Also, while it's the most popular kernel, it's not like we'd not have anything we do have today if it didn't exist, it's in essence an ordinary kernel that came out in the right time. It's those who made the distros and reverse-engineered the drivers and ported/packaged thousands of programs who made Linux a big thing. WWW, on the other hand, is an invention. It's something that did not exist, and it transformed the world like nothing else.
  - hutzlibu 10y ago
    "but it's a different kind of success" That was my point ;) Otherwise we agree ...
thomastjeffery 10y ago
They didn't contribute to the science. They made very important contributions to the implementation of the science. Stallman also made very important contributions to the political/legal landscape.
- gkya 10y ago
  I certainly do not overlook that, but is that the type of contribution that brings a Turing? I mean scientific equipment companies are of utmost importance to any science lab, but they don't get nobels, do they? Linux is at the heart of infrastructure today, but it basically is a Unix like kernel. By that logic the author of cURL should get a Turing award too.

by gkya 10y ago

hutzlibu 10y ago

"IDK but having created a popular project should not be equal to a big innovation in the field." So you seriously think that "new" is better, then "well done"? I don't think it makes sense to compare those 2 things and value one higher than the other. Of what use are innovations, if you can't use them in a "popular project"?

gkya 10y ago
> So you seriously think that "new" is better, then "well done"? No. But Linux is not more well-made than, say, the kernel of any modern BSD, or that of illumos, etc. Git is not technically superior to Mercurial et al. Torvalds' success is certainly a big, admirable one, but it's a different kind of success than that of Berners-Lee. Also, while it's the most popular kernel, it's not like we'd not have anything we do have today if it didn't exist, it's in essence an ordinary kernel that came out in the right time. It's those who made the distros and reverse-engineered the drivers and ported/packaged thousands of programs who made Linux a big thing. WWW, on the other hand, is an invention. It's something that did not exist, and it transformed the world like nothing else.
- hutzlibu 10y ago
  "but it's a different kind of success" That was my point ;) Otherwise we agree ...

thomastjeffery 10y ago

They didn't contribute to the science. They made very important contributions to the implementation of the science. Stallman also made very important contributions to the political/legal landscape.

gkya 10y ago
I certainly do not overlook that, but is that the type of contribution that brings a Turing? I mean scientific equipment companies are of utmost importance to any science lab, but they don't get nobels, do they? Linux is at the heart of infrastructure today, but it basically is a Unix like kernel. By that logic the author of cURL should get a Turing award too.