4 ms·

The kernel isn't dying, it's niche. It always has been and it always will be. Fortunately for the kernel, despite being niche, it has a rock-solid onramp forci

by jerf 5y ago

The kernel isn't dying, it's niche. It always has been and it always will be. Fortunately for the kernel, despite being niche, it has a rock-solid onramp forcing people to get into it. There will always be companies interested in the n'th degree of performance, both generally, and for some specific hardware. Someone has to go do the relevant kernel work for those things. So while you or I may never touch it, it is effectively impossible for a kernel like Linux to just rot away because nobody cares. It would require first a multi-year, if not multi-decade process of fading first.

biorach 5y ago
nice? It's on most of the smartphones on the planet. Plus it is the dominant server OS. Plus in the top 3 in many embedded categories (a highly diverse set of technologies)
- teddyh 5y ago
  > It's on most of the smartphones on the planet. Sadly enough, probably not for long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia_(operating_system)
  - samhw 5y ago
    Haha, I heard another good one about a nun going into a bar..
    - teddyh 5y ago
      Even if Fuchsia is crapware, Google has the money to keep polishing that ball of mud, and eventually force it as the new version of Android, quality be damned. The rest of the world will have no recourse but to switch. It will be painful for quite a while, but people will survive. I mean, people survive using Windows, and not enough people switch away from that, either. I’m not saying that Fuchsia is necessarily bad, I’m saying that Google will do anything to get away from GPL code, including, if necessary, forcing Android to Fuchsia. It doesn’t actually matter if Fuchsia is any good.
      - samhw 5y ago
        From what I can see, the Fuchsia kernel is actually quite interesting. I like the foci on (1) capabilities and (2) message passing. It's not the most innovative thing in the known universe - in fact both of those concepts are of pretty late-80s-to-early-90s vintage, from the OOP boom when programmers were misspending their ill-gotten performance gains[0] – but they make a degree of sense. The userspace bits I'm less sure about. Like you say, it seems to be a non-GPL-ed clone of Linux. It's the kind of thing I'd expect of some cheap Chinese company. This kind of fragmentation is emphatically not a good thing for our industry and Google knows it, and I very much hope they don't get away with it, but I suspect its being a clone is exactly why it'll be a very easy transition to force on end-users. Programmers will never in a million years use it on the server side, though. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law
        mustache_kimono 5y ago
        > Programmers will never in a million years use it on the server side, though. Why not? Certain people are using microkernels, for christsakes. Why not Fuschia on the server?
        teddyh 5y ago
        The biggest obstacle might be drivers. A “server” is defined more loosely than “an Android phone”. An Android phone manufacturer has the incentive to make sure that drivers for that hardware exist in Android, regardless if Android is Linux-based or Fuchsia-based. And Google can make Android switch to Fuchsia, and therefore can control where that incentive leads. Google, however, does not control what runs on servers, and server hardware manufacturers know that if they don’t have a driver in Linux, they won’t sell very much of their hardware, since existing hardware run Linux-based systems.
        mustache_kimono 5y ago
        I meant to say "unikernel." Don't know where that brain fart came from! > Google, however, does not control what runs on servers, and server hardware manufacturers know that if they don’t have a driver in Linux, they won’t sell very much of their hardware, since existing hardware run Linux-based systems. I'm not sure if "It's the way things are" is quite the argument its made out to be. Some server hardware is beginning to look more and more like a phone/Chromebook. And things do change. "Not in a million years" was the argument made against Linux compared to the traditional enterprise UNIX vendors and where are they now?
- jerf 5y ago
  In context, it should be clear that kernel development is a niche.
- camgunz 5y ago
  I think you're talking about users and they're talking about engineers.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Android Linux !== Linux.

by jerf 5y ago

biorach 5y ago

nice? It's on most of the smartphones on the planet. Plus it is the dominant server OS. Plus in the top 3 in many embedded categories (a highly diverse set of technologies)

teddyh 5y ago
> It's on most of the smartphones on the planet. Sadly enough, probably not for long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia_(operating_system)
- samhw 5y ago
  Haha, I heard another good one about a nun going into a bar..
  - teddyh 5y ago
    Even if Fuchsia is crapware, Google has the money to keep polishing that ball of mud, and eventually force it as the new version of Android, quality be damned. The rest of the world will have no recourse but to switch. It will be painful for quite a while, but people will survive. I mean, people survive using Windows, and not enough people switch away from that, either. I’m not saying that Fuchsia is necessarily bad, I’m saying that Google will do anything to get away from GPL code, including, if necessary, forcing Android to Fuchsia. It doesn’t actually matter if Fuchsia is any good.
    - samhw 5y ago
      From what I can see, the Fuchsia kernel is actually quite interesting. I like the foci on (1) capabilities and (2) message passing. It's not the most innovative thing in the known universe - in fact both of those concepts are of pretty late-80s-to-early-90s vintage, from the OOP boom when programmers were misspending their ill-gotten performance gains[0] – but they make a degree of sense. The userspace bits I'm less sure about. Like you say, it seems to be a non-GPL-ed clone of Linux. It's the kind of thing I'd expect of some cheap Chinese company. This kind of fragmentation is emphatically not a good thing for our industry and Google knows it, and I very much hope they don't get away with it, but I suspect its being a clone is exactly why it'll be a very easy transition to force on end-users. Programmers will never in a million years use it on the server side, though. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law
      - mustache_kimono 5y ago
        > Programmers will never in a million years use it on the server side, though. Why not? Certain people are using microkernels, for christsakes. Why not Fuschia on the server?
        teddyh 5y ago
        The biggest obstacle might be drivers. A “server” is defined more loosely than “an Android phone”. An Android phone manufacturer has the incentive to make sure that drivers for that hardware exist in Android, regardless if Android is Linux-based or Fuchsia-based. And Google can make Android switch to Fuchsia, and therefore can control where that incentive leads. Google, however, does not control what runs on servers, and server hardware manufacturers know that if they don’t have a driver in Linux, they won’t sell very much of their hardware, since existing hardware run Linux-based systems.
        mustache_kimono 5y ago
        I meant to say "unikernel." Don't know where that brain fart came from! > Google, however, does not control what runs on servers, and server hardware manufacturers know that if they don’t have a driver in Linux, they won’t sell very much of their hardware, since existing hardware run Linux-based systems. I'm not sure if "It's the way things are" is quite the argument its made out to be. Some server hardware is beginning to look more and more like a phone/Chromebook. And things do change. "Not in a million years" was the argument made against Linux compared to the traditional enterprise UNIX vendors and where are they now?
jerf 5y ago
In context, it should be clear that kernel development is a niche.
camgunz 5y ago
I think you're talking about users and they're talking about engineers.
pjmlp 5y ago
Android Linux !== Linux.