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If you read the book called 'Just for fun' by torvalds, you will find some details of this conversation. Jobs had to replace the notoriously old Mac OS design,
by robot 15y ago
If you read the book called 'Just for fun' by torvalds, you will find some details of this conversation.
Jobs had to replace the notoriously old Mac OS design, with a new kernel. He had linux and BSD as the base kernels in mind. He offered the job to Torvalds to base the new OS on Linux. Linus, though did not want to build a closed source system, no matter what was offered. So he declined. Then Jobs had to base the new OS on BSD and hired a large group of FreeBSD developers.
The kernel was just 'one' of the many parts that Jobs needed, albeit a complex one. He was more focusing on creating something 'greater than the sum of its parts'.
- stevejohnson 15y agoThat's not how I read it. Jobs never had the BSD or Linux kernels in mind, he just wanted Linus to somehow "get all the open source people to like Apple" and stop maintaining a separate ecosystem.
- stevejohnson 15y agoTo whoever downvoted: I actually have read "Just For Fun" in its entirety, and that comment was in fact my honest assessment of what I read in that text. If you want me to come back in a couple of hours with a citation, fine. Jobs tried to recruit Linus after NeXTSTEP was already an established OS.
- jonhendry 15y agoUh, no. Jobs already had a Mach kernel, with a BSD user layer. And that's what they kept. I don't think Linux was ever seriously considered. NeXT's OS made heavy use of Mach messaging, and other features, that would be missing in Linux. The original article says the offer happened in 2000, which would be kinda late to be changing the OS X kernel so dramatically. And why would he need Linus to do a kernel when he had Avie Tevanian, from the Mach project and NeXT? Linus isn't the only "kernel guy".
- zanst 15y agoExactly, NEXTStep was already employing a mach kernel with the BSD user space.