http://www.tomshardware.com/news/app...obs,15082.html
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That doesnt surprise me at all. Torvalds expertise would have been useful to Apple but Apple historically have a bad reputation as being complete and utter tools (best word that isnt a curse word) to work for. They may be better nowadays, but they came from an "80's" culture of buying and stripping away value from any company and treating their own employees like faecal matter trying their damnedest to drive them to the brink of insanity.Quote:
Apparently, Torvalds received a personal job offer from Steve Jobs more than a decade ago. He was offered to work on Unix for MacOS, but the offer came with the condition that he would have to drop all work on Linux.
I guess Torvalds superior intelligence to Gates enabled him to see that even before working alongside or for Apple.
Clearly the whole reason for the job offer was an attempt to kill off Linux. That was 2000 and Apple was still trying to expand their share of the OS market. It didn't help Apple to have another OS that ran on their competitors computer. Could you run Linux on an Apple? It would have made no sense for him to go from work on OS that had 70% of the market to on with less than 5. The vast majority might have been on the server side but that doesn't make any difference except for presence in the public's eye.
How do you read an article like that and come to the conclusion that, "Clearly the whole reason for the job offer was an attempt to kill of Linux"? There is nothing "clear" about that line of reasoning.Quote:
Originally Posted by drdoom
Linus spent the last few years building Linux, and Apple was getting ready to OS X. OS X was based on NeXTSTEP, which borrowed all it's non-UI code from FreeBSD and NetBSD. It was kind of clear that Steve Jobs had a good understanding of how Linux/UNIX could be used if paired with an appropriate UI, but Apple really needed someone to maintain the core OS code, and they didn't have anyone. It took years before they did find the right people. The basic UNIX components of OS X lagged in every release right up until Tiger/Leopard.
I highly doubt Steve Jobs ever thought about "killing" Linux. He just wanted someone who really knew what they were doing to maintain their own core components.
At the end of the day, OS X is just UNIX with a fancy UI with a small set of maintained drivers. Very small, considering Apple drops support for hardware after like 4 years.
i really do admire the perseverance of people like linus torvalds and even mark zuckerberg (although i do think he is a tool)... they stick to their guns even when faced with a seemingly obvious choice to jump ship or sell out
[QUOTE=ImaNihilist;2762417]How do you read an article like that and come to the conclusion that, "Clearly the whole reason for the job offer was an attempt to kill of Linux"? There is nothing "clear" about that line of reasoning.
What other reason would there be for him to make part of the deal to stop work on his life's passion? I'm guessing if his life's passion was pottery he would not have been prohibited from doing that in his off hours. It could have been just the control freak part of Steve Jobs but the result would have been the same. My knowledge of computers is far less than most people here but I do know human behavior quite well. I thought the link was interesting for that reason. There is nothing note worthy about Steve Jobs offering a job to a talented guy. It's just which talented guy he picked.
because it's a blatant conflict of interests? and because maintaining the code base of two operating systems, one of which is licensed under the GPL and the other of which is completely proprietary, comes with all kinds of issues.Quote:
Originally Posted by drdoomWhat other reason would there be for him to make part of the deal to stop work on his life's passion? I'm guessing if his life's passion was pottery he would not have been prohibited from doing that in his off hours. It could have been just the control freak part of Steve Jobs but the result would have been the same. My knowledge of computers is far less than most people here but I do know human behavior quite well. I thought the link was interesting for that reason. There is nothing note worthy about Steve Jobs offering a job to a talented guy. It's just which talented guy he picked.Quote:
Originally Posted by ImaNihilist
if apple wanted to "try killing linux", they chose just about the dumbest approach. making a job offer to linus and making it very clear what his responsibilities would be is hardly a shady move. plus, it's not like linux was ever a competitive OS in the consumer market.