http://linuxfr.org/nodes/88229/comments/1291183 (на буржуйском языке)
LinuxFr.org : Why porting the userland utilities from NetBSD? Is the goal to become a BSD-like system?
Andrew Tanenbaum : We think NetBSD is a mature stable system. Linux is not nearly as well written and is changing all the time. NetBSD has something like 8000 packages. That is enough for us.
LinuxFr.org : In this LinuxFR interview with Linus (http://linuxfr.org/nodes/85904/comments/1230981) he gave his opinion on microkernels:
«I'm still convinced that it's one of those ideas that sounds nice on paper, but ends up being a failure in practice, because in real life the real complexity is in the interactions, not in the individual modules. And microkernels strive to make the modules more independent, making the interactions more indirect and complicated. The separation essentially ends up also cutting a lot of obvious and direct communication channels».
What do you think about this answer?
Andrew Tanenbaum : I don't buy it. He is speculating about something he knows nothing about. Our modules are extremely well defined because they run in separate address spaces. If you want to change the memory manager, only one module is affected. Changing it in Linux is far more complicated because it is all spaghetti down there.
LinuxFr.org : Do you think the Linux success is a proof he was right or is it unrelated?
Andrew Tanenbaum : No, Linux «succeeded» because BSD was frozen out of the market by AT&T at a crucial time. That's just dumb luck. Also, success is relative. I run a political website that ordinary people read. On that site statistics show that about 5% is Linux, 30% is Macintosh (which is BSD inside) and the rest is Windows. These are ordinary people, not computer geeks. I don't think of 5% as that big a success story.
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