Free Software & Academic Mentality

[Christos Ricudis]

Kostas Boukouvalas wrote:
>> Συγγνώμη, αλλά *ΜΠΟΥΡΔΕΣ*!
>>
>> Στις ιστορικές αναφορές[1,2,3,4,5] σχετικά με το ξεκίνημα του Linux δεν
>> αναφέρεται ΠΟΥΘΕΝΑ αν το πανεπιστήμιο στο οποίο φοιτούσε ο Linus είχε
>> σχέση με free software.
>>
>> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#History
>> [2] https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/rhasan/linux/#New%20Baby%20in%20the%20Horizon
>> [3] http://www.educ.umu.se/~bjorn/linux/misc/linux-history.html
>> [4] http://library.thinkquest.org/C003740/history.html
>> [5] http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~awb/linux.history.html
>>
>> Οπότε, πώς είσαι τόσο σίγουρος ότι το ξεκίνημα δεν ήταν απλά ένα σχετικά
>> ανεβασμένο επίπεδο καΐλας, λόγω της μεγάλης Φινλανδικής νύχτας;
>>     
>
> ---
>
> Επειδή η πηγή μου είναι πιο άμεση, δεν έκανα - ούτε πρόκειται να κάνω -
> τον κόπο να κοιτάξω το παραπάνω link collection.
>
> Abstract το κεφάλαιο ΙΙΙ από το βιβλίο του Linus Torvalds & David
> Diamond "Just for Fun" εκδόσεις HarperBusiness: (ας ελπίσω οτι θα
> φανούνε τα bold που δίνω έμφαση και τα πλάγια γράμματα). Ειδάλλως
> παρακαλώ όσους κάνουν τον κόπο να το διαβάσουν, να τα προσέξουν.
>
> III.
>
> The academic year that began in the fall of 1990 was to be the
> first time that the University of Helsinki would have Unix, the powerful
> operating system that had benn bred in AT&T Bell Labs in the late 1960s
> but had grown up elsewhere. In my first year of studies, we had a VAX
> running VMS. It was a horrible operating system certainly not an
> environment that made you say, "Gee, I'd like to have this at home,
> too". Instead it made you say, "Hmmm. How do you do /that?/" It was hard
> to use. It didn't have many tools. It wasn't suited to easily accessing
> the Internet, which was running on Unux. You couldn't even easily figure
> out how large a file was. Admittedly, it's not the kind of operating
> system that you get excited about.
>   

Pragma poy apodeiknyei aplws oti AKOMA kai o Linus Torvalds exei to 
dikaiwma na petaei paparies mege8ous egkyou aeroplanoforou, opote ton 
symferei. Opoiosdhpote (ektos apo ton Torvalds pou opws fainetai exase 
th mpala) exei doulepsei VMS, gnwrizei oti mprosta tou to Unix 8ymizei 
ena syno8yleyma ataktws topo8ethmenwn toublwn pou topo8eth8hkan sxedon 
sthn tyxh opws boleye ton ka8ena. O sxediasmos kai h organwsh hr8e meta 
gia na prospa8hsei na symmazepsei to xaos, me mia epityxia pou mallon 
einai amfisbhtishmh. Opoios koroideuei ton eayto tou pisteyontas oti to 
Unix (apo to epipedo tou user interface mexri to epipedo twn library 
functions kai twn system calls) einai synepes me ton eayto tou, prepei 
na dei to VMS. Otan to VMS yposthrize se periballonta PARAGWGHS features 
opws clustering, networking h virtual memory, to Unix den hksere pou tou 
pane ta tessera.

To gegonos oti telika to Unix epikrathse, an kai texnologika kai 
sxediastika ypodeestero olwn twn ypoloipwn epilogwn se midrange-class 
operating systems, pou den htan kai polles, mia kai sto xwro epaizan 
mono h IBM kai h DEC, para tis filotimes prospa8eies diaforwn kahmenwn 
(anybody here remembers PR1ME?) ofeiletai APOKLEISTIKA kai mono sto 
gegonos oti sxedon apo tyxh to Unix emelle na dhmiourghsei kai na 
enagkaliasei ena pio anoixto montelo anaptykshs.

Ekei poy h IBM kai h DEC trwgotan metaksy tous, to Unix pontarize sto 
portability (mia epoxh poy ta system platforms htan poly perissotera kai 
apeixan poly perissotero metaksy tous ap'oti shmera). Ekei pou h IBM kai 
h DEC xrewnan api8ana posa se adeies kai symbolaia synthrhshs gia ta 
kleista systhmata tous, to Unix sou epetrepe na exeis ena full source 
code license me ena sygkritika geloio poso (gyrw sta $10000).

Ayto edwse w8hsh sto Unix ston akadhmaiko tomea, dinontas tou ena matso 
kaylwmenous Computer Scientists na asxolountai sxedon apokleistika mazi 
tou. Kai ws gnwston, an pareis mazi sou thn akadhmia, exeis mazi sou kai 
thn epomenh genia ths biomhxanias. Blepontas ti kanei h Microsoft shmera 
me to MSDN-AA, teinw na pisteyw oti exoun melethsei POLY prosektikotera 
tous logous ths epityxias tou Unix apo oso 8elei na pisteyei o mesos 
linuxas.

-- 
Christos Ricudis				ricudis at itc.auth.gr
Systems Administrator				+30-2310-998656
IT Support Center
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GREECE