SIEMPRE FUI FAN DE mIGUEL DE iCAZA, NUNCA LO CONOCI EN PERSONA, pero pues yo estudie en la fac de ciencias la misma carrera que el, asi que siempre me entere de personas que trabajaron con el, que eran sus amigos, etc. etc.
esta es una recopilacion de articulos sobre el que he hecho desde hace tiempo:
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Interview
with Miguel de Icaza, co-founder of Gnome, Ximian and Mono |
Born in Mexico City, Miguel de Icaza was the driving
force behind the creation of the Gnome free software
desktop, and co-founded the open source company Ximian, bought last August by Novell. In July 2001, he
helped start another ambitious project, Mono: a free
implementation for GNU/Linux of Microsoft's .Net framework. He talks to Glyn
Moody about Mono's progress, how Ximian was bought by Novell, and why he is so
scared of Microsoft's Longhorn.
Q. How has your vision of Mono changed since you
began the project, and what are the main aims of Mono today?
A. A lot of the things that Microsoft was addressing
with .Net were touching on existing pain points for us. We've been using C and
C++ way too much - they're nice, but they're very close to the machine and what
we wanted was to empower regular users to build applications for Linux. Windows
has a lot of tools that address a particular problem but on Linux we're kind of
on our own in terms of development So when Microsoft came out with this [.Net]
thing, initially what we saw was very interesting, and that's how the project
got started. But as people got together and started to work and collaborate on
this effort, a couple of things happened.
The first one is that there was more and more momentum
behind building APIs that were compatible with the Microsoft ones. Novell and
Ximian were focused just on the core and C#; a lot of the
people who came and contributed software to the project were interested in Windows Forms, or ASP.Net or Web services
or databases, which were part of the Microsoft stack.
And at the same time we have grown organically a stack
completely independent of the Microsoft stack, which we call the Mono stack but
it includes things like tools for doing GUI development for Linux - that was
one thing that we were very interested in and we actually invested a lot of
effort into that.
So today at the core we still have Mono, which is what
we wanted to do, and now we've got two very healthy independent stacks: the
Microsoft-compatible stack for people who want to bring their applications from
Windows to Linux, and also this completely new and fresh stack of things that
in some cases are portable from Linux to Windows, and in some cases are very,
very Linux specific.
Q. Microsoft doesn't seem to be making so much noise
about .Net these days: what's your view of .Net's progress at the moment: how
is it shaping up as a platform for writing software?
A. I think that Microsoft overdid what .Net
was. Initially, the message was extremely confusing because .Net meant too many
things. It meant a set of server products, it meant a special edition of
Windows, it meant a development platform. When we refer to .Net we call it the
.Net framework, which is what it actually was - it was only one of the
components of .Net. And the .Net framework is actually a fairly good
development platform. At least it has stopped the migration of people who were
sick and tired of MFC to Java. Now they have a much better solution if they go with
the Microsoft-based technology and there's a nice migration path. So I think
they've been successful.
You probably don't hear too much about .Net because
now it's not hot news, it's just something that developers have. And the other
reason might be because they're going through another rebranding exercise
within Microsoft - I think it's going to be massively complex. They're trying
to rebrand .Net framework into WinFX - not to be
confused with WinFS . WinFX is
basically the new version of the .Net framework with things for Longhorn, so it
includes WinFS, it includes Avalon, it includes
communications. The whole Longhorn thing is built on top of .Net.
Q. One big change since Mono started has been
Novell's acquisition of Ximian; how did it come about?
A. We had a product for Linux called Red Carpet. It's something
for maintaining the software and software updates on Linux machines on servers
and clients. We had a fantastic GUI, we had a command line tool that allowed
administrators to schedule things so it can be completely unattended, you could
centrally manage things, roll out deployments, back out, undo. We basically had
a very good product for Linux, and Novell has an equivalent software product
for Windows. So we were talking about how can we marry these products, how can
we benefit from each other.
A few of their guys came. They were really trying to
see how to position Novell and how they could ship services for Linux; they had
a long-term plan. One day they came and presented and they said, well, here's
the situation, we really want to get into Linux. I think you guys can help us.
Q. What did you find attractive in becoming part of
Novell?
A. The negotiations, as I said, began with Red Carpet,
but the Linux desktop was something that also fascinated them and they also
wanted to become a player in the desktop space - we don't want to be relegated
to the server space only, the client is where all the action is happening. So
[being acquired] allowed us to restaff and continue working on the desktop
without having to focus continuously on this [Red Carpet] thing.
Q. Has Novell decided what form the desktop will take
- will it be Gnome-based, or have other elements?
A. We cannot choose one desktop over the other - Gnome
or KDE - because there's
users for both code bases. What we're planning on doing is we're working with
an organisation called the Freedesktop.org. The idea there
is they define protocols - things like desktop notification systems,
system-wide configuration engine, clipboard support, drag and drop, etc. We're
pushing those into Gnome and KDE to unify those things and the default desktop
really is a combination of elements.
Gnome and KDE are basically the shells, but then there
are higher-level applications like the office suite. We're making the decision
it's going to be OpenOffice, the browser it's going to be Mozilla, the email client
it's going to be Evolution, the IM client
it's going to be Gaim. So we basically have to pick successful open source
projects and put them together. There's a lot of work on integrating.
Q. You've drawn a distinction between a GNU/Linux
desktop and an open source desktop: what did you mean by that?
A. In some cases we've been building tools that are
specific to Linux for the desktop, and they only work on Linux, but I see two
major projects that are wildly, wildly successful: Mozilla and OpenOffice, and
those two programs are cross platform. So if we're going to build new
applications that require a large time investment, like say movie editing - today
that doesn't matter for the enterprise desktop, but eventually it will when we
get closer to consumers - you really need to have a cross-platform story. We
all love Linux, but it's also a fact that some people might not be able to
migrate. But we can still have them reduce their TCO. You don't necessarily
need Office, you don't necessarily need IE or you don't necessarily need Final Cut Pro etc. We should be thinking in terms of
building cross-platform applications that will work fine on Windows and under
MacOS as well.
Q. When does Novell think that the GNU/Linux desktop
will be ready for the general user?
A. We're doing this exercise ourselves. I think that by
October the whole company has to migrate to OpenOffice, and then I think it's
by June next year we all migrate to Linux - you don't want to migrate 6,000
people both operating system and office suite in a single jump.
We have a lot of existing customers which are also
considering Linux desktop migrations and rolling out some of these programs, so
we're learning from them. For example, in Extramadura and Andalucia
they've been going out for two years now with these deployments. They have
200,000 deployed seats and they're going towards 400,000 deployed seats by the
end of the summer on pure Linux, Gnome, Mozilla, OpenOffice desktops. They're
two very, very large deployments, probably the largest deployments of Linux
desktops today. These are being used by kids, by grandmothers.
Q. What do you see as the greatest danger to the
continuing adoption and progress of open source?
A. Microsoft realises today that Linux is competing for
some of the green pastures that it's been enjoying for so long; I think that
Longhorn is a big attempt to take back what they owned before. Longhorn has
kind of a scary technology called Avalon, which when compounded with another
technology called XAML, it's fairly
dangerous. And the reason is that they've made it so it's basically an HTML
replacement. The advantage is it's probably as easy as writing HTML, so that
means that anybody can produce this content with a text editor.
It's basically an HTML Next Generation. A lot more
widgets, a lot more flexibility, more richer experience - way, way richer
experience. You get basically the native client experience with Web- like
deployments. So you develop these extremely rich applications but they can be
deployed as easily as the Web is. It's just like going to a URL: you go to
Google, and you get the Web page and it works. So it's the same deployment
model but the user interface interaction is just fantastic.
Of course, the only drawback is that this new
interaction is completely tied to .Net and WinFX. So we see that as a very big
danger. A lot of people today cannot migrate to Linux or cannot migrate to
Mozilla because a lot of their internal Web sites happen to use IE extensions.
Now imagine a world where you can only use XAML.
It's massive - I'm so scared.
Using the ECMA Standards: An Interview with Miguel de Icaza
Dare Obasanjo
December 2001
Summary: In this interview, Miguel de
Icaza, the founder of GNOME and Ximian, talks about UNIX components, Bonobo,
Mono, and Microsoft .NET. (6 printed pages)
Dare Obasanjo: You have recently been in the
press due to Ximian's announcement that it shall
create an open source implementation of the Microsoft .NET development platform. Before the recent furor
you've been notable for the work you've done with GNOME and Bonobo. Can you give a
brief overview of your involvement in free software from your earlier projects
up to Mono?
Miguel de Icaza: I have been working for the
past four years on the GNOME project in various areas: organization of it,
libraries and applications. Before that I used to work on the Linux kernel, I
worked for a long time on the SPARC port, then on the software raid and some on
the Linux/SGI effort. Before that I had written the Midnight Commander file
manager.
Dare Obasanjo: In your Let's Make Unix Not Suck series you mention that UNIX
development has long been hampered by a lack of code reuse. You specifically
mention Brad Cox's concept of Software Integrated Circuits, where software is built
primarily by combining reusable components, as a vision of how code reuse
should occur. Many have countered your arguments by stating that UNIX is built
on the concept of using reusable components to build programs by connecting the
output of smaller programs with pipes. What are your opinions of this
counter-argument?
Miguel de Icaza: Well, the paper addresses
that question in detail. A 'pipe' is hardly a complete component system. It is
a transport mechanism that is used with some well-known protocols (lines,
characters, buffers) to process information. The protocol only has a flow of
information.
Details are on the paper. [Dare—Check the
section entitled "Unix Components: Small is Beautiful."]
Dare Obasanjo: Bonobo was your attempt to
create a UNIX component architecture using CORBA as the underlying base. What
are the reasons you have decided to focus on Mono instead?
Miguel de Icaza: The GNOME project goal was to
bring missing technologies to Unix and make it competitive in the current
market place for desktop applications. We also realized early on that language
independence was important, and that is why GNOME APIs were coded using a
standard that allowed the APIs to be easily wrapped for other languages. Our
APIs are available to most programming languages on Unix (Perl, Python, Scheme,
C++, Objective-C, Ada).
Later on we decided
to use better methods for encapsulating our APIs, and we started to use CORBA
to define interfaces to components. We complemented it with policy and a set of
standard GNOME interfaces for easily creating reusable, language independent
components, controls and compound documents. This technology is known as
Bonobo. Interfaces to Bonobo exist for C, Perl, Python, and Java.
CORBA is good when
you define coarse interfaces, and most Bonobo interfaces are coarse. The only
problem is that Bonobo/CORBA interfaces are not good for small interfaces. For
example, an XML parsing Bonobo/CORBA component would be inefficient compared to
a C API.
I also wrote at some
point:
My
interest in .NET comes from the attempts that we have made before in the GNOME
project to achieve some of the things .NET does:
·
APIs that are exposed to multiple languages
·
Cross-language
integration
·
Contract/interface
based programming
And on top of things,
I always loved various things about Java. I just did not love the Java combo
that you were supposed to give or take.
We tried APIs exposed
to many languages by having a common object base (GtkObject) and then following
an API contract and a format that would allow others to wrap the APIs easily
for their programming language. We even have a Scheme-based definition of the
API that is used to generate wrappers on the fly. This solution is sub-optimal
for many reasons.
The cross-language
integration we have been doing with CORBA, sort of like COM, but with an
imposed marshalling penalty. It works pretty well for non-inProc components.
But for inProc components the story is pretty bad: since there was no CORBA ABI
that we could use, the result is so horrible, that I have no words to describe it.
On top of this
problem, we have a proliferation of libraries. Most of them follow our coding
conventions pretty accurately. Every once in a while they either wouldn't or we
would adopt a library written by someone else. This lead to a mix of libraries
that, although powerful in result, implement multiple programming models,
sometimes different allocation and ownership policies and after a while you are
dealing with 5 different kind of "ref/unref" behaviors (CORBA local
references, CORBA object references on Unknown objects, reference count on
object wrappers) and this was turning into a gigantic mess.
We have of course
been trying to fix all these issues, and things are looking better (the GNOME
2.x platform does solve many of these issues, but still).
.NET seemed to me
like an upgrade for Win32 developers: they had the same problems we had when
dealing with APIs that have been designed over many years, a great deal of
inconsistency. So I want to have some of this new "fresh air"
available for building my own applications.
Dare Obasanjo: Bonobo is slightly based on
COM and OLE2 as can be gleaned from the fact that Bonobo interfaces are all
based on the Bonobo::Unknown interface which provides two basic services:
object lifetime management and object functionality-discovery and only contains
three methods:
module Bonobo { interface Unknown { void ref (); void unref (); Object query_interface (in string repoid); }; };
which is very similar
to Microsoft's COM IUnknown interface which has the following methods
HRESULT QueryInterface(REFIID riid, void **ppvObject);ULONG AddRef();ULONG Release();
Does the fact that
.NET seems to imply that the end of COM is near mean that Mono will spell the
end of Bonobo? Similarly considering that .NET plans to have semi-transparent COM/.NET interoperability, is there a similar plan for
Mono and Bonobo?
Miguel de Icaza: Definitely. Mono will have to
interoperate with a number of systems out there including Bonobo on GNOME.
Dare Obasanjo: A number of parties have
claimed that the Microsoft NET platform is a poor clone of the Java™ platform.
If this is the case why hasn't Ximian decided to clone or use the Java platform
instead of cloning the Microsoft .NET platform?
Miguel de Icaza: We were interested in the CLR
because it solves a problem that we face every day. The Java VM did not solve
this problem.
Dare Obasanjo: On the Mono Rationale page it is pointed out that the
Microsoft .NET strategy encompasses many efforts including:
·
The .NET development platform, a new platform for writing software
·
Web
services
·
Microsoft
Server Applications
·
New tools that use the new development platform
·
Hailstorm, the Microsoft .NET Passport-centralized single sign-on system
that is being integrated into Microsoft Windows XP.
And you point out
that Mono is merely an implementation of the .NET development platform. Is
there any plan by Ximian to implement other parts of the .NET strategy?
Miguel de Icaza: Not at this point. We have a
commitment to develop currently:
·
A CLI run time with a JITer for x86 CPUs
·
A C#
compiler
·
A class
library
All of the above with
the help of external contributors. You have to understand that this is a big
undertaking and that without the various people who have donated their time,
expertise and code to the project we would not even have a chance of delivering
a complete product any time soon.
We are doing this for
selfish reasons: we want a better way of developing Linux and Unix applications
ourselves and we see the CLI as such a thing.
That being said,
Ximian being in the services and support business would not mind extending its
effort towards making the Mono project tackle other things like porting to new
platforms, or improving the JIT engine, or focusing on a particular area of
Mono.
But other than this,
we do not have plans at this point to go beyond the three basic announcements
that we have made.
Dare Obasanjo: There are a number of other
projects that are implementing other parts of .NET on free platforms that seem to
be have friction with the Mono project. Section 7.2 of the Portable.NET FAQ seems to indicate they have
had conflict with the Mono project as does the banning of Martin Coxall from
the dotGNU mailing list. What are your thoughts on this?
Miguel de Icaza: I did not pay attention to
the actual details of the banning of Martin from the DotGNU mailing lists.
Usenet and Internet mailing lists are a culture of their own and I think this
is just another instance of what usually happens on the Internet. It is
definitely sad.
The focus of Mono and
.NET is slightly different: we are writing as much as we can in a high-level
language like C#, and writing reusable pieces of software out of it. Portable.NET
is being written in C.
Dare Obasanjo: There have been conflicting
reports about Ximian's relationship with Microsoft. On one hand there are
reports that seem to indicate that there may be licensing problems between the
license that will govern .NET and the GPL. On the other hand there is an
indication that some within Microsoft are enthusiastic about Mono. So exactly
what is Ximian's current relationship with Microsoft and what will be done to
ensure that Mono does not violate Microsoft's licenses on .NET if they turn out
to be restrictive?
Miguel de Icaza: Well, for one we are writing
everything from scratch.
We are trying to stay
on the safe side regarding patents. That means that we implement things in a
way that has been used in the past and we are not doing tremendously elaborate
or efficient things in Mono yet. We are still very far from that. But just
using existing technologies and techniques.
Dare Obasanjo: It has been pointed out that
Sun retracted Java from standards processes at least twice, will the Mono
project continue if .NET stops being an open standard for any reason?
Miguel de Icaza: The upgrade on our
development platform has a value independently of whether it is a standard or
not. The fact that Microsoft has submitted its specifications to a standards
body has helped, since people who know about these problems have looked at the
problem and can pinpoint problems for interoperability.
Dare Obasanjo: Similarly what happens if Dan
Kusnetzky's prediction comes true and Microsoft changes the .NET APIs in the
future? Will the Mono project play catch up or will it become an incompatible
implementation of .NET on UNIX platforms?
Miguel de Icaza: Microsoft is remarkably good
at keeping their APIs backwards compatible (and this is one of the reasons I
think they have had so much success as a platform vendor). So I think that this
would not be a problem.
Now, even if this was
a problem, it is always possible to have multiple implementations of the same
APIs and use the correct one by choosing at run time the proper
"assembly". Assemblies are a new way of dealing with software bundles
and the files that are part of an assembly can be cryptographically checksummed
and their APIs programmatically tested for compatibility. [Dare—See
the description of assemblies from the .NET Framework Glossary.]
So even if they
deviate from the initial release, it would be possible to provide assemblies
that are backwards compatible (we can both do that: Microsoft and ourselves)
Dare Obasanjo: Looking at the Mono class status page I noticed that a large number
of .NET class libraries are not being implemented in Mono such as Windows
Forms, ADO.NET, Web services, XML schemas, reflection and a number of others.
This means that it is very likely that when Mono and .NET are finally released,
applications written for .NET will not be portable to Mono. Is there any plan
to rectify this in the future or is creating a portable .NET platform not a
goal of the Mono project? Similarly what are the short and long term goals of
the Mono project?
Miguel de Icaza: The status Web page reflects
the classes that people have "requested" to work on. The status Web
page is just a way of saying, "Hey, I am working on this class as of this
date" to avoid code duplication. If someone registers their interest in
working on something and they do not do something after some period of time,
then we can reclaim the class.
We are on the very
early stages of the project, so you do see more work going on the foundational
classes than on the end-user classes.
I was not even
expecting so many great and talented programmers to contribute so early in the
project. My original prediction is that we would spend the first three months
hacking on our own in public with no external contributions, but I have been
proved wrong.
You have to realize
that the goals of the Mono project are not only the goals of Ximian. Ximian has
a set of goals, but every contributor to the project has his own goals: some
people want to learn, some people like working on C#, some people want full
.NET compatibility on Linux, some people want language independence, some
people like to optimize code, some people like low-level programming and some
people want to compete with Microsoft, some people like the way .NET services
work.
So the direction of
the project is steered by those that contribute to it. Many people are very
interested in having a compatible .NET implementation for non-Windows
platforms, and they are contributing towards filling those gaps.
Dare Obasanjo: How does Ximian plan to pay
for the costs of developing Mono especially after the failure of a number of
recent venture-funded, free software-based companies like Indrema, Eazel,and
Great Bridge, and the fact that a sizable percentage of the remaining free
software-based companies are on the ropes? Specifically how does Ximian plan to
make money at free software in general and Mono in particular?
Miguel de Icaza: Ximian provides support and
services. We announced a few of our services recently, and more products and
services have been in the pipeline for quite a while and would be announced
during the next six months.
Those we announced
recently are:
·
Red Carpet Express: a subscription service for those who want reliable,
high-speed access to the Red Carpet servers.
·
Red Carpet Corporate Connect: We modified our Red Carpet updater
technology to help people manage networks of Linux workstations easily and to
deploy and maintain custom software packages.
·
Support and services for the GNOME desktop and Evolution: Our latest
boxed products are our way of selling support services for the various products
we ship.
We have also been
providing professional services and support for people integrating free
software-based solutions.
The particular case
of Mono is interesting. We are working on Mono to reduce our development costs.
A very nice foundation has been laid of and submitted to ECMA. Now, with the
help of other interested parties that also realize the power of it, we are
developing the Mono run time and development tools to help us improve our
productivity.
Indeed, the team
working on Mono at Ximian is the same team that provided infrastructural help
to the rest of the company in the past.
Dare Obasanjo: It is probably little known
in some corners that you once interviewed with Microsoft to work on the SPARC port of
Internet Explorer. Considering the impact you have had on the free software
community since then, have you ever wondered what your life would have been
like if you had become a Microsoft employee?
Miguel de Icaza: I have not given it a lot of
thought, no. But I did ask everyone I interviewed at Microsoft to open source
Internet Explorer, way before Netscape Communicator was open-sourced.
Dare Obasanjo is a senior at the Georgia
Institute of Technology working towards his Bachelor of Science degree in
computer science. He spends his free time posting to online forums like
Slashdot, Kuro5hin and Advogato, as well as writing various articles on
programming and software. He has interned for various companies including
Radiant Systems, i2 Technologies and Microsoft, and is currently debating the
merits of a graduate degree but will most likely end up in Redmond when his
time at GA Tech is over.
De Icaza Strikes Out: "Cringley Is All Wrong" About Microsoft
April 26, 2004
Summary
In a sharp rebuttal of a Robert X. Cringley column last week sub-titled
"The Only Way to Beat Microsoft Is To Ignore Microsoft" in which he
argued that paying too much attention to Microsoft simply allows Microsoft to
define the game "and when Microsoft gets to define the game, they ALWAYS
win," Miguel de Icaza declares: "A nice statement, but nothing more
than a nice statement, other than that, it's all incorrect. Microsoft has won
in the past due to many factors, and none of them related to 'Let them define
the game'." He
goes on to give examples.
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By Miguel
de Icaza
Page 1 of 1
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Microsoft has won in
the past due to many factors, and none of them related to "Let them
define the game," a couple from a list of many:
In 1993-1994, Linux had the promise of becoming the
best desktop system. We had real multi-tasking, real 32-bit OS. Client and
Server in the same system: Linux could be used as a server (file sharing, web
serving), we could run DOS applications with dosemu. We had X11: could run
applications remotely on a large server, and display on small machine. Linux
quickly became a vibrant innovative community, and with virtual-desktops in
our window managers, we could do things ten times as fast as Windows users!
TeX was of course `much better than Windows, since it focuses on the content
and the logical layout' and for those who did not like that, there was always
the "Andrew" word processor. Tcl/Tk was as good as building apps
with QuickBasic. And then Microsoft released Windows 95.
The consensus at that time? Whatever Microsoft is
doing is just a thin layer on top of COM/DCOM/Windows DNA which to most of us
means `same old, same old, we are innovating!'. And then Microsoft comes up with .NET. Does
something like XAML matter? Not really. But it makes it simple to create
relatively cute apps, by relatively newby users, in the same way anyone could
build web pages with HTML. Does
Avalon really matter? Its a cute toolkit, with tons of widgetry, but nothing
that we cant do on a weekend, right? Does
the fact that it's built on top of .NET matter? Well, you could argue it has
some productivity advantages, security features and get into a long
discussion of .NET vs Java, but that's besides the point. Everyone
is arguing about tiny bits of the equation `We have done that with Glade
before!', `Gtk/Qt are cross-platform!', `We can get the same with good
language bindings!', `We already have the widgets!', `Cairo is all we need',
`What do users really want?' and of course `Dont let them define the game!'. They
are all fine points of view, but what makes Longhorn dangerous for the
viability of Linux on the desktop is that the combination of Microsoft
deployment power, XAML, Avalon and .NET is killer. It is what Java wanted to
do with the Web, but with the channel to deploy it and the lessons learned
from Java mistakes. The
combination means that Longhorn apps get the web-like deployment benefits: develop
centrally, deploy centrally, and safely access any content with your browser.
The
sandboxed execution in .NET [1] means that you can visit any web site
and run local rich applications as oppposed to web applications without
fearing about your data security: spyware, trojans and what have you. Avalon
means also that these new "Web" applications can visually integrate
with your OS, that can use native dialogs can use the functionality in the OS
(like the local contact picker). And
building fat-clients is arguably easier than building good looking,
integrated, secure web applications (notice: applications, not static web
pages). And
finally, Longhorn will get deployed, XAML/Avalon applications will
be written, and people will consume them. The worst bit: people will
expect their desktop to be able to access these "rich" sites. With
90% market share, it seems doable. Will
Avalon only run on Longhorn? Maybe. But do not count on that. Microsoft built
IE4 for Windows 98, and later backported it to Windows 95, Windows 3.11 and
moved it to HP-UX and Solaris. The
reason people are genuinely concerned and are discussing these issues is
because they do not want to be caught sleeping at the wheel again. Will
this be the end of the world for Linux and the Mac? Not likely, many of us
will continue using our regular applications, and enjoy our nicely usable and
consistent desktops, but it will leave us out of some markets (just like it
does today). Btw,
the Mozilla folks realized this already [1]
Although it was easy to see why .NET supported the Code Access Security (CAS)
in .NET 1.0, there was no real use for it. With Longhorn/Avalon/XAML it
becomes obvious why it was implemented. Planning for the future
Although
some of the discussion has centered around using a native toolkit like
Gtk+/XUL to build a competitor that would have ISV sex-appeal, this is not a
good foundation as it wont give us Web-like deployment (we need a stack that
can be secured to run untrusted applications, and we need to be able to
verify the code that is downloaded, which leaves us with Java or .NET). The
time is short, Microsoft will ship Avalon in 2-3 years, and they got a
preview of the technology out. I see
two possible options:
I think
someone will eventually implement Avalon (with or without the assistance of
the Mono team), its just something that developers enjoy doing. If we
choose to go in our own direction, there are certain strengths in open source
that we should employ to get to market quickly: requirements, design
guidelines, key people who could contribute, compatibility requirements and
deployment platforms. We have
been referring internally at Novell to the later approach as the Salvador
platform (after a long debate about whether it should be called MiggyLon or
Natalon). We do
not know if and when we would staff such an effort but its on the radar. The patent issue
Are
there patents in Avalon? It is likely that Microsoft will try to get some
patents on it, but so far there are little or no new inventions on Avalon:
|
The homepage of a
WWW-illiterate
Why does this exist at all?
Frankly,
I don't know. I got a default homepage (in Finnish) made automatically for me,
and now I wonder what I should do with it. If you have any great suggestions,
feel free to mail me, and I'll probably feel free to ignore you.
If you're looking for
Linux information, you'll find more of it somewhere else, because I'm
hopeless when it comes to documentation. You could try Lasu's Linux Index for starters
Linus v2.0
This
is Patricia Miranda Torvalds, my daughter:
Linux Logo
See here for the penguin logos I like.
I'm including an animated version here too, 
Contact Information
Snail-mail (work):
Linus Torvalds
Transmeta Corp
3940 Freedom Circle
Santa Clara, CA 95054
USA
Phone (work):
+1 (408) 327 9830 x328
Email:
torvalds@transmeta.com
Update on Windows NT Server vs. Linux Performance and
Capabilities
Posted: May 12, 1999
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The Mindcraft Report
Mindcraft recently published a study
comparing
the performance capabilities of Linux to Windows NT Server. The Linux community
has voiced their opinions regarding the findings. The top Linux creators,
including Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Jeremy Allison, and others have publicly
stated their belief that the Mindcraft results don't accurately represent the
performance capabilities of Linux. However, tests in PC Week and PC Magazine
corroborate the Mindcraft findings. The Linux community has asked Mindcraft:
§ To configure and tune the
servers themselves.
§ To be present to ensure that
the tests are conducted fairly.
§ To run the tests at a neutral
location.
§ For a third party to witness
and audit the results.
§ To run the tests on lower-end
hardware.
§ To run the tests using clients
running Windows NT Workstation, in addition to Windows 9x clients.
Mindcraft Delivers on the
Demands of the Linux Community
To address the concerns raised by the Linux community and to prove the
tests were run fairly and without bias, Mindcraft has offered to rerun the
tests, encouraging the participation of Microsoft and the top Linux developers.
As stated in Mindcraft's Open Benchmark , the
following requests of the Linux community have been met:
§ All tests will be redone
allowing the top Linux folks to configure and tune the server.
§ Folks from Microsoft and the
Linux community can be present for ALL testing.
§ The tests will be done at PC
Week Labs, a Ziff-Davis publication.
§ PC Week will moderate and
audit the testing.
§ Mindcraft has added a
"low-end" configuration (single processor, 256MB).
§ Clients running Windows NT
Workstation, in addition to Windows 9x, will be used for all tests.
Linux Community Slow to Respond
Even though their requests have been met, the Linux community has not
officially accepted Mindcraft's offer. Furthermore, RedHat CEO Robert Young's request
"to bring a real benchmarking organization to this enterprise, like
Ziff-Davis, or the Meta group," has also been met. It's time for the Linux
folks to step up to the challenge and prove that Linux is capable of achieving
better results than Windows NT Server. After all, this is the real issue.
Windows NT Server Performance Track Record
Unlike Linux, there is an abundance of evidence to support the
performance and scalability capabilities of Windows NT Server. To date there is
no performance data using industry benchmarks to support the Linux community's
claim that Linux performs better than Windows NT Server on server hardware.
|
Purpose |
Windows NT
Server Results |
Linux Results |
|
§ Most widely recognized
industry benchmark for measuring database (online transaction processing)
performance. § Reports transaction per
minute (tpmC) § Reports of overall cost per
transaction ($/tpmC). |
§ Top 10 TPC-C price
performance solutions § Top results on single, dual,
and quad processor servers § Results form most major
Windows NT Server database vendors. |
None
- Linux and Linux database vendors have yet to post even one TPC-C result |
|
§ Widely recognized industry
benchmark for measure the static performance capabilities of a Web server. |
§
Best dual and quad processor results. § Results from most major
server hardware vendors. |
None
- Linux has yet to post SPECWeb results |
|
§ NetBench is a portable
benchmark program that measures how well a file server handles file I/O
requests from 32-bit Windows clients, which pelt the server with requests for
network file operations. § NetBench reports throughput
in Megabits per second (Mbps) and client response time measurements. |
§ PC Week § Mindcraft |
§ PC
Week § Mindcraft |
|
§ WebBench measures Web server
performance. Unlike SPECWeb, it is capable of measure static, dynamic,
static/dynamic mix, and e-commerce (SSL) workloads § WebBench reports the number
of client requests per second. |
§ PC Week (static) § PC Magazine (static) § Mindcraft (static) § PC Magazine (static/dynamic mix) § PC Magazine (e-commerce - SSL) |
§ PC
Week (static) § PC
Magazine § Mindcraft
(static) § PC Magazine (static/dynamic mix) § PC Magazine (e-commerce - SSL) |
|
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||
It's About More than Performance
Although performance is important when evaluating server operating
systems, there are other equally or more important capabilities that should be
considered. These include:
|
Customer Requirement |
Windows NT
Server 4.0 |
Linux |
|
Reliability -
Guaranteed server uptime |
§
A number of OEMs offering 99.9% uptime guarantees on Windows NT Server
4.01 §
Support for high availability application clustering and TCP/IP-based
load balancing § Journaling file system for
file-level reliability and recoverability |
§
No OEM guarantees uptime on Linux systems §
Lack of an enterprise clustering system for service and application
availability §
Lack of extensive testing to guarantee compatibility across components
and applications § Lack of a Journaling file
system - file system may not recover after unplanned downtime |
|
Scalability
- The ability to grow to support more users and more demanding workloads |
§ Supports 4GB of RAM by
default (2GB Kernel and 2GB User/Application)- Up to 3GB available for memory
intensive applications such as databases § NTFS provides a 64-bit file
system which is capable of file sizes up to 264 (much larger than
2GB) § Integrated file cache for
faster access to commonly used files § Asynchronous I/O - Threads
can process other tasks while waiting on I/O thus improving performance and
scalability |
§ Limited to 2GB of physical
memory § Limited to a maximum file
size of 2GB § Synchronous I/O - Introduces
I/O contention thus limiting the SMP scalability § Lack of kernel-level
threading model for more efficient application processing |
|
Security
- Provide organizations with a highly secured network environment and a
single user directory to manage |
§ Single, secure sign-on
across the multiple servers in a networked environment § System services run in a
secure context providing higher levels of security for multi-user services |
§ Inherits the security flaws
of UNIX (i.e., easy to gain root access via poorly written applications). § No resolution path (e.g.,
methodology) for bug fixes with clear accountability. § No centralized security -
users must manually synchronize user accounts across servers § More prone to security bugs2
|
|
Total
Cost of Ownership - Provide an overall low cost solution to deploy and
maintain |
§
Overall, 37% less expensive to set up and operate than UNIX. §
26% less expensive to set up and integrate than UNIX § 27% less expensive to
administer than UNIX |
§ Inherits the high setup,
integration, and maintenance costs associated with setting up and managing a
UNIX environment § Low degree of integration
increases costs and technical risk |
|
Application
Availability - Provide a wide range of OS-integrated applications to reduce
the cost of deploying and managing business solutions |
§ Over 8,000 Windows NT
compatible applications available § Over 4,000 server-based applications § 650 carry the Designed for
BackOffice® Logo, offering directory and security integration § Extensive internal and
external beta testing to ensure binary compatibility across services and
applications |
§ Hundreds of available applications § No certification process for applications § No commitment to binary
backward compatibility § Historically, in order to
perform optimally, applications need to be recompiled when the OS is upgraded
|
|
Hardware
Support Runs on a wide range hardware and provides optimized drivers |
§ Support for latest hardware innovations § Support for 24K devices -
15K with Logo § Driver Development Kit to
assist hardware vendors develop device drivers |
§ Limited hardware driver support § Not optimized for high-end
servers |
|
Technical
Support - Provide expertise and quick solutions to technical problems |
§ Dedicated support network § 350K Microsoft Trained Professionals § 160K Microsoft Certified Engineers § Support through partners and
OEMs |
§ "Peer-to-peer"
support, gaining some momentum with industry hardware OEMs (Compaq, IBM,
etc.) § No formalized field training |
|
Ease
of Use - Reduce the time it takes to learn, setup and manage the OS to make
it available to a greater number of users |
§ Integrated platform built
around ease of use § GUI-based tools § Wizards to simplify complicated tasks § Scriptable administration
for automated local and remote management |
§ Need highly trained system
administrators - usually require developer-level skills § Administrators are required
to re-link and reload kernel to add features to OS. § Most configuration settings
require editing of text-based files § When available, no
commonality between GUI-based tools |
|
Integration
of system services and applications to reduce complexity and management costs
|
§
OS services and applications designed to integrated and work together §
Integrated security across OS services and applications § Common management and
application services across client and server |
§
OS services provided as an un-integrated collection of technologies
developed by independent developers §
Open questions about internationalization, access by people with
disabilities § End users forced to
integrate (i.e., Web server, database, application authentication) |
|
Application
Development - Provide a consistent model, services, and tools for building
and running business applications |
§ Integrated component model
and server application services. § Web applications server framework § Integrated message-queuing
services and transaction-processing services § Broad language support, including Java § Database interoperability
with distributed transaction support (DTC) |
§
Provides source code to allow developers to deviate from standard
distribution §
Typical UNIX development - scripting together of C executables using
Perl and other scripting languages §
No application framework for developing distributed or Web-based
applications § Poor support for Java |
|
Road
Map - Allows customers to plan future deployments |
§ Clear longterm roadmap based
on a customer focused vision § Over $2 Billion in R&D
spending by Microsoft against the roadmap combined with even greater
investments by ISV's and OEM's to evolve the platform |
§ No long term roadmap -
features get added based on coding interests of the OSS development community
as well as their willingness to implement them |
|
Internationalized -
Available in different language versions |
§ Localized in 14 languages § Deep UNICODE support
throughout system |
§ Mixed support - some
components are internationalized, some not § No formal program to deliver
internationalized versions |
|
1 Current announced vendors include HP, Compaq, Data General, and
IBM |
||
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|
||
Conclusion
Although the Linux community is focusing on the messenger and not the
message, Mindcraft has graciously agreed to rerun the tests at their own
expense accommodating the Linux community. Now it's time for the Linux
community to demonstrate the real performance and scalability capabilities of
Linux, or withdraw their criticisms of the initial Mindcraft report.
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Last Updated: Thursday,
March 28, 2002 |
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Sigue Linux en la revolución de la industria Miguel de Icaza busca crear a través del software una mayor
equidad en el acceso a la tecnología Jorge Arredondo Pineda
Desde que el mexicano Miguel de Icaza inició con su proyecto en
el desarrollo de sistemas basados en Linux, su propósito fue crear tecnología
tanto para quienes pueden pagarla como para los que no. No
obstante que su empresa Ximian fue adquirida por la estadounidense Novell, su
meta se cumple: "el 80% del software que desarrollamos es para la gente,
son proyectos que están disponibles para cualquiera; el 20% son programas
propietarios que comercializa Novell y que le permiten seguir desarrollando
la empresa". Icaza
es uno de los más importantes desarrolladores de Linux en el mundo. Sus dos
proyectos, MONO y GNOME, pueden revolucionar la industria de tecnologías de
la información. El primero establece un puente a fin de que los proyectos
para los sistemas .Net de Microsoft puedan correr en sistemas de código
abierto, y el segundo ofrece una alternativa respecto a Windows en las
computadoras. Así,
el ahora vicepresidente de Tecnología de Productos Novell, abordó de manera
constante temas de tecnología y problemáticas político-económicas, en las que
se manifiesta en contra de los lineamientos neoliberalistas y de la política
en México. "En
el proyecto de e-México Linux no falló, no nos dieron siquiera la oportunidad
de probarnos. Cuando hablé con Julio César Margain (ex coordinador del
programa gurbernamental) me preguntaron cuánto podíamos aportar a este
proyecto; Microsoft ya había hecho un aporte de alrededor de 45 millones de
dólares, mitad en licencias y en capacitación", explicó Icaza. Agregó
que, no obstante, la donación de Microsoft era significativa pero se tenía
que pagar otra cantidad por más licencias; así que aunque Linux no ofrecía
una cantidad en dinero, pero representaba una inversión menor y los ahorros
eran más importantes que la donación realizada por Microsoft. Además
—continuó Icaza—, la implementación de Linux se queda en la comunidad de
desarrolladores locales y no es dinero que va al extranjero. El
reto es que el usuario encuentre en Linux todo lo que necesita. |
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jsbb writes "
"Las
corporaciones tienen un mandato, que es maximizar el regreso en la inversión,
pero de cierta forma el software libre ha obligado a estas compañías a tomar un
rol social en contra de su instinto de 'lock in', porque si pudieran hacer de
Linux una propiedad suya lo harían". Miguel de Icaza
Por José Eseverri
Reforma
Toda
revolución tiene sus íconos. Y el movimiento de software libre ha encontrado
uno en Miguel de Icaza, pero no un héroe ni un mártir.
A
sus 32 años, el hacker mexicano sigue promoviendo a Linux como alternativa a la
"tiranía" del software propietario con la misma pasión de cuando era
estudiante en la UNAM, sin importar que hoy ocupe un lugar clave en la
estrategia de una corporación global.
Miguel
de Icaza encarna como nadie la evolución que ha sufrido Linux en una década, de
ser poco más que el juguete de un puñado de programadores idealistas que
intercambiaban código salpicado de opiniones políticas en internet, hasta
convertirse en una seria amenaza al dominio de Microsoft.
Como
actual vicepresidente de plataformas de desarrollo en Novell, ha sido señalado
por radicales del movimiento por ceder a los encantos del mundo corporativo,
pero De Icaza tiene otra revolución en mente.
En
entrevista con INTERFASE, el programador sugiere que Linux ha tomado por asalto
a los grandes capitales en las tecnologías de información, obligando a las
corporaciones a actuar contra sus instintos y tomar una mayor responsabilidad
social.
La
historia de Miguel va de la mano con la de Linux, desde que un estudiante
finlandés, Linus Torvalds, hizo público el kernel o corazón del sistema
operativo en 1991 y Richard Stallman, desde el MIT, le diera protección legal
al acuñar la licencia GPL (Licencia Pública General) que permite que el código
pueda ser libremente distribuido.
En
el pasado, sin embargo, se necesitaba un considerable conocimiento de cómputo
para configurar y utilizar Linux, por lo que sus usuarios caían bajo la
etiqueta de "hacker" o "geek".
De
Icaza se dio cuenta que si Linux iba a ser relevante tendría que parecerse a
sistemas operativos con interfaz gráfica, como Windows o MacOS, para ser
atractivo al usuario común, lo que dio origen al ambiente "GNOME".
Reconociendo
que la ventaja no siempre la tienen los más fuertes sino los que son capaces de
adaptarse a su entorno, Miguel ha inyectado a Linux un instinto de
supervivencia del cual carecía.
Ese
sentido evolutivo se ve reflejado en los proyectos que ha encabezado, desde
GNOME y su primera compañía Helix Code (código hélice) hasta la curiosa
obsesión por nombres de primates (Bonobo, Ximian) cuyo último eslabón es Mono,
una plataforma abierta de desarrollo similar al ambiente .NET de Microsoft.
Si
Mono tiene el éxito que el programador espera, el abismo de aplicaciones que
separa a Linux de las necesidades del usuario común se acortaría, porque los
programadores podrían desarrollar para ambos ambientes.
Pero
sobre todo, al ser libre, ayudaría a cerrar la brecha entre potencias
tecnológicas y países en desarrollo como México, asegura.
De
Icaza parece tener dominado un acto de equilibrio entre su posición como
directivo en Novell y su reputación de "hacker", en el sentido de
programador virtuoso, en la comunidad de software libre.
"Yo
no creo que estén peleados", dice, "efectivamente, no todo el
software de Novell es libre, pero creo que es un 'hack' hermoso al capitalismo
porque ahora para subsistir necesita al software libre".
"Seguramente
hay un instinto de colaboración desarrollándose en las corporaciones de la
misma manera en la que se desarrolla entre los individuos, lo que demuestra la
idea dar- winiana que aquello que solamente está en el interés propio no
funciona a la larga para la especie".
Aunque
ahora Linux cuenta con el respaldo de gigantes como IBM, Oracle, Intel, Redhat
y el propio Novell, lo que sigue haciendo posible su avance es la contribución
de miles de programadores que dedican horas de su tiempo libre a mejorar el sistema
operativo.
De
acuerdo con De Icaza las motivaciones para contribuir son varias y no siempre
tienen que ver con razones altruistas y tampoco con ambición de fama.
"Siempre
se creyó que era la cuestión de la egolatría, pero cuando le preguntas a la
gente por qué lo hace, encuentras todo tipo de explicaciones".
Un
estudio realizado por el Boston Consulting Group encontró que la mayoría de los
desarrolladores buscaban en Linux un estímulo intelectual, mientras que sólo un
11 por ciento dijo que lo motivaba el odio a Microsoft.
"Así
que no todo mundo en el comunidad de software libre es un talibán. Yo creo que
eso refleja las personalidades de cada quién".
Conéctate
Éstos
son los proyectos donde participa Miguel de Icaza:
primates.ximian.com/~miguel
www.mono-project.com
ESTA
NOTA PUEDES ENCONTRARLA EN:
http://www.reforma.com/edicionimpresa/notas/041018/interfase/550669.htm
Fecha
de publicación: 2004-10-18 "
https://www.osnews.com/story/1499/mini-interview-with-miguel-de-icaza/
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