The forthcoming autobiography from Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux operating system and figurehead of the open source movement, “Just For Fun,” disses Mac OS X, according to a Yahoo article.
“Frankly, I think it’s a piece of crap,” Torvalds said of Mach, the microkernel on which Apple’s new operating system is based. “It contains all the design mistakes you can make, and manages to even make up a few of its own.”
Torvald’s comments will doubtless hack off not just Mac fans, but also some folks involved in the free software movement, according to Yahoo. The Mach microkernel is also being used as the core of Hurd, a kernel project from the Free Software Foundation that will be an alternative to Linux as the heart of the GNU (Gnu’s Not Unix) operating system, originally devised by free software advocate Richard Stallman, the article points out. The core of Apple OS X, like Linux, is based on the UNIX operating system and was developed on open source software.
In his book, Torvalds says that, even back in 1997, he foresaw compatibility problems between the new operating system and legacy applications, due to a lack of memory protection — a safeguard that stops applications influencing each other and the operating system — in old Mac applications, Yahoo reports.
The story says that, according to Torvalds, Jobs “assumed that he would be interested in joining Apple’s mission to capture more of the personal computer market from Microsoft, rather than continue concentrating on Linux.”
“I don’t think Jobs realized that Linux would potentially have more users than Apple, although it’s a very different user base,” Torvalds is quoted as saying.
Of course, not everyone agrees with Torvalds’ assessment. For example, see today’s Mac OS X Diary.