ADTI

[<halvar () gmx de>]

While I am ranting about this sort of bull****, I'd like
to ask people on this list who have dabbled in OS development wether
they would subscribe the the idea that ADTI is putting out in this article

http://www.adti.net/samizdat/brown.reply.june.04.html

namely, that it is impossible for a 21 year old student with one year of
C experience to write the linux kernel (as it was in the first releases of
linux).

Personally, I think it is not only possible for a 21 year old student to write
a small OS kernel (equivalent to what the linux kernel was originally), I think
it doesn't even take a particularly bright student to do it (beware: I am not
implying that Linus isn't bright). There is more than one example of 15 and
16 year olds hacking up really good pmode extenders (even with limited 
virtual memory support) while teaching themselves C. Any veterans of 
Wrox Pres "Master Class Assembly Language" will remember that it contained
a step-by-step walkthrough on how to build a DPMI extender. From a DPMI 
extender it is not a huge step to something similar to a mini OS.

And ADTI is trying to explicitly confuse the readers that read their studies in
2004: The first n incarnations of Linux were not a "real" OS yet, but were
filed under "toy for programmers" in almost all mailboxes I was on at the time.
Even as late as 2000, there were portions of the Linux kernel with comments
like "/* Don't know why this works, just DONT change it! */".

Ahwell. Looking at the patent system, and at ADTI, I honestly believe we
have both the best politicians and the best research institutions money can buy.

Cheers,
Halvar
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