"Dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 01/05/2015 10:09, Simon Brown wrote:


"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 01/05/15 08:31, Simon Brown wrote:


"Dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
On 01/05/2015 00:23, Simon Brown wrote:

I'd say the real breakthroughs there the transistor, and after
that the
integrated circuit.

Sure, but other stuff like VisiCalc was too. So was Linux.

Linux was and still is just a copy of something that already existed,

No it was not.

its hardly a breakthrough to copy something.

Linux isn't a copy of anything.



It is a reverse engineered Unix, deliberately rewritten to avoid
copyright issues.

So it isn't a copy.

It looks like the Unix kernel, it quacks like the Unix kernel, its a copy.

Not given what has changed since then.

You do know linux is only the kernel?

Its much more complicated than that, particularly
with what is used on smartphones.

Unix was the real invention, not Linux.

I never said it was the real invention, just that open
source was a significant advance on what was there before.

And that wasn't done in a shed either.

Never said it was.

But even Unix was no more than a logical progression from one
operating system to a better one.

Still a significant improvement on what preceded it.

All the key breakthroughs

We weren't discussing key breakthroughs.

of the 20th century came about from a new understanding of quantum
physics - atomic power and weapons, the transistor, the laser.

That is just plain wrong with DNA alone.

These were true breakthroughs.

We weren't discussing true breakthroughs
most obviously with viable flying machines.

Everything else is simply taking advantage of the things they offered
- in the case of the transistor enormous computing power in a small
package - to do things that people had been doing by hand for years.

Just as true of the wheel, aircraft, cars, the internal
combustion engine, steam engines, etc etc etc.

Open source is more of a breakthrough

And that is what Linux is.


No. that's a small part of what it is,

It is what sets it apart from the other OSs available.

The open source software written to use Linux is quite capable of running
on other OSes,

I wasnt talking about that, I was talking about the open source Linux.

you don't even need Linux to run the majority of it (although many of the
utilities don't make much sense on some OSes).

Its WHY it is tho.

and some of the software produced because of it could be a
breakthrough, Linux isn't.

Wrong.

Wright.

It is on open source alone.