# Linux Founder Calls Leopard "Utter Crap"



## Deep Blue (Sep 16, 2005)

Torvalds pans Apple with 'utter crap' putdown - Technology - theage.com.au


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## Atroz (Aug 7, 2005)

I think the more accurate statement is that he says the filesystem is utter crap. And it's going to be replaced.

"(But) OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary."


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## antirealist (Apr 30, 2005)

It seems that Linus wasn't slamming Leopard as a whole, just its file system. Now he might have quite valid criticisms, but since the article contains absolutely no details of just what it is he's objecting to, we'll never know. It might as well have just said "Linus criticizes something."


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## i stole this name (May 9, 2005)

A clever (but fairly bitter) way to attract attention to Linux's advancements in the past x years.

Not that it was needed anyway, who didn't know linux had come further than both Windows and OS X?


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

Linus Torvalds is entitled to have opinions, and I am entitled to not care about them.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

1. Linus did NOT "slam Leopard." His comments (if you read the actual article) are directed at HFS+ (the file system component of Leopard, a leftover from pre-OS X!) and "programming."

2. How ANYONE could interpret this as a slam on Leopard, particularly since IN THE SAME ARTICLE Linus says Leopard is better than Windows, is a mystery to me.

3. Unless of course the purpose of that title was to troll/stir up the Mac people ...


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## seetobylive (Aug 4, 2004)

chas_m said:


> How ANYONE could interpret this as a slam on Leopard, particularly since IN THE SAME ARTICLE Linus says Leopard is better than Windows.


I don't think that is saying much. To be better then windows that is. Cancer is better then windows.


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2008)

chas_m said:


> 3. Unless of course the purpose of that title was to troll/stir up the Mac people ...


It got a link here 

I agree that the article as not really a slam of Leopard, and with Linus about HFS+ ... it is horrible, it's been one nasty hack on top of another for quite some time and I'll be glad once it's gone and OSX moves to a file format that is not so proprietary.


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## SoyMac (Apr 16, 2005)

i stole this name said:


> ... who didn't know linux had come further than both Windows and OS X?


Me.
OS X looks way better to me than Linux.


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## nowlive (Jan 11, 2008)

SoyMac said:


> Me.
> OS X looks way better to me than Linux.


haha! It not just looks better, it is better overall!


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## MACinist (Nov 17, 2003)

seetobylive said:


> I don't think that is saying much. To be better then windows that is. Cancer is better then windows.


I hope you never have to experience cancer to prove yourself wrong and overstated.


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## seetobylive (Aug 4, 2004)

MACinist said:


> I hope you never have to experience cancer to prove yourself wrong and overstated.


Oh Jesus, here we go again...


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## Mr. Fartleberry (Dec 17, 2005)

*And what did he think of DOS?*

The headline statement must have generated a lot of hits on other sites. Eh? You know, the ones that rely on advertising.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

3. Unless of course the purpose of that title was to troll/stir up the Mac people ...[/QUOTE]


Who are "the Mac people"? Are some of the people on this site "Mac people" and some not? How can one tell the difference?


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## Crewser (Jun 12, 2007)

seetobylive said:


> I don't think that is saying much. To be better then windows that is. Cancer is better then windows.





MACinist said:


> I hope you never have to experience cancer to prove yourself wrong and overstated.





seetobylive said:


> Oh Jesus, here we go again...


What did you expect? You started it. I willing to bet you have not battled, don't know anyone battling, or know of anyone that has died from cancer. While windows might be a pain in the ass, I don't know of anyone that agonizingly suffers and may die or has died from windows usage.

Steve


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

I don't think he meant to offend.


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## Bighead (May 3, 2005)

As hurtful as it may sound, he does have a bit of a point.

I was kind of wishing that Leopard would adopt, or at least start to migrate to, ZFS.


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

Crewser said:


> What did you expect? You started it. I willing to bet you have not battled, don't know anyone battling, or know of anyone that has died from cancer. While windows might be a pain in the ass, I don't know of anyone that agonizingly suffers and may die or has died from windows usage.
> 
> Steve


Smile. Give your face a joy ride.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I wouldn't listen to a guy with a shirt and hairdo like that.


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## nowlive (Jan 11, 2008)

dona83 said:


> I wouldn't listen to a guy with a shirt and hairdo like that.


LMAO! :lmao: Nice! :clap:


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## Script Kiddie (Jan 30, 2003)

Bighead said:


> As hurtful as it may sound, he does have a bit of a point.
> 
> I was kind of wishing that Leopard would adopt, or at least start to migrate to, ZFS.



And the reason why I have not even bothered to upgrade to Leopard.


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## 5493 (May 22, 2005)

For non-tech folks, like me, it works pretty well.


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## RISCHead (Jul 20, 2004)

I don't think there are enough technically competent people on this forum with a sufficient interest in debating this intelligently, assuming there is any point in such a debate in the first place.

Let this thread die and move on with your lives folks - nothing to see here.

Let the flames begin...


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## polywog (Aug 9, 2007)

nowlive said:


> haha! It not just looks better, it is better overall!


That's a big claim to make without any evidence to back it up. Each operating system has its merits, and which is 'better' really boils down to what your requirements are. One could say for example that a Volkwsagen Beetle is 'better overall' than, say, a Hummer. It raises the same questions.


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## theofan (Oct 23, 2007)

*My opinion on this comment*

Hi,

I've written an extended reply (more than 6 pages) on what Linus Torvalds. You can read it on my blog at:

Welcome to Theofan's Blog

Have a good reading!


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## Mississauga (Oct 27, 2001)

*Linux Founder Calls Leopard "Utter Crap"*

Leopard users call Linux founder "full of crap".


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## seetobylive (Aug 4, 2004)

Crewser said:


> What did you expect? You started it. I willing to bet you have not battled, don't know anyone battling, or know of anyone that has died from cancer. While windows might be a pain in the ass, I don't know of anyone that agonizingly suffers and may die or has died from windows usage.
> 
> Steve


I have deleted my previous comments and a post as It was most likely over the top and unnecessary. It would be like picking on a 4 year old. 'nuff said


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## Suite Edit (Dec 17, 2003)

Congrats on raising funds for cancer research. That's a really great thing, and I'm sure you're a great person. (not being sarcastic at all)

Online though, people don't know who you are, so saying something like Windows is worse than cancer and calling people douches certainly doesn't make you many friends. I have a pretty dark (and IMO pretty sharp) sense of humor, but I couldn't tell if you were a 12 year old kid that didn't know any better, a 25 year old asshole with no regard for the the severity of cancer or a 35 year old with a clever sense of humor who deploys interesting similes and hyperbole to make people laugh. You typed one line. (well, two if you count "Oh Jesus...")

Because I didn't know, I decided to wait before typing a response just like MACinist's. By the time I came back he had already done so, and you had rebuffed his being sensitive about *cancer* with some Oh Jesus shrug. I sent him a PM to say thanks for typing what I was thinking.

Anyways, if you go around making jokes about sensitive topics, don't be surprised if people are sensitive about it.


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## seetobylive (Aug 4, 2004)

Here's the deal. (Sorry this thread is so off topic)

I am so tired of politically correct computer chair activists. It is so easy to stick up for someone on a keyboard, or call foul. If people on this board, heck the internet put as much effort into actually helping people or doing SOMETHING that they put into quick stupid comments to an obvious embellished remark the world would be a better place.

Those who get so wrapped up in nuance and semantics with out appreciating sentiment and intention are destined to drown in them. A worldly person who is really no worldly good.


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## Suite Edit (Dec 17, 2003)

theofan - your response was a nice read. A good balance to people wanting to stir-up controversy (read: attention) 

seetobylive - I'll just use PM instead of de-railing any further.


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## theofan (Oct 23, 2007)

*Thanks!*

Thanks for your reply Suite Edit, I appreciate it!

In my article, even if I criticized things I tried to see the other side of the balance and to support my opinions with facts and experience!


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## Corvillus (Nov 15, 2007)

I have to agree that this title was completely sensationlized. His basic criticisms come down to only the following:

HFS+ sucks and needs to go away: True, it's an antiquated proprietary file system from the OS 9 days that's half assedly bolted onto OS X. If you don't need any sort of OS 9 backwards compatibilty (which you don't really have on an Intel Mac anyway), UFS should be used since it is a better filesystem anyway.

Programming for the Mac is sometimes more difficult than Windows: Again true. Programming for Linux is also sometimes more difficult than for Windows. Hell...a lot of things are more difficult to program for than Windows. The whole .NET framework that Microsoft has been pushing for the past few years has been all about making Windows increasingly easy to program for so as to lower software development costs for businesses. That doesn't make the operating system that the programs run on any better though.

Essentially, Linus made a couple of very valid points here, but nowhere did I see anything about him completely trashing the OS as a whole.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Crewser said:


> While windows might be a pain in the ass, I don't know of anyone that agonizingly suffers and may die or has died from windows usage.


So you're saying Windows is HEMORRHOIDS, not cancer?



Lighten up. The person who made the cancer joke was exaggerating OF COURSE. My mother-in-law and other members of my family have battled, and in some cases died of, cancer. Cancer doesn't cause you to lose a sense of perspective. People use phrases like that ALL THE TIME. "I'll die if I don't get an iPhone," "I love my iMac so much I'm thinking of marrying it" and so on are just humourous indicators of strong emotion. They're VERY OBVIOUSLY not meant to be taken literally.


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## seetobylive (Aug 4, 2004)

chas_m said:


> So you're saying Windows is HEMORRHOIDS, not cancer?
> 
> 
> 
> Lighten up. The person who made the cancer joke was exaggerating OF COURSE. My mother-in-law and other members of my family have battled, and in some cases died of, cancer. Cancer doesn't cause you to lose a sense of perspective. People use phrases like that ALL THE TIME. "I'll die if I don't get an iPhone," "I love my iMac so much I'm thinking of marrying it" and so on are just humourous indicators of strong emotion. They're VERY OBVIOUSLY not meant to be taken literally.


I think I love you...:clap:


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## Suite Edit (Dec 17, 2003)

chas_m said:


> So you're saying Windows is HEMORRHOIDS, not cancer?


Well, since my uncle died of hemorrhoids last year, I find that comment extremely insensitive


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

Maybe HFS+ from a geek spec perspective is utter crap, but from a user perspective it is no worse or better than any other hierarchical file system. I actually prefer case-insensitive, case preserving to case-sensitive, and I can't remember the last time an HFS+ system went south on me.

The thing is, unless you develop file system utilities, you shouldn't care about Linus' comments. I'd rather have my pure and utter crap file system and the pure and utter crap that is Linux UI.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Out of all of the things that make Leopard "Utter Crap": the crummy new "3D" Dock, the fact that Spotlight can not be turned off (or just not installed at all) without disabling Find, the junk feature (I can not remember the name) where folders are spewed all over the screen, the dain bramage of Time Machine, the fact that over 60 models of AMcs were obsoleted for no real reason, and the fact that it is a giant OS that needs an entire DVD... And Tovalds has to pick on HFS+? Can't he just stick to those things that make Leopard really crappy, rather than nitpicking about a file mount?

I've never had problems with HFS - and it is miles ahead of the old junk that the Evil Empire uses. It would be nice if OSX could handle standard file mounts like e2fs, but I don't think it really is a limit, considering networking is so easy and available...


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## CaptainCode (Jun 4, 2006)

From a user perspective it doesn't really matter. One thing I hope they change once they do move to another file system is the block size. The block size is currently 4KB which means a 1 bit file takes up 4KB. Not very efficient and there's a lot of wasted space if you think about it. Think of how many thousands of little UNIX files there are on your system. Go into Disk Utility and see your file count is about 400,000 on a clean install.

I think Apple is making the steps to moving to ZFS in some way, maybe not for the boot drive, but making that step is a huge commitment. Many applications program directly for HFS+ and changing the file system is a huge deal to a lot of applications. Some programs don't even work if you format for case sensitive HFS+.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Actually, after having reading up on HFS+, I can see Torvalds point, it really is a horror (though it does work and is pretty reliable thanks to journaling) - and is truely a disaster because they added ACLs - which is a nefarious device of the Evil Empire. Another reason why Leopard sucks - ACLs have to go!



CaptainCode said:


> Think of how many thousands of little UNIX files there are on your system. Go into Disk Utility and see your file count is about 400,000 on a clean install.


Then imagine the brain damage that Windoze suffers from, considering 64k block sizing all sitting on top of either mildly brain damaged FAT or lobotomized NTFS...



> I think Apple is making the steps to moving to ZFS in some way, maybe not for the boot drive, but making that step is a huge commitment.


I don't know if I'd want to deal with a ZFS boot drive, considering that it would weigh a minimum of 130 billion kilograms and would take about 5 thousand billion years to format... That is, to use ZFS as a power user would want to use it! (But they would also want RAID, so you could multiply it even more!!!) But if someone wants to think about the future, 128 bit is the way to go. Too bad that we are still waiting for 64 bit systems to emerge, which isn't that bad considering that Windoze users are still waiting for 32 bit, or should I say, 16 bit systems to come to fruition...


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## zmttoxics (Oct 16, 2007)

ZFS guys, its the way of the future. OSX is already in that direction by including support for it now. Linus is right too... HFS+ really is sub par, and the Case Sensitive version is just a hack.


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## Black (Dec 13, 2007)

He's obviously never tried it.


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## 9mmCensor (Jan 27, 2006)

SoyMac said:


> Me.
> OS X looks way better to me than Linux.


The UI is nicer yes, its polished and cohesive and standardized, but linux right now is more about whats under the hood, rather than the fancy paint job.



theofan said:


> Hi,
> 
> I've written an extended reply (more than 6 pages) on what Linus Torvalds. You can read it on my blog at:
> 
> ...


HAHAHA. you publish your blog as pdf documents. hahaha.


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## TrevX (May 10, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> Actually, after having reading up on HFS+, I can see Torvalds point, it really is a horror (though it does work and is pretty reliable thanks to journaling) - and is truely a disaster because they added ACLs - which is a nefarious device of the Evil Empire. Another reason why Leopard sucks - ACLs have to go!


ACLs are not a creation of the Evil Empire. ACL is just an Access Control List, which determines which users can access what files, and also deals with inheritance (if the subfolders inherit the permission properties of the parent folder). This kind of thing has been in use in UNIX for a dog's age, and Novell uses ACLs in Linux. So what, exactly, makes ACLs a "disaster" when used with HFS+? You can thank them for keeping your files safe from any other users (either remote or local) who might be using your computer.

Here is a good explanation of ACLs (on Solaris, by the way, but the principle and execution apply for Mac OS X as well as Windows here):
Using ACLs (Access Control Lists)




EvanPitts said:


> Then imagine the brain damage that Windoze suffers from, considering 64k block sizing all sitting on top of either mildly brain damaged FAT or lobotomized NTFS...


NTFS uses 4K block size for disks larger than 2GB. FAT-32 uses 4K up to 8GB, 8K up to 16GB, 16K up to 32GB and 32K above 32GB.
Physical Representation of Files

HFS+ is old, yes, and more than likely Apple will replace it at some point. But that sort of thing takes time, and we're likely going to see another sort of transition like we saw from 68K to PPC, or PPC to Intel. I just find it hilarious, however, that all of a sudden you guys are crapping all over HFS+ just because some nerd proclaimed it to be "utter crap." Its served you well for 10 years. If its as crappy as he says, where were the calls for its death 5 years ago?

Trev


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## TrevX (May 10, 2005)

9mmCensor said:


> The UI is nicer yes, its polished and cohesive and standardized, but linux right now is more about whats under the hood, rather than the fancy paint job.


What good are fancy features under the hood if the user interface is terrible? You might have a 640HP engine in your garage, but where is the car to drive it?

Linux wont be taken seriously on the desktop until they come to some agreement about the interface and what elements to include and exclude. Its very much a geek OS right now, not suitable for your average consumer. Too many cooks in the kitchen.

Trev


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## CaptainCode (Jun 4, 2006)

TrevX said:


> What good are fancy features under the hood if the user interface is terrible? You might have a 640HP engine in your garage, but where is the car to drive it?
> 
> Linux wont be taken seriously on the desktop until they come to some agreement about the interface and what elements to include and exclude. Its very much a geek OS right now, not suitable for your average consumer. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
> 
> Trev


Agree completely


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

TrevX said:


> ACLs are not a creation of the Evil Empire.


The Evil Empire owns the patents on it, and it is part of their demonic virus distribution system. ACLs are not part of HFS+, but were added into Tiger as a sop, so that Apple can be "more compatible" with Windoze. ACL is a disaster in the making, full of holes and bugs, and are only used when an operating system has no chance of ever being made secure for users. If Novell uses ACLs, then even more reason never to use them, as Novell has managed to produce garbage at much the same rate as the Evil Empire. Apple doesn't need it at all, and it should be rejected because OSX is far too good to have to stoop to such trash.



> HFS+ is old, yes, and more than likely Apple will replace it at some point.


They are toying with ZFS, but I think that it will be quite a while until systems can take advantage of that topology. I would like to see Apple support progressive minded file mounts, like ext2/ext3, since they are native to Linux. But what I would really like to see, even within HFS+, is the adoption of file versioning numbers, like VMS had a quarter century years ago. I really do not know why all OSs did not adopt this innovation. For the user, it would be far more valuable a feature in day to day use than the specious use of garbage ACLs, which serve no practical purpose.



> however, that all of a sudden you guys are crapping all over HFS+ just because some nerd proclaimed it to be "utter crap." Its served you well for 10 years. If its as crappy as he says, where were the calls for its death 5 years ago?


I do not think that anyone is "crapping all over HFS+". Torvalds does make a few important points, and upon further reflection, certain realizations are made. I think, first and foremost, that since HFS+ is proprietary, it is not a portable format, either Apple should open it up so that people can actually us either use the system, or they should start phasing it out in lieu of progressive minded systems like ext3, which is open source. The addition of ACLs is even more furtive, in that it shows a willingness for Apple to pervert their OS with certain Windowisms that serve to pervert the utility of OSX, just as a sop to those who think the Evil Empire has something to do with Technology. Not that HFS+ is "bad", it is just too cryptic and too closed in order to be of use in the future, and it is this that is the root of Torvalds argument. If we wish to have a progressive minded future with computers, we need to get rid of the proprietary and incompatible mindsets that have clouded true progress.

So if you love ACLs and think they are meanignful, then so be it. For myself, it is just another reason never to migrate to Leopard, and a reason to continue looking for an efficent and reliable OS.


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## CaptainCode (Jun 4, 2006)

EvanPitts said:


> The Evil Empire owns the patents on it, and it is part of their demonic virus distribution system. ACLs are not part of HFS+, but were added into Tiger as a sop, so that Apple can be "more compatible" with Windoze. ACL is a disaster in the making, full of holes and bugs, and are only used when an operating system has no chance of ever being made secure for users. If Novell uses ACLs, then even more reason never to use them, as Novell has managed to produce garbage at much the same rate as the Evil Empire. Apple doesn't need it at all, and it should be rejected because OSX is far too good to have to stoop to such trash.


I don't really agree. How do you allow 2 or more users part of 2 different user groups access to one file or folder? On UNIX you have only group permissions and user who created it. If you have multiple user groups it makes it really hard to manage the file permissions just with UNIX permissions. ACL fixes that.
Even harder to manage with UNIX permissions is you want to allow a person from group A access to a folder that group B 'owns'. You can add the person from group A to group B but then you allow that person to access all of group B's files. You probably don't want to do that type of thing so ACLs make it a lot easier to manage these types of situations.


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## TrevX (May 10, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> The Evil Empire owns the patents on it, and it is part of their demonic virus distribution system. ACLs are not part of HFS+, but were added into Tiger as a sop, so that Apple can be "more compatible" with Windoze. ACL is a disaster in the making, full of holes and bugs, and are only used when an operating system has no chance of ever being made secure for users. If Novell uses ACLs, then even more reason never to use them, as Novell has managed to produce garbage at much the same rate as the Evil Empire. Apple doesn't need it at all, and it should be rejected because OSX is far too good to have to stoop to such trash.


ACLs are not patented by Microsoft. If they were they would not be included in Open Source software like Linux or Solaris. Implementing ACLs have NOTHING to do with Windows compatibility and everything to do with fine-grain user permissions on files and folders. And they're full of bugs and holes? Prove it. Show me some documents that claim ACLs are somehow insecure. I don't think you're really grasping what ACLs actually are or what they do. I'm not trying to be mean, but nothing you said above makes any sense at all.[/QUOTE]





EvanPitts said:


> They are toying with ZFS, but I think that it will be quite a while until systems can take advantage of that topology. I would like to see Apple support progressive minded file mounts, like ext2/ext3, since they are native to Linux. But what I would really like to see, even within HFS+, is the adoption of file versioning numbers, like VMS had a quarter century years ago. I really do not know why all OSs did not adopt this innovation. For the user, it would be far more valuable a feature in day to day use than the specious use of garbage ACLs, which serve no practical purpose.


Ok, well that confirms that you have no idea what ACLs actually are or what they do. File versioning like VMS and ACLs are two completely separate things, each can exist without the other because they are not at all the same thing.

I'll just quote what CaptainCode said above:


CaptainCode said:


> I don't really agree. How do you allow 2 or more users part of 2 different user groups access to one file or folder? On UNIX you have only group permissions and user who created it. If you have multiple user groups it makes it really hard to manage the file permissions just with UNIX permissions. ACL fixes that.
> Even harder to manage with UNIX permissions is you want to allow a person from group A access to a folder that group B 'owns'. You can add the person from group A to group B but then you allow that person to access all of group B's files. You probably don't want to do that type of thing so ACLs make it a lot easier to manage these types of situations.


ACLs are all about fine grain user permissions. Being able to acutely tune how your files are accessed by the users on your system. This is nothing but a GOOD thing.




EvanPitts said:


> I do not think that anyone is "crapping all over HFS+". Torvalds does make a few important points, and upon further reflection, certain realizations are made. I think, first and foremost, that since HFS+ is proprietary, it is not a portable format, either Apple should open it up so that people can actually us either use the system, or they should start phasing it out in lieu of progressive minded systems like ext3, which is open source. The addition of ACLs is even more furtive, in that it shows a willingness for Apple to pervert their OS with certain Windowisms that serve to pervert the utility of OSX, just as a sop to those who think the Evil Empire has something to do with Technology. Not that HFS+ is "bad", it is just too cryptic and too closed in order to be of use in the future, and it is this that is the root of Torvalds argument. If we wish to have a progressive minded future with computers, we need to get rid of the proprietary and incompatible mindsets that have clouded true progress.
> 
> So if you love ACLs and think they are meanignful, then so be it. For myself, it is just another reason never to migrate to Leopard, and a reason to continue looking for an efficent and reliable OS.


I don't think Linus meant any of what you said above...about the file system being proprietary and cryptic. Linus obviously prefers his own file systems like ext2 and ext3 which probably give him the control he wants and probably offer the types of properties he is looking for. He was speaking from a purely programming perspective. HFS+ probably doesn't offer him the same flexibility he can get elsewhere, which is why he doesn't like it. I don't believe it has anything to do with being proprietary.

Trev


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## 9mmCensor (Jan 27, 2006)

TrevX said:


> What good are fancy features under the hood if the user interface is terrible? You might have a 640HP engine in your garage, but where is the car to drive it?
> 
> Linux wont be taken seriously on the desktop until they come to some agreement about the interface and what elements to include and exclude. Its very much a geek OS right now, not suitable for your average consumer. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
> 
> Trev


Any system requires balance. If you completely ignore either performance or usability for the other than obviously your system is going to be a little incomplete. If you just have a nice chassis and no engine the car also will suck. 

Linux certainly is a geekier OS, but it is hardly the once enigmatic and confusing command line driven geek badge. I have setup boxes and let windows users play with them, and they had no problem using it, word process, music, movies, browsing, IM, its all easy to use. With distros catered to usability like Ubuntu, from installation to use, its an easy to use system with a lot of customizability and is incredibily reliable. Is it perfect for a desktop? Not yet. There are many cooks in the kitchen yes, and that IS the benefit of OSS, an endless army of user/developers that grow/fix/improve the system and distribute it. But in the end your system admin is the chef. You decide what is on your system. From the distro, to the windows manager, the apps, and even the code for the kernel, custom ordered operating systems that I can change at will. Sure its not something everyone needs or can even do, but the potential and the documentation is there.

OS X is great, so is Linux, and even Windows can shine. The big three today all offer a unique position in the market, each with its own selling features. I don't want to come across as a Mac basher, as I love OS X and would love a Mac, but currently I run Kubuntu, I used to use windows for years of gaming and I used to do tech support for macs, and my next machine will be a Mac.

Sorry for the rant, but the oblivious, narrow view of things, is comical. Linux is a great OS for many things, such as a server OS or a developer workstation for a power user, but it is constantly making strives to improve on the desktop side of things and is already a viable desktop machine OS. It might not have all the eye candy, but the underlying power and reliability is ready for prime time, which is really what "Linux" is (the kernel). The rest, the windows manager, the applications and that is what the desktop user sees as the OS, but really those are all built on and around the Linux kernel.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

TrevX said:


> ACLs are not patented by Microsoft... Implementing ACLs have NOTHING to do with Windows compatibility...


"Until the release of Mac OS X Server 10.4, HFS Plus only supported the standard UNIX file system permissions, however 10.4 introduced support for access control list-based file security, which is designed to be fully compatible with the file permission system used by Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server 2003." - From Apple.Com

If ACLs were any good, Micro$oft would not use them. Placing them within OSX is simply a sop to the Evil Empire, to make OSX more like Windoze, and hence, more useless for real world computing uses.



> and everything to do with fine-grain user permissions on files and folders. And they're full of bugs and holes?


It adds even more steps into reading and writing to the file system, and as such, is fully open to a myriad of attacks. Plus it drags into the equation yet another intrusion of the metafile database syndrome that aflicts computing these days. This is something that is now built in to OSX, and can not be removed or selected as an "option" by those who want "fine-grain" virus intrusions onto their system, just like Tiger and Leopard users are stuck with Spotlight, which is yet another metafile database disaster.



> File versioning like VMS and ACLs are two completely separate things, each can exist without the other because they are not at all the same thing.


I never said that File Versioning was the same as ACLs. What I did say is from a user standpoint, file versioning would be a far more valuable asset to adopt than ACLs. Apple (and others) should spend more time on those things that enhance the use of a system, rather than wasting time on things like ACLs that slow down system response, and offer little or no practical benefit to the users of a system.



> This is nothing but a GOOD thing.


In your opinion! From the standpoint of a user - it offers absolutely no benefit. ACLs wallop the space of a hard drive, being forced to add all of the metafile information. Perhaps it would be different if say, it was an option to use on a server, while not afflicting regular users. This is the same critisism I have of Spotlight because in essence, it is not a Find utility, but a crummy database that sucks the life out of a file system. Some people like it, so it should be an option, and the same with ACLs. If you feel that you need to add even more Windoze junk to your system, then so be it, as an option. Other users do not want to overhead of such garbage, and as such, it should not be crammed down their throat.

As far as ACLs go for protecting files, it is utter garbage considering that practically every machine is capable of being networked. So if you can't copy the file on the system itself, it can easily be transmitted by other means. The whole raison d'etre of ACLs is to make OSX more compatible with the Evil Empire, and nothing more.



> He was speaking from a purely programming perspective. HFS+ probably doesn't offer him the same flexibility he can get elsewhere, which is why he doesn't like it. I don't believe it has anything to do with being proprietary.


Considering that the Linux community has had great difficulty in engineering utilities that can consistently and safely read and write from HFS+ volumes - it has nothing to do with flexibility and everything to do with it being a proprietary system. Apple should move towards more practical file systems, at least as an optional file mount. This is the one reason why I have always liked Linux, the great variety in the numbers of file systems that can be mounted and handled - and sonce OSX is based on the Mach kernel, Apple could easily take the same approach.

I have never had a problem with HFS+, though the forked files do cause some problems in transfering data from one system to another. But that does not mean that one needs to cling to old, outmoded ideals. This is where ZFS is going to come into the equation, which will allow for not only very large hard drives, but to create a single file system out of entire networks of computers.


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## CaptainCode (Jun 4, 2006)

EvanPitts said:


> "Until the release of Mac OS X Server 10.4, HFS Plus only supported the standard UNIX file system permissions, however 10.4 introduced support for access control list-based file security, which is designed to be fully compatible with the file permission system used by Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server 2003." - From Apple.Com
> 
> If ACLs were any good, Micro$oft would not use them. Placing them within OSX is simply a sop to the Evil Empire, to make OSX more like Windoze, and hence, more useless for real world computing uses.


Just because Microsoft uses it does not mean it's inherently bad. You still haven't told me how you can secure file permissions without using ACLs. ACLs really only come into play on the server side of things anyways. If Apple wants to make any headway into the Enterprise market, they need to have a good secure access model for a file server. They're present in the client but you're not really ever going to be touching them on the client side.



EvanPitts said:


> It adds even more steps into reading and writing to the file system, and as such, is fully open to a myriad of attacks. Plus it drags into the equation yet another intrusion of the metafile database syndrome that aflicts computing these days. This is something that is now built in to OSX, and can not be removed or selected as an "option" by those who want "fine-grain" virus intrusions onto their system, just like Tiger and Leopard users are stuck with Spotlight, which is yet another metafile database disaster.


I fail to see how that opens you to any attacks. If you know what you're doing on the server you aren't going to be changing permissions on any system information, applications, etc. that would allow someone to attack the system. If you know what you're doing you'll set the ACLs on the shared files/folders to appropriate settings based on your needs which will actually be more secure than using UNIX file permissions.

In terms of networking a machine you have even more limitations on your permissions over the network. If you log into a file server with a user account you're limited to what that user can do. If the system is set up properly you give limited access to network users by making them non administrators. ACLs are enforced over the network so this doesn't help you at all to copy files you aren't allowed to copy.

Do you think Apple should maintain 2 separate kernel versions, or maybe 3 or 4? One with ACLs and one without on the client and one with and one without on the server. What a nightmare that would be for them, and all for nothing IMO.

I'm typing this on a dual core MBP. What are you possibly doing on these machines where a few CPU cycles taken by checking an ACL is going to make any bit of difference. If you're doing video editing, reading an ACL on your directory with your video files takes a negligible impact compared to actually streaming those GB of video files to/from the hard drive.

10.4 had limited support for ACLs and I didn't hear anyone complaining about that. 

If you can show me anywhere that says how ACLs affect file system performance in any significant measurable way then I may start to believe you. Also, anything that says how ACLs open you to attacks assuming you're not an idiot and give everyone access to the root of your hard drive.

I also fail to see how Spotlight makes any difference on the performance of your computer. It does take a while at first but that's only a few hours. The amount of time saved finding things through it more than makes up for that initial index time. And if you don't want it then drag your hard drive the the privacy list and voila you hard drive isn't indexed. 

I'm not sure where the ACLs are stored on the hard drive but please point me to somewhere that says and how much space they take up.


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## TrevX (May 10, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> "Until the release of Mac OS X Server 10.4, HFS Plus only supported the standard UNIX file system permissions, however 10.4 introduced support for access control list-based file security, which is designed to be fully compatible with the file permission system used by Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server 2003." - From Apple.Com
> 
> If ACLs were any good, Micro$oft would not use them. Placing them within OSX is simply a sop to the Evil Empire, to make OSX more like Windoze, and hence, more useless for real world computing uses.


Take off the Apple blinders for a second and then look around and just about any office setting or corporation. What do you see? Windows. The fact of the matter, Evan, in the real world people actually do use Windows to get work done. You may not like it, you may even refuse to believe it, but its true! I love Apple as much as the next guy, but you're being delusional if you think Windows isn't capable of doing "real work."



EvanPitts said:


> It adds even more steps into reading and writing to the file system, and as such, is fully open to a myriad of attacks. Plus it drags into the equation yet another intrusion of the metafile database syndrome that aflicts computing these days. This is something that is now built in to OSX, and can not be removed or selected as an "option" by those who want "fine-grain" virus intrusions onto their system, just like Tiger and Leopard users are stuck with Spotlight, which is yet another metafile database disaster.


Tiger has been out for three years and has had ACLs the whole time. Where are the viruses? Where are all the attacks on the Mac's security? All we've had are proof-of-concept trojans and a handful of Quicktime exploits. The rest were mostly buffer overflow problems in some unix tools. Certainly nothing that had anything to do with ACLs or could have been prevented had ACLs not been built-in. 

Do you use Google? You can thank meta data for Google being so effective. As for Spotlight; I never use it. I suppose there are people out there who have more documents than they can handle, so Spotlight could be useful for them. I happen to know where all my files are and whats in them so Spotlight is not even a consideration. I'm certainly not "stuck" with it. Tell Spotlight to not index your drive if you dislike it so much.



EvanPitts said:


> I never said that File Versioning was the same as ACLs. What I did say is from a user standpoint, file versioning would be a far more valuable asset to adopt than ACLs. Apple (and others) should spend more time on those things that enhance the use of a system, rather than wasting time on things like ACLs that slow down system response, and offer little or no practical benefit to the users of a system.


I don't know what it is you do for a living, but don't you suppose that ACLs are actually useful to some people? What if I were a system admin and I wanted to make a share available and only give certain users of a group access to it? ACLs would allow me to do that and would therefore be useful to me. For everyone else, ACLs are invisible and have absolutely NO discernible impact on system performance. I can't see how this is a bad thing at all. More control for those who need it sounds like a pretty great feature to me.



EvanPitts said:


> In your opinion! From the standpoint of a user - it offers absolutely no benefit. ACLs wallop the space of a hard drive, being forced to add all of the metafile information. Perhaps it would be different if say, it was an option to use on a server, while not afflicting regular users. This is the same critisism I have of Spotlight because in essence, it is not a Find utility, but a crummy database that sucks the life out of a file system. Some people like it, so it should be an option, and the same with ACLs. If you feel that you need to add even more Windoze junk to your system, then so be it, as an option. Other users do not want to overhead of such garbage, and as such, it should not be crammed down their throat.


Ok, so a few bits (not bytes) of information added to a folder is going to "wallop" the space on your hard drive? Ever added ID3 tags to an MP3? This is the same thing. Try something. Take an MP3, record how large it is, and then remove the ID3 tags. How large is it now? Probably within a few bytes of the original. So small that its insignificant. ID3 tags are just meta data and I bet your playlist isn't comprised of songs called "Unknown" with "Unknown Artist". Would you agree that metadata is a good thing then? So whats the difference?



EvanPitts said:


> As far as ACLs go for protecting files, it is utter garbage considering that practically every machine is capable of being networked. So if you can't copy the file on the system itself, it can easily be transmitted by other means. The whole raison d'etre of ACLs is to make OSX more compatible with the Evil Empire, and nothing more.


If there is a share on the network that incorporates an ACL to limit access and you just so happen to not have access to that file, how do you propose to copy it? Networked or not, if that file is locked down (and you're not the admin), you wont be able to copy it.




EvanPitts said:


> I have never had a problem with HFS+, though the forked files do cause some problems in transfering data from one system to another. But that does not mean that one needs to cling to old, outmoded ideals. This is where ZFS is going to come into the equation, which will allow for not only very large hard drives, but to create a single file system out of entire networks of computers.


Forked files haven't been a problem for a long time. There are no separate resource forks like the old OS 9 days, everything is contained in one file now. However, I do agree that Apple should and probably will move on. They are doing more and more things with metadata and search, its only natural they should move to a file system that supports it. Why do you think there was such an outcry all those years ago when Apple DIDN'T choose the BeOS (and BeFS) instead of NeXT? The file system was superior in every way.

Trev


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

CaptainCode said:


> You still haven't told me how you can secure file permissions without using ACLs.


By using the methods that are already well developed in the UNIX world already.



> Do you think Apple should maintain 2 separate kernel versions, or maybe 3 or 4? One with ACLs and one without on the client and one with and one without on the server.


It does not mean that they have to maintain different kernel images, they just have to use modular drivers, so that the users can choose what they want. Systems need to be configurable, so that different people can use them for different purposes. ACLs should not be used in the first place, but if they are a necessary evil for some people, they should be a selected option for those people. This whole idea of one OS for everyone is the kind of muck peddled by the Evil Empire, and it will never work because it foists the worst possible systems onto the users.

Most Mac users are not servers but individual people who are sole users of a given machine, people who do not even need to use Unix style permissions in anything but a superficial way. On a Linux system, all of these things can be compiled in or not be compiled in depending on the circumstances, and that is why, in the long term, Linux will become the predominate system. Apple could so easily follow a similar path, but since they have been so fixated in adopting the worst of what Windoze has, they have lost the vision of what their systems need to be. 



> What are you possibly doing on these machines where a few CPU cycles taken by checking an ACL is going to make any bit of difference.


Yes, it takes away valuable time from other tasks that need to be performed. And it is not only a few CPU cycles, but the whole process of accessing the metafile through the hard drive, sucking away any real performance from the system.



> I also fail to see how Spotlight makes any difference on the performance of your computer. It does take a while at first but that's only a few hours.


And sucks up a great deal of space. I do not know why it is not optional. People that loose files all the time may like it, but those who are organized have no need. And what bothered me the most was shutting it off also shuts off the Find command, which is something that I do use. That is one of the reasons why I have never converted my systems to Tiger, the others being the cheap Dashboard program and the whole Widgets deal. These should have remained options, selectable by the user when installing - not foisted on the usrs a la Evil Empire methodology.



> I'm not sure where the ACLs are stored on the hard drive but please point me to somewhere that says and how much space they take up.


I think the metafile record starts at 512 bytes per file, and can be as long as 32kB per file, depending on setup. OSX has about 300,000 files to start with, so the metafile becomes quite large. Quite a bit of space for something so utterly useless.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

> Tell Spotlight to not index your drive if you dislike it so much.


Doing that shuts off the Find function. My preference for Panther is based on a number of "features" that Tiger has that I do not like, and can not be shut off. It is as if they made the decision to do things the same way as the Evil Empire does, by cramming things down the throats of the user. But that is my preference. If people want to waste their system resources with such frivolity, then so be it.

I have never seen any utility in Windoze, and it completely escapes me why the corporate universe ever adopted it in the first place. It is hard to use, and even harder to understand. And there is so few things that can be done with it. It can not even handle PDF files or view jpegs. To me, all I see is people always attempting to fix their broken Windoze boxes, and corporations have entire departments of people that spend each and every day trying to get it to do something useful. I owned a Windoze box for a while, to run one piece of software, and it never did run right. And I'd ask "experts" about how to get it to work right, and they'd just say that "it just runs that way".

My reason for buying an Apple in the first place was to have machine that could handle photographs and on on which I could run a word processor. These things were entirely absent from Windoze.



> I don't know what it is you do for a living, but don't you suppose that ACLs are actually useful to some people?


Perhaps, but there are far better systems, and it should be entirely optional for users. Just ike File Vaulting, which is entirely optional. Apple did not cram that down people's throats, so why are they cramming junk like ACLs down people's throats.



> to "wallop" the space on your hard drive? Ever added ID3 tags to an MP3?


No, and I do not use MP3s because some audio engineer "decided" that there are things I do not need to hear, so they removed those things that should be part of a recording.



> I bet your playlist isn't comprised of songs called "Unknown" with "Unknown Artist". Would you agree that metadata is a good thing then? So whats the difference?


My CD player only tells me the disk and track number.



> However, I do agree that Apple should and probably will move on. They are doing more and more things with metadata and search, its only natural they should move to a file system that supports it.


Really, until this thread come up, I thought little about HFS+ as a file sytem simply because it has been entirely reliable for me. But I was shocked to find out that they added something in order to make it more compatible with Windoze. It is my goal to be as completely incompatible with Windoze as possible, as I have no use for that terribly dain bramaged virus OS. Next to one machine that I ran for perhaps four months (to run one piece of software), I have consistently stayed away from Windoze as much as humanly possible.

I have not been too keen at the direction that Apple has taken with OSX. Those things that I liked about both Jaguar and Panther have been subverted. I thought that I would like Leopard, but then I saw all of the useless malarkey, like the crummy new Dock and the thing where folders go flying all over the screen, it made it not worth while to me. I so like the concept of Spaces, and it is a feature that I would use heavily, but I am not prepared to pay the costs of having to be weighed down by all of the kitchy features that can not be turned off. But then again, I do not like the fact that they do not use the PPC anymore, which was the one selling point that brought me to the Apple to start with.

I do think that Torvalds does bring out some valid points. HFS+ should be a more open file mount, so that it can interoperate with other systems. And I mean other systems, like ext2/ext3, ReiserFS, and whatever. The Mach kernel is modular, so Apple should be able to make any file mount scheme available to users. For myself, I have been fairly happy with HFS+, but I would, if it was available, convert my system to ext3, so I could be compatible with the majority of machines that I would choose to use.


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## Deep Blue (Sep 16, 2005)

Sure am glad to have launched this thread. As for contributing to the debate, I remain a bystander.


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## TrevX (May 10, 2005)

EvanPitts said:


> Doing that shuts off the Find function.


I'm not at my Mac right now so I can't check, but I've had Spotlight set to not Index certain folders on my system and I can still use Find to search through them. I'm pretty sure Find will still work if all you're doing is telling Spotlight to not create an index. I'll check it out.



EvanPitts said:


> I have never seen any utility in Windoze, and it completely escapes me why the corporate universe ever adopted it in the first place. It is hard to use, and even harder to understand. And there is so few things that can be done with it. It can not even handle PDF files or view jpegs.


Windows can't handle PDF files natively like OS X can, but it can certainly handle PDF files just fine when you've installed Adobe Reader. As for JPEGs, Windows handles these just fine. There are actually several image viewers installed with Windows by default and a few more when you install common software. Out of the box Windows has MSPAINT and Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. You could also use Internet Explorer if you wanted to. Install Office and you've now got Office Image Viewer. Among all of Windows short comings, not being able to handle JPEGs is not one of them.

Trev


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