The difference between the lunar missions and the Linux kernel is easy to see, if you bother to pay attention. Decades of research in numerous fields were required before the Apollo missions could happen. Experts in numerous fields had to collaborate on the mission. There were no mistakes to learn from -- nobody had done a lunar mission before. By comparison, the Linux kernel only represents expertise in one particular field, it is certainly not the result of cutting-edge research, and there is nothing particularly special about writing a kernel.
Actually, it was less than one decade of research post-Kennedy's-announcement, and a lot of groundwork had already been laid by then. The whole thing was standing on the shoulders of giants from day one. It's really difficult to pick any single ground-breaking development in the Apollo project; it was more like a lot of R&D trickle in disparate areas converging on a solution for a single goal, all of which was being built on a solid foundation we had already had by that time.
For example, the Apollo Guidance Computer was, AFAIK, the first serially produced digital computer made of integrated circuits, and I believe that for quite some time, the manufacturers of ACGs in the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (an offshoot of MIT) were the single largest purchaser of ICs on this planet. The consequence was that the use of ICs in complex computers had been validated, Fairchild Semiconductor (who provided the NOR gates used in the computer) amortized their investments and went on churning them out in ever increasing numbers. You know what followed. But this was more about speeding up the adoption rather then stimulating the development of something completely new.
Experts in numerous fields had to collaborate on the mission.
Since it's a software project, you could also argue that you need experts in various fields of programming. The guy who writes a driver for a new device manufactured by his employer to be included in the mainline kernel probably isn't somenone who you're going to trust with redesigning the kernel memory allocator.
My support on this phrase, I had had discussions about this and can get very controversial.
That said, we have made major progress in many fields and I disagree that nothing important is done anymore. Consumer aviation comes to mind. The safety standards they have met is truly mind boggling. Wireless and Internet Connectivity is another - wimax has a huge impact in developing countries. IMO, just these two things have made massive impact on how we do things in everyday life. Much more than the space program to daily life.
An example of something comparable to Apollo (one that does not involve outer space) would be a hypothetical switch away from fossil fuels -- completely renewable energy. Imagine a government project to replace every internal combustion engine with electric, to deploy rapid (on the scale of minutes) charging infrastructure, to build wind and solar farms to replace coal/gas power, to find new ways to heat blast furnaces, etc. You would need research in numerous science and engineering fields, and you would need experts in those fields working together. You would need a commitment to doing this, the way we committed to Apollo -- not a wishy-washy federal effort or a lot of poorly-organized local efforts.
Are you sure about it? Wasn't it one of the first really large software projects with the distributed development model? (Were there any predecessors to that?)
100 years from now, linux will probably have gone the way of the doodoo bird, certainly by 500 years from now it will have... 500 years from now the question of whether or not man has ever set foot on the moon, and when that first occurred will still have impact
Based on my car this morning, "doodoo birds" are alive and well. But I do agree with your main point - to quote Carl Sagan, humanity for now is forced to "make its stand on Earth". We have all of our proverbial eggs in one basket and nowhere to go if problems arise.
The Linux kernel is a complete unknown to the vast majority of people on the planet, and touches the lives of such a small percentage of the 7 billion people here. Find someone on Earth that's unfamiliar with the moon or the colossal achievement it would be of having landed a man on its surface and brought him safely back to the Earth. Most cultures unfamiliar with the technology would think you were a god; the Linux kernel pales in comparison.
linesOfCode != progress
Putting people on the Moon is beyond fucking awesome.
As I ponder it though, I think it becomes more challenging. Linux' emergence has changed the psychology of the software industry and other industries. You really have to ponder before Linux and after Linux to start to capture the magnitude. Before linux, when you bought a computer you paid a company to make it boot and make it usable. If you wanted to seriously program your PC, you had a relatively small set of options: C, Pascal, Assembly, maybe BASIC and then some like databasey type programming platforms of sorts. You had to pay money to get those tools, not a small amount. You want to look under the hood? Go to a university and maybe that'll scratch that itch. Programmers were the nerdiest of the nerds, now they have a degree of coolness in society (a small one but still some and they make movies about Hackers and stuff.) Things were just very different, Linux and GNU and others have had and made a gigantic and revolutionary impact that really has changed the way software dudes think. Maybe GNU would have done this if Linux didn't show up. Maybe something else would have come along, seems like there is a social component and people were ready for it to happen.
That being said, they barely had computers and landed some dudes on the moon, that was some real fucking cowboy shit. Strapping dudes on to a bomb, controllably blowing it up and launching them to the moon and then bringing them back? Alive, with relatively low casualties. That's really big, a whole lot of people making careers out of that work and a whole lot of luck. The luck makes me think of it as bigger, if we did it 100 more times, I know we would have killed a lot more people in the process and it would have maybe looked a bit more reckless in retrospect.
I think he should have stopped after the first comma. Why compare incomparable things? Pick one axis, thing A is better. Pick another axis, thing B is better.
Some would say that "The Linux kernel" is a bloated monstrosity and not a good example of technological wizardry.
To state that The kernel is the largest, most complex collaborative effort in the history of the species, while failing to note that the typical jet fighter aircraft uses systems which nearly double the SLOC of a Linux kernel, also serves to illuminate the author's scope of knowledge.
*The latest F-35Bs, including Yuma’s copy, are also flying with a temporary software suite known as Block 1B. The Marines have said the jet won’t be capable of flying and fighting in real combat until it has the Block 2B software that is only now entering testing. With 24 million lines of code — 9 million more than originally envisioned — there’s no telling how long testing could take.*
The space race created a large amount of respect for science/research in the public eye - something that results in more kids enrolled in science and math programs. The long tail effect of sending people to the moon is a lot hard to measure than KLOC.
There's nothing inspiring to a non-average person either, it's not like the linux kernel is a work of discovery and greatness. It's nice, it's a free unix, it's everywhere and it's convenient, but it's not really blazing new trails or anything.
And if the linux kernel didn't exist, people would be using something else. Most of the mindshare would probably live in FreeBSD since Linux gained its ground and staked its early marks during the BSD uncertainties of the early 90s.
"the fact that the US doesn’t have a manned spaceflight program is a step back. But then he said, “our generation hasn’t done anything like land someone on the Moon… we used to do big things.”"
Then he goes on to put-up Linux as an example of the US (???) having done something great? Did I read that wrong?
Linux is not a US development. It didn't even start in the US. It's the result of collaboration from nearly every corner of the world.
As for humanity not having done something great. Please. Billions of people are connected like never before via the Internet. Never in the history of mankind was the dissemination of information, knowledge and culture accessible to so many for so little. And this is just the beginning.
Still, your conclusion is absolutely right and exactly what is expressed in the article with the example of the Linux Kernel.
Linux was a hobby OS that popped up right as legal concerns starting hurting the BSD folks, right? Had that not been the case, it probably would've been as interesting a footnote as Minix or Hurd is today.
Are they just feeling insecure about the kinds of problems their generation is solving?
Yeah! Figuring out the ad you are most likely to click on next is the best way forward for mankind. This is obvious.
No, it doesn't. If you're going to be "that guy", please consider at least being obnoxious and correct.