[apalmer]

Can't cosign this one, I think its a grave underestimation of the import of a species being able to escape however briefly from their home planet.

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

[krapp]

I completely agree. A million years from now, there will likely still be human artifacts on the moon. Where will the linux kernel be in a million years?

[jerf]

Well, hopefully, on the moon, right there in the artifacts.

[300bps]

>100 years from now, linux will probably have gone the way of the doodoo bird

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.

[Millennium]

The Linux kernel is a complete unknown to the vast majority of people on the planet, yes. But it runs so much of the Internet behind the scenes that I don't think it's fair to say that it only touches the lives of "a small percentage" of the people. Not everyone, to be sure, and depending on how many levels of indirection you consider to be valid, perhaps not even half. But undoubtedly more than can really be called a "small percentage."

[300bps]

>The Linux kernel is a complete unknown to the vast majority of people on the planet, yes. But it runs so much of the Internet behind the scenes that I don't think it's fair to say that it only touches the lives of "a small percentage" of the people

I encourage you to reconsider your position on this. Look for yourself here:

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

There are 7 billion people on the planet. Of that 7 billions, 2.4 billion use the Internet. That's 34.3% of people that don't even use the Internet, let alone have their lives touched by the Linux kernel.

Then you add to it that if it were not Linux running a server, it would be another operating system that would've been that particular system administrator's second preference.

The Linux kernel is an amazing thing, but it doesn't compare to the moon landing. As I said, the majority of people in the world would think you were a god if you landed on the moon and returned safely.

2/3 of the people in the world wouldn't even notice if Linux was never invented since they don't even use the Internet. The percentage of people that use the Internet and are impacted even indirectly by Linux is even smaller.

[derleth]

But they're still affected by people who do use the Internet.

[300bps]

>But they're still affected by people who do use the Internet.

Frankly, I don't understand this position at all. A poor person in India who has never used the Internet and has probably never heard of the Internet is not in any way affected by people who use the Internet. And anyway, that's a shift of the goal post. The point is that such a person is not touched by the Linux kernel.

No offense, I think people trying to say the Linux kernel is as important as the moon landing are suffering from delusions of grandeur.

Multiple people died in the pursuit of landing a man on the moon (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1). Saying people creating a competing offering to something that had been created dozens of times before is as monumental of an achievement as landing on the moon is frankly preposterous.

[derleth]

> A poor person in India who has never used the Internet and has probably never heard of the Internet is not in any way affected by people who use the Internet.

Anyone in a money economy is deeply affected by the Internet.

> No offense, I think people trying to say the Linux kernel is as important as the moon landing are suffering from delusions of grandeur.

Nobody is obligated to acknowledge people whose mode of communication includes insults.

[philwelch]

Why is leaving Earth so important?