Discover’s The Loom blog has a really cool comparison of Linux and E. coli.
One of the nifty bits is a comparison of the gene interactions of E. coli and Linux system calls:
Tasty E. coli
The author also draws some very interesting comparisons between the evolution of E. coli and Linux:
Both networks developed, step by step, as increasingly sophisticated systems for operating things–computers or cells. But the Linux network was the work of programmers, while E. coli is the product of four billion years of evolution. The differences in the history and shape of the two networks emerge from the ways in which they developed. The programmers who built Linux did not have the time to invent entirely new workhorse functions. It was simpler for them to just use the old workhorse functions in new modules. But this strategy leaves Linux a lot more fragile than a biological network. Its modules overlap, so that in many cases, a workhorse function is essential for many different modules at once. As a result, Linux gets buggy and prone to crashing. And so as programmers improve Linux, they’ve had to fine-tune its all-purpose functions at every step of the way.
So, next time Microsoft and cohorts roll out the old “Linux is a cancer” canard, you can counter with “Nah. More like a bacterium.”
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