Joy, Bill

Joy, Bill

(1955–  ) American

Software Engineer, Entrepreneur

Bill Joy developed many of the key utilities used by users and programmers on UNIX systems (see unix). He then became one of the industry’s leading entrepreneurs and later, a critic of some aspects of computer technology.

As a graduate student in computer science and electrical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1970s, Joy worked with UNIX designer Ken Thompson (1943–  ) to add features such as virtual memory (pag-ing) and TCP/IP networking support to the operating sys-tem (the latter work was sponsored by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). These development eventually led to the distribution of a distinctive version of UNIX called Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which rivaled the original version developed at AT&T’s Bell Labo-ratories. The BSD system also popularized features such as the C shell (a command processor) and the text editors “ex” and “vi.” (See shell.)

As opposed to the tightly controlled AT&T version, BSD UNIX development relied upon what would become known as the open-source model of software development (see open-source movement). This encouraged program-mers at many installations to create new utilities for the operating system, which would then be reviewed and inte-grated by Joy and his colleagues. BSD UNIX gained indus-try acceptance and was adopted by the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), makers of the popular VAX series of minicomputers.

In 1982, Joy left UC Berkeley and co-founded Sun Micro-systems, a company that became a leader in the manu-facture of high-performance UNIX-based workstations for scientists, engineers, and other demanding users. Even while becoming a corporate leader, he continued to refine UNIX operating system facilities, developing the Network File System (NFS), which was then licensed for use not only on UNIX systems but on VMS, PC-DOS, and Macintosh systems. Joy’s versatility also extended to hardware design, where he helped create the Sun SPARC reduced instruction set (RISC) microprocessor that gave Sun workstations much of their power.

In the early 1990s, Joy turned to the growing world of Internet applications and embraced Java, a programming language created by James Gosling (see Java). He developed specifications, processor instruction sets, and mar-keting plans. Java became a very successful platform for building applications to run on Web servers and browsers and to support the needs of e-commerce. As Sun’s chief scientist since 1998, Joy has led the development of Jini, a facility that would allow not just PCs but many other “Java-enabled” devices such as appliances and cell phones to communicate with one another.

Recently, however, Joy has expressed serious misgivings about the future impact of artificial intelligence and related developments on the future of humanity. Joy remains proud of the achievements of a field to which he has contrib-uted much. However, while rejecting the violent approach of extremists such as Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, Joy points to the potentially devastating unforeseen con-sequences of the rapidly developing capabilities of comput-ers. Unlike his colleague Ray Kurzweil’s optimistic views about the coexistence of humans and sentient machines, Joy points to the history of biological evolution and sug-gests that superior artificial life forms will displace humans who will be unable to compete with them. He believes that given the ability to reproduce themselves, intelligent robots or even “nanobots” (see nanotechnology) might soon be uncontrollable.

Joy also expresses misgivings about biotechnology and genetic engineering, seen by many as the dominant scien-tific and technical advance of the early 21st century. He has proposed that governments develop institutions and mechanisms to control the development of such dangerous technologies, drawing on the model of the agencies that have more or less successfully controlled the development of nuclear energy and the proliferation of nuclear weapons for the past 50 years. (For contrasting views see Kurzweil, Ray and singularity, technological.)

In 2003 Joy left Sun and became a venture capitalist, specializing in technologies and projects to combat what he sees as serious global dangers, such as pandemic disease and the possibility of bioterrorism. Joy received the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award for his contributions to BSD UNIX before the age of 30. In 1993, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award of the USENIX Association, “For profound intellectual achieve-ment and unparalleled services to the UNIX community.”