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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.development:2291 comp.os.linux.admin:9371 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!Germany.EU.net!lemis!grog From: grog@lemis.uucp (Greg Lehey) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development,comp.os.linux.admin Subject: Re: All UNIXs should merge!!! Message-ID: <3121@adagio.lemis.uucp> Date: 16 Jun 94 07:20:45 GMT References: <2tj1bi$b6c@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au> Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.development Organization: LEMIS, W-6324 Feldatal, Germany Lines: 94 In article <2tj1bi$b6c@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au> billm@jacobi.maths.monash.edu.au (WE Metzenthen) writes: >[ Article crossposted from comp.os.linux.admin ] >[ Author was matt.kangas@analog.com ] >[ Posted on Thu, 19 May 1994 18:48:31 GMT ] > >In article <1994May19.155350.9049@liberty.uc.wlu.edu> zbuckner@sage.wlu.edu (Zach Buckner) writes: >>This may sound like a stupid question, but why can't all UN*Xs merge to >>form one single operating system, which would run on MANY different computer >>types? > >You're right... it is a stupid question. People have been asking this for >at least the last decade, and it's still a stupid question. ;-) The best reason for calling it a stupid question is because it has been done, and the product is out there on the market. Where have you people been? One of the main reasons why people got so upset about the USL/UCB/BSDI lawsuit is because USL's offering has borrowed liberally from BSD over the last 15 years - look at the diagram on page 5 of Leffler&Co for an overview. In System V.3.2, they folded in Xenix. In System V.4, they folded in 4.3BSD and SunOs 4. Rumours are that the kitchen sink is in there somewhere, too, but nobody can find it. The result is that SVR4 is the sum of the three (four?) threads. Without achieving much more than the BSD flavours now on the market(*), the stock SVR4.2 kernel on a PC runs to 1.8 MB. (*) OK, OK, there are some things that SVR4.2 has, like shared libraries, shared memory, semaphores, STREAMS. I don't want to get in a religious argument about their merits, but with the exception of STREAMS it's reasonably easy to demonstrate that they don't take up anything near this much space. >>I know that UNIX has been around for a while, but sooner or later..... There's >>going to be a need for organization. A program, in my opinion should run >>on any UNIX with compilation. Good requirement. Unfortunately, SVR4 is one of the most *difficult* UNIX platforms to port to. This isn't directly SVR4's fault: the definition is well-stated and reasonably complete, but most generally-available software has been developed on BSD-flavoured systems, and it shows. I would expect (though I don't have any direct proof) that it's easier to port most software to BSD than it is to Linux, for the same reason. Another point to be made here is that it isn't usually the kernel that makes it difficult to port: it's the file system organization and the header files. These are (very gradually) being fixed to be compliant with POSIX.1 and ANSI C, two standards which *are* having a positive effect. Interestingly, the Linux, BSD and FSF camps are closer to the goal than most commercial implementations. >>All the UNIX makers should merge to form a committee which SETS STANDARDS. If >>a change needs to be made, it is mentioned at a committee meeting, and all >>UNIXs change. > >Har har. And you think committees get anything accomplished? A committee >would have killed Linux off long ago... it is only because it is the >product of anarchy that it has succeeded. (Think about that for a while...) Agreed. But I, for one, will be very interested to see how Linux develops in the next couple of years. This anarchy could kill it, or it could be a raging success, displacing commercial UNIX implementations. I wish I knew which. >Take a look into the history of UNIX, laddy - why BSD is different from >System V at all (thank goodness!), what happened to Univel and the >OSF (Hint: Open Software Foundation is an oxymoron), etc. The fact is that committees tend to define a uniform, rather than a good implementation. Their speed of reaction can be best comprehended by a geologist. You should try SVR4 compared to Linux or BSD. I don't think you'll like it--I suspect that many people wouldn't switch to it even if it were free. Compared to Linux it *does* have the advantage of not changing all the time--even the bugs seem to stay in there for ever. This is a result of the Big Business attitude of "the source code is holy, you can't change that unless you're a high priest", along with product maintenence strategies which are closely tied in with (possibly incorrect) perception of future revenue implications. >If corporate committes decided everything, we'd all be using AIX. Yow! Wrong. AIX was developed out of frustration with industry standards committees. IBM has always preferred to do what it wants without getting committee approval ahead of time. Greg-- --------------------------------------------- Greg Lehey | Tel: +49-6637-1488 LEMIS, Schellnhausen 2, | Fax: +49-6637-1489 36325 Feldatal, Germany | Mail: grog@lemis.de