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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!netcom16!ceb From: ceb@netcom16.netcom.com (Ch. Buckley) Subject: Re: 386BSD is dead; long live 386BSD... In-Reply-To: pauls@locust.cic.net's message of 22 Aug 1994 22:16:50 GMT Message-ID: <CEB.94Aug24000713@netcom16.netcom.com> Sender: ceb@netcom.com (Ch. Buckley) Organization: Mauto, Palo Alto References: <jmonroyCuxMAB.8IL@netcom.com> <33b84i$482@spruce.cic.net> Date: Wed, 24 Aug 1994 07:07:07 GMT Lines: 77 In article <33b84i$482@spruce.cic.net> pauls@locust.cic.net (Paul Southworth) writes: In article <jmonroyCuxMAB.8IL@netcom.com>, Jesus Monroy Jr <jmonroy@netcom.com> wrote: > The purpose of these discussions is, of course, to > amplify the comments by Bill Jolitz and others in the UNIX > community that would like to see some changes in the *BSD > system, as we know it now. As always, we are hoping for > improvements so that theory and application find a happy > medium. Please remember though that 386bsd is an > *experimental Operating System*. Yes, I keep hearing that last statement repeated again and again. The problem, however, is that calling it experimental would only excuse it from holding flaws if it offered some significant "experimental" features that more stable and/or "production-quality" systems do not. The fact is, however, that Mr. Jolitz' work on the operating system is rapidly becoming irrelevant (to put it nicely) and what they are really offering are manuscripts on operating system design. That being the case one might wonder why he bothers to maintain any code at all, since he could do what he needed to do fairly easily by working with one of the immediate decendents of 386BSD (and not muddy the waters with more code in need of cleaning prior to use). Of course that's his business, and he can code whatever he pleases. To us, however, I think it demonstrates quite clearly that Mr. Jolitz has some dedication to theoretical and practical work in computer science, but no dedication whatsoever to end users. Again, that's his prerogative -- the point is that it's absurd to call 386BSD "competition" for its progeny (the Net/FreeBSD systems). Very well said. But it's not quite fair to say that the Jolitz' code development will ever be irrelevant to the *BSD family of operating systems -- they were the first-movers, and it would not have happened as fast or at all if they hadn't put the bugs in people's ear. While Bill Jolitz certainly spoke of lots of good ideas during the 30 minutes of his talk at which I was present, it became painfully obvious that he hadn't quite gotten the ego boost he needed from his prior efforts, and was returning to the scene of the crime. This is meant in no way to be disbaraging of Mr. Jolitz, there are large classes of people who run primarily on ego -- university professors among others. Money couldn't buy what these people do -- I had occasion to refer to Knuth's ACP tonight, and every time I open the thing up, I'm awed. I believe that Mr. Jolitz wants a university appointment of some kind, probably at UCB, where the presentation style he used at that talk would fit right in. Likely his lack of the proper degree or just shark-infested academic politics has stopped him, and he realizes that pulling a 'coup' such as 386BSD would help him over that hurdle. In this case the way things have developed may be understandably seen as stealing the man's thunder. It seems to me that a version of this dream (if I've guessed it correctly) would be in the interests of many who are active in this community, and to the academic community at large -- I see the Jolitz' interests as being complementary to rather than detracting from both the spin-off groups that have taken his OS and run with it, and the interests of the more research-oriented types at that institution. This need not (and should not) be a recreation of CSRG, but something instead rather new. [So in this case, I'm agreeing with the poster to whom I followed-up, but taking things a step further.] So rather than (or at least in addition to) engaging in habitual net.mugging that goes on in these groups (and I fully agree that JMJr was born as flame bait -- he couldn't do it better if he tried (and probably does)), I would hope that someone is exploring how to make this happen. Gee, maybe the fellow responsible for picking those hideous Stormy-Seas-at-Hell's-Kitchen ceramic tiles to cover the new Soda Hall will find an opportunity to redeem himself. --