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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.sprintlink.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.mathworks.com!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!postman+ From: Matthew.White@cs.cmu.edu Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: The Future of FreeBSD... Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 14:51:43 -0400 Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 36 Message-ID: <Ek3eKzC00ggL1EveAS@cs.cmu.edu> References: <3uktse$d9c@hal.nt.tuwien.ac.at> <3ulsro$ssl@agate.berkeley.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: po6.andrew.cmu.edu In-Reply-To: <3ulsro$ssl@agate.berkeley.edu> Excerpts from netnews.comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc: 20-Jul-95 Re: The Future of FreeBSD... Jordan K. Hubbard@violet (5085) > In fact, many members of the project would LEAVE were we to suddenly > jump on the Mach bandwagon since universal agreement > on microkernel technology is hardly here, and there are in fact a number > of detractors alive and well in the UNIX camp. To my mind, the microkernel is the way of the future. With increasingly diverse processor architectures available, this is one technology that will keep things manageable. With microkernels, a development effort can proceed with far fewer individuals because the maintainance cost of additional platforms is minimal. Thus we can have a situation better suited for small businesses and public domain developers. Instead of large numbers of mediocre programmers producing huge amounts of mediocre code (as many firms seem to do), we have a small number of excellent programmers producing a smaller, but functionally equivelant, amount of excellent code. There's a strong performance argument, because microkernels seem inherently slower. It is my opinion that advantages outlined above heavily outweigh this, especially when one considers the high performance offered by new processors of today. There will come a time, soon, when the added stability and feature sets of microkernel OSes will dominate. What does this have to do with FreeBSD? Not a thing that I can see. My understanding of FreeBSD is that it was designed to run on the Intel platform, period. With this design goal in mind, what is the advantage of sacrificing speed to have an ultraportable OS? Especially when you consider that Intel processors are relatively slow when compared to the RISC processors available. -Matt