*BSD News Article 47500


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From: tls@cloud9.net (Thor Lancelot Simon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: The Future of FreeBSD...
Date: 21 Jul 1995 19:18:56 GMT
Organization: Cloud 9 Internet, White Plains, New York, USA
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Message-ID: <3uouj0$gk@news.cloud9.net>
References: <3uktse$d9c@hal.nt.tuwien.ac.at> <3ulsro$ssl@agate.berkeley.edu> <Ek3eKzC00ggL1EveAS@cs.cmu.edu>
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In article <Ek3eKzC00ggL1EveAS@cs.cmu.edu>,  <Matthew.White@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
>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.

Anyone who believes in this kind of ugly software layering is strongly 
encouraged to read Henry Massalin's PhD dissertation, 
ftp://ftp.cs.columbia.edu/reports/reports-1992/cucs-039-92.ps.Z.

-- 
Thor Lancelot Simon                                               tls@cloud9.net

Somewhere they're meeting on a pinhead, calling you an angel.