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From: steve@ecf.toronto.edu (Steve Kotsopoulos)
Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX)
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References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <jdd.829261293@cdf.toronto.edu> <bnelsonDpqpz3.M1D@netcom.com> <jdd.829341760@cdf.toronto.edu>
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 1996 04:02:55 GMT
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John DiMarco <jdd@cdf.toronto.edu> wrote:
>bnelson@netcom.com (Bob Nelson) writes:
>>On Thu, 11 Apr 1996 22:21:33 GMT, John DiMarco wrote:
>>>> Why is it a good thing to turn a nice development operating system into a
>>>> glorified program loader? Easy: a platform to run applications -- and only
>>>> this -- is exactly what most users want. If no BSD or LINUX-based operating
>
>>Wouldn't such a plan really only serve to ultimately destroy unix? Is
>>not one of its primary strengths predicated upon the notion that unix
>>is indeed not _meant_ to appeal to "most users"? The use of Windows and
>>other Microsoft platforms by some should be of no concern to the unix
>>community.
>
>UNIX as a development operating system more-or-less as it is today will remain.
>I am proposing an _addition_ to what we have today, not as a replacement. If
>you prefer it rephrased: "UNIX-like operating system(s) ought to contribute a
>kernel and related technology to an as-yet-unnamed application-focused
>operating system". Is that better?
Go to http://inferno.bell-labs.com/inferno/
and see what the Plan 9 developers at Bell Labs have been working on lately.
I'll paste some of the info from their web page here:
Inferno(tm) is an operating system for delivering interactive media to
its users. It is under development within the Computing Sciences
Research Center of Bell Labs at Lucent Technologies.
Inferno is intended to be used in a variety of emerging network
environments, for example in TV set-top boxes attached to cable
systems, advanced telephones, hand-held devices, and inexpensive
networked computers, but also in conjunction with traditional
computing systems.
The most visible such environments involve cable television, direct
satellite broadcast, and the Internet. As the entertainment,
telecommunications, and computing industries converge and
interconnect, a variety of public data networks are emerging, each
potentially as useful and profitable as the telephone system. Unlike
the telephone system, which started with standard terminals and
signaling, these networks will develop in a world of diverse
terminals, network hardware, and protocols. Only a well-designed,
economical operating system can insulate the various providers of
content and services from the equally varied transport and
presentation platforms. Inferno is a research project to build a
network operating system for this new world.
Inferno's definitive strength lies in its portability and versatility
across several dimensions:
* Portability across processors: it currently runs on Intel, MIPS,
and AMD 29K architectures and is readily portable to others.
* Portability across environments: it runs as a stand-alone
operating system on IBM-compatible PCs and on a 29K-based palm-top
machine; it also runs as a user application under Unix, Windows
NT, Windows 95, and Plan 9. All of these environments present an
identical interface to Inferno applications.
* Distributed design: an identical environment is established at the
user's terminal and at the server, and each may import the
resources of the other; aided by the communications facilities of
the run-time system, applications may be split easily (and even
dynamically) between client and server.
* Minimal hardware requirements: it runs useful applications
stand-alone on machines with as little as 1 MB of memory, and does
not require memory-mapping hardware.
* Portable applications: Inferno applications are written in the
type-safe language Limbo(tm), whose binary representation is
identical over all platforms.
* Dynamic adaptability: applications may, depending on the hardware
or other resources available, load different program modules to
perform a specific function. For example, a video player
application might use any of several different decoder modules.
[lots more deleted, but available on the web site]
--
Steve Kotsopoulos P.Eng. steve@ecf.toronto.edu
Systems Analyst, Engineering Computing Facility, University of Toronto
http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/staff/steve/