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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mira.net.au!vic.news.telstra.net!act.news.telstra.net!imci3!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!Germany.EU.net!wizard.pn.com!brighton.openmarket.com!decwrl!nntp.crl.com!reason.cdrom.com!usenet From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Getting off the stick [was Re: TCP latency] Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 13:34:55 -0700 Organization: Walnut Creek CDROM Lines: 72 Message-ID: <31F2946F.41C67EA6@FreeBSD.org> References: <4paedl$4bm@engnews2.eng.sun.com> <4seo88$fqd@fido.asd.sgi.com> <4sesh4$2ls@dworkin.wustl.edu> <31EDBDA2.41C67EA6@FreeBSD.org> <4spb28$kpl@cronkite.cisco.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: time.cdrom.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b5a (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2-CURRENT i386) To: Tim Iverson <iverson@cisco.com> Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.networking:45994 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:24149 Tim Iverson wrote: > Hmmm. One nice thing -- you can pilot the SSU yourself, while the captain > of the QE2 will only let you look at the wheel. If you just want to cruise > to Bimini and back, take the '2. Otherwise, you *need* the SSU. It seems that every time I have this argument, there's always at least one or two people who seem to think that I'm advocating for the removal of UNIX's traditional flexibilities in exchange for a locked-in "if there's no button to configure this, you're screwed" kind of NT world. I'm not. I'm simply saying that UNIX represents a mighty fine "hull" (to continue my already worn-out analogy) and that there's nothing now stopping us from building a ship on top that provides a few creature comforts as well as fine engineering belowdecks. I'd also expect to get a *better* ship in the end out of this since you'd have the best of both worlds - something you could configure easily and Just Use if that were your goal, or something that you could tinker endlessly with if you needed/wanted to get into the system at that level. Already, free UN*Xen have something that NT will probably never offer to the masses: The source code. I realize where our primary strengths lie, and I'd never even suggest hamstringing them in pursuit of the ease-of-use goals. > Free Unix isn't *competing* with Microsoft. It is competing for a niche > that MS not only can't fill, but does not want to fill. Competing in the traditional sense no. Attempting to hold its own in areas where Microsoft would very much like to capture the market, very much so I think. I don't think it'd be a good idea to get too complacent about Brother Bill. > Hmmm. Trite, but "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." If you really want > developers to support *BSD, provide the Win95 or NT interface, even to the > driver level. Lotsa work, but far less than trying to convince all the > developers to port to *BSD. I certainly wouldn't mind, if only to be able to say that we have effective "bridge technology", but convincing someone like Bristol Technologies to port their suite to FreeBSD hasn't been one of my own victories, despite frequent attempts. :-( > IMHO, it takes an OS 10 years to become stable enough to really use. If > you're worried about 5 years from now, then you should be looking at 5 year > old OSes. Frankly, I don't see anything on the horizon that can even > remotely compete with Unix. Hmmmmmm. While that may have been true before, bear in mind that 10 years ago we didn't know as much as we do now about OS design, nor did we really have the horsepower available to realize all the design goals that people had. That's changed, and I'm not about to sell Cutler and his group too short here - they have a lot more money and full-time bodies than we do. :-) > Unix is the champion of versatility. In five years, it will just be that > much more versatile. I think this trend will continue until we see a I hope so. My only concern is how *useful* it's going to be for what people are wanting to do in 5 years. That's rather more the bottom line, isn't it? > So, you want a standard API, eh? Start a consortium. No one likes dancing > to Bill's tune, if you're clever about it you may find enough backing to > make Billy-Boy dance to yours! It's certainly a thought. We need a number of APIs, not just one, and someone who really enjoys writing and nursing RFCs to champion them. -- - Jordan Hubbard President, FreeBSD Project