Re: The Hurd: what is it?

[Marcus Brinkmann]

At Wed, 09 Nov 2005 03:27:56 +0100,
Alfred M Szmidt wrote:
> 
> Marcus, your reply is a kneejerk reaction (I base this on your
> inablity to understand the meaning of `seems to be dead').  You
> yourself claimed that Hurd/FOO (FOO != Mach) would require a rewrite,
> and the only thing left from Hurd/Mach _might_ be libihash.

You asked which libraries can be kept fully API compatible.

Alfred, discussions with you would be much, much more straightforward,
and in general more productive, if you would refrain from claiming
what other people say.  At least in my case you are consistenly
getting it wrong, and I have little interest in running behind you and
correcting your misrepresentations.

Instead, make your own case, and let other people speak for themselves.
If you want other people to make their case, ask appropriate questions.

> As for
> whoms behalf I'm speaking for, who has "complained", what the GNU
> maintainer guide says, all those things are quite irrelevant.

You made some strong statements.  If you have nothing to back them up,
there is no credibility whatsoever to your claims.

> The facts are that even a person like me who has been around these
> parts for an awfully long time doesn't even know what the heck to
> spend time on.  It isn't something as trivial as deciding if one
> should fix rpctrace to be a bit saner, fixing tmpfs, maybe just
> improving Mach, or deciding how some internal part of exec should be
> handled.  It is about a whole different code base.  If the code bases
> were API compatible, then all would be good, but they aren't and
> probobly won't be even close to compatible.  So the question still
> remains if one should spend on a code base that works, but might be
> dumped, or a code base that doesn't work, but might never see the day
> of light.

So, this is now about you personally, and not "people" anymore.  Many
people I have talked to know very well what they want to work on.
They have clear ideas and work hard to implement them.  In fact, this
is the first time I hear that somebody is completely lost.

Life is full of questions for which it is hard to give an answer.  We
must make decisions based on incomplete information on a daily basis.
The strategic questions are often the hardest, because they require
that we make an evaluation of what might happen in the future, and how
we will influence the future by our action.  Because this involves a
deeply personal judgement, nobody can make such decisions for you.

The only thing I can offer to anybody is our analysis of the technical
and other boundary conditions, about the past experiences we and
others have made, and my personal analysis of our options and chances.

Sometimes, we are disrupted in what we believed before, maybe because
of personal experiences, or maybe because of what we learn from
others, or maybe for some other reason.  These times of readjustment
and reevaluation are often accompanied by periods where you don't know
what to believe anymore.  Such times are always stressful.  It seems
to me that maybe you are in such a period of readjustment.  I wish you
that it doesn't last for long and that you refind your orientation.
Take care.

Thanks,
Marcus