Re: L4-HURD , POSIX, UNIX

[Bas Wijnen]

On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 02:50:52AM +0100, address@hidden wrote:
> I think we all agree that this kind of recovery *is* a killer feature.
> But it isn't tied to persistance; there are various mechanisms that
> could achieve this, not at all necesserily as radical.

This is true, however I have the feeling (with no evidence at all) that other
mechanisms are in fact harder to build.  That is, persistence gives this
recovery (and removal of boot scripts) as a bonus feature, while otherwise it
would have to be implemented on its own.  My feeling is that implementing the
features is harder than implementing persistence.  However, estimating such
things is much easier if there are actual proposals for how to implement the
feature.

> > Personally, as long as we have a way to get most POSIX applications
> > running on the Hurd, I do not mind a new design.
> 
> Getting POSIX applications running isn't enough. What we need to make
> sure is that UNIX users feel comfortable on the system, that it looks
> familiar to them.

True.  And preferably Mac and Windows users should also feel comfortable.
Doing all at once would be undoable at least at first, I think.  I agree with
you that we should start with the current users of the GNU system, since they
are most likely to start using the Hurd.  Later we can add look and feels
which are more like Mac and Windows.  In fact I don't think this is our job,
and probably others will do it (they have done so already, in fact).

> Of course, this still leaves quite a lot of choices about the internal
> architecture of the system. However, as for user-visible changes,
> radical concepts like system-wide transparent persistance are definitely
> ruled out IMHO.

Persistence is quite a radical concept internally, but I don't think it's that
invasive for the user.  That is, except if you consider the sysadmin a user as
well.

IMO the end users of the system should feel comfortable.  We don't need to
make things really easy for sysadmins.  Obviously we shouldn't make things
harder without a reason either, but adding really cool features is a good
reason IMO.

Thanks,
Bas

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