My broken dream.

[Alan Grimes]

I'm a big fan of L4 and absolutely hate every GNU package I've ever run
into. I joined this list because it's an L4 list, not because I like
GNU. The concept of free software is great but re-implementing unix for
the sake of re-implementing unix is pretty much the stupidest thing you
can do. =( I installed Gentoo on my computer back in 2004 and am still
using the same installation to write this yet still I can hardly use
more than 10% of the features of the software on my system. GNU software
is uniformly worse than awful because the authors never fail to blame
the user for being unable to memorize command line syntax that is
uniformly inferior to any given DOS utility. Sure, you can come back at
me and say DOS (and all utilities written for it) had no features, but
please don't fail to understand that even though the tools were arguably
weaker, they were written in such a way that the *USER* was more
effective at getting things done.

I'm fascinated to read that "L4 was rejected for hurd." I mean Jezus god
damned motherfucking christ. Who could possibly reject the world's best
publicly available kernel? Seriously, I am dying to read what the asshat
( http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ass-hat ) who made such
a decision could possibly say for itself.

Okay, now that I've enjoyed my daily screed against unix and all of its
flavors, what do I like?, well I'll tell you. I want to see what I call
a "system oriented operating system". A system where no program is any
weaker than the kernel. -- Ie, can provide an internal operating
environment. I wrote a paper on it back in 2001. However I am far too
lame to get the project going myself, mainly because I couldn't find the
documentation I needed back when I had the time and energy to work on
such a project. =((

If you want a more buzzwordy description of essentially the same basic
idea, read: http://www.ok-labs.com/solutions/secure-hypercell-technology

In closing, I want to say that the GNU project desperately needs to do
some soul searching. Is it the mission of the GNU project to foist a 30
year old technology, languages, and methodologies on the community or is
it the mission of the GNU project to advance the state of the art of
design, usability and performance that regular people can actually use?
See KDE 3.5 for a positive example of free software done right.

-- 
New president: Here we go again...
Chemistry.com: A total rip-off.
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