Re: A simple question

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Tue, Apr 11, 2006 at 07:42:43PM +0200, Bas Wijnen wrote:

> No, it has to do with us, I suppose.

It's important to point out that "us" here doesn't mean the Hurd
community as a whole, but only part of it.

> Pistachio was considered, because it could solve Mach's (performance)
> problems.  However, it doesn't actually do (much) more than that: the
> result will be similar to Hurd on Mach, but faster.  It is a lot of
> work to write it, though.  Speaking for myself, I can say that I
> wasn't really motivated to put in that much work, just for some
> performance gain.

That's not quite true. Hurd/L4 was stopped because it turned out not to
be possible/feasible to implement a system like Hurd on Pistachio. The
desire to create a completely different system only came with Shapiro's
influence, way after microkernel reevaluation was already under way. In
fact, AFAIK the microkernel choice is mostly independant from the
redesign.

> Also, Linux has changed to allow several things which only Hurd could
> do before (user space file systems, for example), which makes it even
> less attractive to work on it.
> 
> Coyotos is different.  It would give us a new system with new exciting
> features.  Features which aren't going to be present in Linux, because
> a complete rewrite would be required for them.

You do not seem to have much understanding of what the (existing) Hurd
has to offer, if you believe a kernel like Linux could do the same or
even come close *without* a complete rewrite.

Sure, Linux *does* slowly move in that direction, bit by bit (if
something is The Right Thing To Do (TM), you can expect some
convergence...) -- but holding the current pace, it will require some 40
years or so (and probably a couple of maintainer changes) until it can
compete.

> If you're interested, search the list archive for "capability",
> "security" and "persistence".

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but from last fall's discussions you should
have learned that "capability" and "persistance" are not features but
mechanisms, and that "security" means nothing without explaining what
you are talking about. So please don't spread confusion.

-antrik-