Re: design objectives

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Thu, 2007-01-11 at 10:09 +0100, Neal H. Walfield wrote: 
> At Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:21:09 -0500,
> Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote:
> > I have *repeatedly* asked that the
> > design objectives of the HURD be captured concretely so that they can be
> > examined. Little progress has been made.
> 
> I have put a lot of effort into capturing our technical objectives
> over the past year....

You are right, and in this respect my criticism was unfair. I definitely
agree that you have been working on this, and I regret that I didn't
have time to respond to the position paper in greater detail.

Looking from the outside, I'm concerned that the position paper sits in
much the same position as the translucent storage discussion: without
having a reasonable statement of social constraints, it is very hard to
know if *any* of the technical goals stated in that paper will actually
turn out to be relevant to the HURD.

One suggestion -- though maybe there is a reason that this doesn't work:
that paper occurred largely in a vacuum. There are issues in the paper
that could have been worked out if the discussion and evolution had
happened publicly. As things stand, the document arrives "ex cathedra",
divorced from social motivation.

Is there any chance that more of this process could happen publicly?


Jonathan