On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 6:34 PM, Eris Discordia <eris.discor...@gmail.com> wrote: >> this is the "space-shuttle dichotomy." it's a false one. it's a >> continuum. its ends are dangerous. > > So somewhere in the middle is the golden mean? I have no objections to that. > *BSD systems very well represent a silver, if not a golden, mean--just my > idea, of course. > >> it is interesting to me that some software manages to run off both >> ends of this continuum at the same time. in linux your termcap >> from 1981 will still work, but software written to access /sys last >> year is likely out-of-date. > > While I won't vouch for Linux as a good OS (user-land and kernel combined) I > understand what you see as its eccentricity is merely a side-effect of > openness. Tighten the development up and you get a BSD-style system > (committer/contributor/maintainer/grunt/user highest-to-lowest ranking, with > a demiurge position for Theo de Raadt). Tighten it even further up with > in-ken shared among a core group of old-timers and thoroughbreds transmitted > only to serious researchers and you get Plan 9. > > You are right, after all. It all lies on a continuum. Actually, more tightly > regulated Linux distros such as Slackware readily demonstrate that; they > easily beat all-out all-open distros like Fedora (whose existence is > probably perceived at Red Hat as a big brainstorming project). > >> your insinuation that *bsd is a real serious system and plan 9 is >> a research system doesn't make any historical sense to me. they >> both started as research systems. i am not aware of any law that >> prevents a system that started as a research project from becoming >> a serious production system. > > What I am insinuating is more like this: any serious system will sooner or > later have to grow warts and/or contract herpes. That's an unavoidable > consequence of social life. If you do insist that Plan 9 has no warts, or > far less warts than the average, or that it has never seen a cold sore on > its upper lip then I'll happily conclude it has never lived socially. And I > haven't really ever used Plan 9 or "been into it." The no-herpes indicator > is that strong.
So you're saying that I don't have a social life since I've never gotten herpes? I suppose from your demeanor that we can compare you to, say, Windows ME? > >> i know of many thousands of plan 9 systems in production right >> now. > > Good for you. Honestly. > > --On Thursday, April 09, 2009 11:06 AM -0400 erik quanstrom > <quans...@quanstro.net> wrote: > >> On Thu Apr 9 10:48:08 EDT 2009, eris.discor...@gmail.com wrote: >>> >>> Most of it in the 19 lines for one TERMCAP variable. Strictly a relic of >>> the past kept with all good intentions: backward compatibility, and >>> heeding >> >> [...] >> >>> Quite a considerable portion of UNIX-like systems, FreeBSD in this case, >>> is the way it is not because the developers are stupid, rather because >>> they have a "constituency" to tend to. They aren't carefree researchers >>> with high ambitions. >> >> this is the "space-shuttle dichotomy." it's a false one. it's a >> continuum. its ends are dangerous. >> >> on the one hand, if you change things, the new things are likely >> to be buggy. on the space shuttle, this is bad. people die. >> >> on the other hand, systems are not perfect. and if the problems >> are not addressed, eventually the system will need to much fixing >> and will be abandoned. >> >> yet bringing a new system on line is an even bigger risk. everything >> is new simultaneously. >> >> it is interesting to me that some software manages to run off both >> ends of this continuum at the same time. in linux your termcap >> from 1981 will still work, but software written to access /sys last >> year is likely out-of-date. >> >> your insinuation that *bsd is a real serious system and plan 9 is >> a research system doesn't make any historical sense to me. they >> both started as research systems. i am not aware of any law that >> prevents a system that started as a research project from becoming >> a serious production system. >> >> i know of many thousands of plan 9 systems in production right >> now. >> >> - erik >> > >
