On Tue, Feb 06, 2001 at 12:00:44AM -0600, Bret Hughes wrote:
> The linux revolution is just that. ...
I just *have* to point out that the Linux revolution is __not__ the OS.
For all intents and purposes, Linux is Unix--it looks, smells, tastes, and
feels like Unix. It breaks free of control by a single corporate entity,
harvests the fruits of the ebullence of a new generation of developers--
and volunteers at that--and has made great additions to the Unix paradigm;
but Linus was recreating an existing model. The revolution for Linux has
to be the open source model under which it seems to be not just surviving,
but thriving (Microsoft's reports of its immenent demise notwithstanding.)
Now Unix, THAT was a revolution, functionally and conceptually different
than any OS that went before...EXCEPT...*Multics*. Actually, **Multics**
was the revolution. Go look it up. And it wasn't a success--oh, it
was finally brought out as a commercial OS--I used it--and it formed
the underpinning of OS classes in the early '70s, but it never took over
the world. But its concepts, borrowed and extended, DID fire the Unix
revolution.
Tain't easy starting a revolution--what goes around, comes around,
and everyone stands on the shoulders of their predecessors.
To desire to do something as large as create a new OS can be a laudable
thing. The Boys at Bell had a wild and wonderful ride. But the number of
failed operating systems that litter the history of our young profession
(and, some might say, some that SHOULD have failed continue to litter
its present...) attest to the difficulty of coming up with something
that is quantifiably BETTER, not just DIFFERENT, than what's come before.
That's your challenge if you want to design a new OS--not to just
whip out code. You'll have to analyze what we have today--both what's
wrong AND right with it--and somehow come up with that combination of
features and concepts that are so fundamentally valuable that they make
the introduction of a new way of doing things, and the dedicaton of
millions of developer-hours of effort, the suffering of the migration
pains, the interoperability woes--all of the issues involved with a new
world--worth it. And not only worth it, but RECOGNIZED and ACCEPTED as
worth it by enough of your peers that it survives.
This ain't easy. Good luck.
Cheers,
--
Dave Ihnat
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