Linux -- Without Unix

Hubert Tonneau writes: "Once upon a time, Linus took GNU system, wrote a brand new kernel for it, and it was Linux. I did it just the other way round: I took Linux kernel, wrote a brand new system for it, and it is FullPliant. In very few words, Linux without Unix. This is the first system completely complying with free software's philosophy, because you can read it from the first line to the last one since all the code, including the dynamic compiler, the HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, patches repository and database servers, plus the remote Web configuration tool and the strong crypto proxy, fits in a single megabyte and is compiled on the fly. The first server running FullPliant can be accessed at: [this site]." Interesting.

Comments

Re:what does this accomplish?

[Muggins the Mad]

> I have to admit, this just doesn't make sense.
> All this hard work I just can't see it going anywhere, its like dumping all the work (good or bad) and essentially starting over.

Just like Linus did by writing the Linux kernel instead of trying to improve the Minix kernel, you mean?

> I just cannot see how this can be done without huge backing from someone like Sun, Microsoft, or Apple.

I have difficulty seeing how this *could* be done with backing from a huge corporation.

A bunch of good programmers working together on something they think is cool can produce much better work than a bunch of programmers being continually ordered around by a marketting department.

GNU + Linux isn't the be all and end all of operating system design. None of the systems we have today are. We need people to continually try new ideas and come up with unfamiliar things.

- Muggins

First system complying with WHAT?

[Tony Shepps]

What philosophy, is it, exactly, that requires everything to be compiled on the fly?

Was it Kant that talked about interpreted code. Now, I believe Descartes hypothesized a proof for God based on the idea that self-modifying programs could not be construed as a perfect model of any single thing. And the Chinese talk about the severing of the mind-body relationship through the long-term contemplation of object orientation. And Adm. Grace Hopper lectured on the idea that through debugging it could be determined that the nature of man can always be proven flawed.
--

Don't Point, it's not polite

[fm6]

I'm sure Linus Torvalds probably heard some comments like this when he was originally working on building the first Linux kernel.

What's your point? That LT explained himself, and now nobody ever has to explain themselves ever again?

Anyway, there's a big fallacy in this whole discussion. Everybody seems to think that LT woke up one day and said "Eureka! (My kernel work) + (GNU Project) = A NEW OS !" That's not what happened. For one thing, GNU always had their own kernel (althougth they've taken their sweet time finishing it!). For another thing, LT was never a big fan of most of the GNU software (in this article he expresses admiration for GCC, but attitudes ranging from indifference to absolute disgust with everything else).

The simple fact is that LT wrote a simple POSIX-compliant kernel for his own private purposes -- mainly self-education. It was the viral marketing that he unintentionally started by giving the source to his friends that established Linux+GNU as a new OS. I once heard him say he was more shocked by the 100th copy of Linux than the 1 millionth!

That being said, it might well be interesting and useful to create a new "OS" based on the Linux kernel. "Completely complying with free software's philosophy" strikes me as a rather silly motivation, but Tonneau does seem to have done some interesting work that bears further discussion. Is anyone going to comment on FullPliant's unique features, or is everybody stuck on Religious Flamewar mode?

__________________

Interesting, here are similar technologies

[JordanH]

Without trying to detract from Pliant, this reminds me a lot of the Self project.

Interesting links on Self can be found here.

Where Pliant syntax is discussed, it is said that it is original because "The Pliant parser is original in that it doesn't rely on an automaton derived from a grammar. It is simpler, but more customizable and therefore much more powerful. "

I'd like to point out that the parsing extensibility of Pliant can be found in the Forth language and I believe that Rebol may also have some of these advantages. The language Lua also comes to mind as a language with syntactic extensibility.

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Re:How is that INTERESTING?

[Pish Tosh]

"The greatest danger to good computer science
research today may be excessive relevance . . .
[C]ommercial pressure . . . will divert the
attention of the best thinkers from real
innovation to exploitation of the current fad,
from prospecting to mining a known lode"
-- Dennis Ritchie
Communications of the ACM, August, 1984

"What's the point?"

[Phroggy]

I'm seeing some posts here from people saying "What's the point of this? Who would use it? Why don't you just use your talents to make Linux better instead?"

I'm sure Linus Torvalds probably heard some comments like this when he was originally working on building the first Linux kernel. Why not just use DOS, or Minix, or save up some money and buy a real computer, or whatever?

If nobody ever did anything revolutionary, where would we be?

--

Programmers and the Rest of the World (TM)

[Bonker]

According to the Pliant Documentation, the creator wants to use his project to turn everyone into programmers so that they'll support FSF ideals.

This logic is a little twisted for me, but okay...

The simple fact of the matter is that programmers aren't the only technically comptent people who use computers. The idea that *everyone* should *have* to program all the time to fit into this guy's rather skewed world view is ridiculous! Take myself for example: I'm a graphical artist. Like many /. readers, I make webpages for a libing. While I *occasionally* crank out some PHP or some Javascript, the vast majority of my 'technical expertise' lies in the areas of understanding the intricacies of dozens of art, paint and drawing programs. I know what minor differences HTML code will display in certain browsers. I can administer Apache, IIS, and a slew of other web servers. I'm competent to install and administer any number of server OS's. I'm even competent enough to make choices between certain operating systems for certain tasks and requirements.

I understand the basics of how machine languages work on different processors and why programming languages behave as they do, *but* If I had to *once* sit down and crank out an application in Java or C, I would be lost. I don't have *time* to hack. I'm busy with the rest of my highly technical job.

The idea that you have to be a programmer to be technically competent is ludicrous, but one all too many hackers view as sacrosanct. Give it up, geeks.