You seem a pretty darned sensible AC, but you miss a point. Producing a kernel/OS with a better design than *nix is easy, researchers have been making efforts at it and decently succeeding for decades. Giving it a developer community and hardware support (the two are correlated) is incredibly difficult because:
1.Not a single major operating system such as Windoze, Linux or a BSD has adopted UDI or any other standard that would make drivers portable between operating systems. 2.Nobody wants to port to an OS with no users, nobody wants to use an OS with no drivers and nobody wants to write drivers for an OS with no software. 3.Few people want the work of porting software and drivers to a kernel that works in a radically different way from previous operating systems. Thus, operating systems will tend towards evolution rather than revolution. Hence, Linux.
These are very real problems for anyone choosing to create a new operating system, and in the Open Source spirit I'm giving the ideas that I have on the matter here:
1.Implement UDI or another standard that you and some other group of kernel developers (mainstream or hobbyist) can agree on. Being able to share drivers between operating systems is essential, because it allows a new and revolutionary operating system access to any hardware with a standard-compliant driver. We shouldn't let its "hurting the Free Software movement" hold us back from implementing something with plenty of technical merit. 2 & 3.Lots of high-level interpreted or byte-code languages are coming into heavy mainstream use nowadays. Integrate them into the OS! Having a Java/.NET VM or a Perl, Python or even Lisp interpreter at the shell level (or one step above) would give a new OS immmediate access to all software that runs under these languages without binding to an operating system specific feature. This may be a subset of those language's software, but it is significant.
However, in the OSS world one of the stepping stones to gaining market share is gaining developers, which is where both of us are forced to compete with Linux right now.
Perhaps, that then, is the change that needs to be made: less fanaticism for *nix and more general coding for alternative OS's. If either you or I made the claim we didn't want a nice community helping us hack our code we'd be lying, but most of those hackers that exist do so for Linux.
Have you ever visited OSnews.com? Most of the kernels there are written in C/C++, and they can't seem to compete with Linux either.
I don't expect anyone to be using my kernel at alpha, before it's usable for much other than telling time. However, I've seen AmigaOS 4.0 and SkyOS and Syllable and nobody uses them, even though they're into real usable versions and written in C-derivatives.
It has everything to do with my being a kernel developer, of course. However, my motivation doesn't make my point any less valid.
Linux is a Unix clone that is spreading itself onto every bit of hardware imaginable. When is somebody going to decide they don't want Linux on the XYZ 123 (at which point Glider probably won't be ready to run on that system, but I can hope, pray and dream, can't I?) so that someone with a development team and an idea for a revolution that would finally move the OS world past Unix can come in and say "our system works great on the XYZ 123, won't you try it on your database box?"
You spread onto all sorts of hardware, so it's not like anyone could write a decent operating system for them and compete.
Yes, I know my karma is going to suffer immensely for this, but it must be said. Linux spreads and spreads and spreads to all different sorts of hardware, but when are they going to slow down and open up space for other operating systems?
That is not the strength of humanity, it is the foolishness and strength of tyranny. The decisions to have the critical mass of humanity kept dumb (KEPT dumb, very few are dumb by nature) were made before we had any understanding of emergent phenonmena, back when it was thought that every organization of small units required a leading minority and a following majority. We know better than that now.
The success of civilization is in humans cooperating with each other for a mutual gain greater than could be gained by either through competition, thus breaking out of the Darwinian natural selection process to a greater and greater extent as civilization evolved. This can happen entirely without keeping people dumb or prolonging their childhoods. Yes, we prolong the average person's childhood, why do you think most 14 year-olds today are "adolescent" and act so while most 14 year-olds a couple of hundred years ago were actively leading their own lives?
It'd be wrong to say that US politics are about *choice* in most cases. At least to me, having to choose between a Socialist and a Conservative redneck isn't choice. You seem to be under the impression that "Socialist" means "Conservative non-redneck". It does not. A socialist is one who wishes the government to become a dominant player in economic affairs and are willing to push this politically.
Microsoft taking responsibility for their own faults and Sony's? I wonder what's up in their boardroom nowadays. Or there could be pigs flying somewhere, I don't know.
"You want to be a successful business owner or politician, but roll a 'not upper-class', so instead you're unemployed. Should've set your sights lower, ya poor to middle-class dipshit!"
I think Bill Gates and Co. can stop complaining to the government now about how they need help getting lower-paid foreign engineers and hire some of the homegrown boys and girls.
Yeah, it got me pretty mad to here that they've replaced "start with Pascal and eventually move on to C" or just "start with C" to "start with Java and never ween them off it". I swear they must be trying to dumb down the next generation of coders.
Take an Open-Source Metric
on
Java Is So 90s
·
· Score: 1
People will only work on open-source projects in a given language if the project and language are worth using. So in order to determine which language(s) {Perl,Python,PHP,Java} holds water, check the number of open source projects and their activity levels for each and compare them.
What the grandparent said. Everyone in my family has/had their own cell phone, and we've never needed kid-tracking stuff. The phones don't even have GPS.
Slashdot Mirror
You seem a pretty darned sensible AC, but you miss a point. Producing a kernel/OS with a better design than *nix is easy, researchers have been making efforts at it and decently succeeding for decades. Giving it a developer community and hardware support (the two are correlated) is incredibly difficult because:
1.Not a single major operating system such as Windoze, Linux or a BSD has adopted UDI or any other standard that would make drivers portable between operating systems.
2.Nobody wants to port to an OS with no users, nobody wants to use an OS with no drivers and nobody wants to write drivers for an OS with no software.
3.Few people want the work of porting software and drivers to a kernel that works in a radically different way from previous operating systems. Thus, operating systems will tend towards evolution rather than revolution. Hence, Linux.
These are very real problems for anyone choosing to create a new operating system, and in the Open Source spirit I'm giving the ideas that I have on the matter here:
1.Implement UDI or another standard that you and some other group of kernel developers (mainstream or hobbyist) can agree on. Being able to share drivers between operating systems is essential, because it allows a new and revolutionary operating system access to any hardware with a standard-compliant driver. We shouldn't let its "hurting the Free Software movement" hold us back from implementing something with plenty of technical merit.
2 & 3.Lots of high-level interpreted or byte-code languages are coming into heavy mainstream use nowadays. Integrate them into the OS! Having a Java/.NET VM or a Perl, Python or even Lisp interpreter at the shell level (or one step above) would give a new OS immmediate access to all software that runs under these languages without binding to an operating system specific feature. This may be a subset of those language's software, but it is significant.
It's not so much "Freedom is on the March" as "Corporate Capitalism-based Command Economy is on the March".
Once you realize that this is becoming a country by, for, and of The Management most of the rest of government policy becomes extraordinarily clear.
Sacrifice profit? I can't even imagine how much defense contractors and other large firms must have made during WW2!
begin fighting this the same way we won WWII?
Nuke them to hell? Get help from the Russians?
However, in the OSS world one of the stepping stones to gaining market share is gaining developers, which is where both of us are forced to compete with Linux right now.
Perhaps, that then, is the change that needs to be made: less fanaticism for *nix and more general coding for alternative OS's. If either you or I made the claim we didn't want a nice community helping us hack our code we'd be lying, but most of those hackers that exist do so for Linux.
Have you ever visited OSnews.com? Most of the kernels there are written in C/C++, and they can't seem to compete with Linux either.
I don't expect anyone to be using my kernel at alpha, before it's usable for much other than telling time. However, I've seen AmigaOS 4.0 and SkyOS and Syllable and nobody uses them, even though they're into real usable versions and written in C-derivatives.
It has everything to do with my being a kernel developer, of course. However, my motivation doesn't make my point any less valid.
Linux is a Unix clone that is spreading itself onto every bit of hardware imaginable. When is somebody going to decide they don't want Linux on the XYZ 123 (at which point Glider probably won't be ready to run on that system, but I can hope, pray and dream, can't I?) so that someone with a development team and an idea for a revolution that would finally move the OS world past Unix can come in and say "our system works great on the XYZ 123, won't you try it on your database box?"
You spread onto all sorts of hardware, so it's not like anyone could write a decent operating system for them and compete.
Yes, I know my karma is going to suffer immensely for this, but it must be said. Linux spreads and spreads and spreads to all different sorts of hardware, but when are they going to slow down and open up space for other operating systems?
Why New Operating Systems Won't Stand a Chance
Something really should change, and it would be rather nice if Linux could stop spreading itself onto every last piece of hardware in the world.
That is not the strength of humanity, it is the foolishness and strength of tyranny. The decisions to have the critical mass of humanity kept dumb (KEPT dumb, very few are dumb by nature) were made before we had any understanding of emergent phenonmena, back when it was thought that every organization of small units required a leading minority and a following majority. We know better than that now.
The success of civilization is in humans cooperating with each other for a mutual gain greater than could be gained by either through competition, thus breaking out of the Darwinian natural selection process to a greater and greater extent as civilization evolved. This can happen entirely without keeping people dumb or prolonging their childhoods. Yes, we prolong the average person's childhood, why do you think most 14 year-olds today are "adolescent" and act so while most 14 year-olds a couple of hundred years ago were actively leading their own lives?
It'd be wrong to say that US politics are about *choice* in most cases. At least to me, having to choose between a Socialist and a Conservative redneck isn't choice.
You seem to be under the impression that "Socialist" means "Conservative non-redneck". It does not. A socialist is one who wishes the government to become a dominant player in economic affairs and are willing to push this politically.
Microsoft taking responsibility for their own faults and Sony's? I wonder what's up in their boardroom nowadays. Or there could be pigs flying somewhere, I don't know.
When they delay HD-DVDs because they can't get licensing for their DR-MMMMM! Now that! Is! Irony!
http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs162/lectures.html
Those are lectures in Operating Systems at UC Berkeley. The assignments are done by simulating an OS with algorithms written in Java. This worries me.
If I had mod points and hadn't commented in this article I'd do it myself.
"You want to be a successful business owner or politician, but roll a 'not upper-class', so instead you're unemployed. Should've set your sights lower, ya poor to middle-class dipshit!"
I think Bill Gates and Co. can stop complaining to the government now about how they need help getting lower-paid foreign engineers and hire some of the homegrown boys and girls.
Sorry, I meant "to hear".
Yeah, it got me pretty mad to here that they've replaced "start with Pascal and eventually move on to C" or just "start with C" to "start with Java and never ween them off it". I swear they must be trying to dumb down the next generation of coders.
People will only work on open-source projects in a given language if the project and language are worth using. So in order to determine which language(s) {Perl,Python,PHP,Java} holds water, check the number of open source projects and their activity levels for each and compare them.
I guess I should call Granma now and ask how much money she's made off of Google stock.
Why? Because both are bloated as hell and take up too much harddisk space. Myabe that's why.
Welcome to the real world, oh guru of University-Run Scientific Management. Here, normal people get to have opinions.
I really don't know why I would want to pay tons of money so I could read Slashdot on the toilet.
God damnit, is that horrible website the only one to have BNW online? Oy gevalt.
What the grandparent said. Everyone in my family has/had their own cell phone, and we've never needed kid-tracking stuff. The phones don't even have GPS.