From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Jun 15 22:21:36 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA15948 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 15 Jun 1997 22:21:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ethanol.gnu.ai.mit.edu (we-refuse-to-spy-on-our-users@ethanol.gnu.ai.mit.edu [128.52.46.64]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA15940 for ; Sun, 15 Jun 1997 22:21:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: by ethanol.gnu.ai.mit.edu (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) id BAA16712; Mon, 16 Jun 1997 01:21:11 -0400 Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 01:21:11 -0400 Message-Id: <199706160521.BAA16712@ethanol.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com CC: molter@logic.it, adrian@obiwan.psinet.net.au, vas@vas.tomsk.su, chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: <8841.866419524@time.cdrom.com> (jkh@time.cdrom.com) Subject: Re: To UNIX or not to UNIX ;-). Was: PPP problems. From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> * Goals (roughly by importance) >> [ some points, many of which have been covered in previous discussion ] Sorry, I haven't been following -hackers, so this was the first time I hit this thread. I have seen many of the same points made and argued over many times in -chat. >This is all well and good, and we've been here before several times >over the years, but who is going to do the work? Who is going to >write all this nifty GUI stuff which takes over the job done by all of >Windows' nifty GUI stuff for installing and configuring the system? >You? :-) Why not? The reason I wrote up the profile was as the basis of a plan. The reason I asked for refinements is so that the plan can be better. If we can come up with a plan, then I would be glad to design it, and coordinate (and participate on) a team to code it. (Oh, dear, what am I saying?) The projects I see succeed are coordinated, so this has to be people working together, not framentation; otherwise we get Linux. A GUI like this, to work, must be internally consistant, and provide a consistant interface. I want to make sure that the ideas we get will work before I start coding. After that, we can talk about the rest. What made the current distribution/release system work? What about the current package system? How did these things come to be the vital tools they now are? >Seriously, we've come to this stage not once but several times, and if >we've proven anything by the exercise it's that everyone knows just >what UNIX needs to succeed, I'm still a bit unclear. And since I just stuck my foot in the thick of it, then could you please help me see what it needs? >but when it comes down to "OK, so who will >champion this? Who will code up a cohesive framework for others to >follow?" those with the biggest ideas all retreat back into their >corners mumbling things about lacking either time or skill. I don't have the skill... yet. I can design and code fine, but don't know much about X. Still, this can be remedied. By the time the framework is designed and planned, I think I can build up a reasonable level of X skill to get started on that part. >What stops FreeBSD from being the next NeXTStep is not a crisis of >ideas, it's a crisis of coders. Somebody needs to *build* the better >mousetrap before people will come - simply describing the mousetrap to >your audience and telling everyone how good it would be/is going to be >someday is the same mistake that Apple made. What made NeXT popular >is that they understood the need for outright deeds, not words! :) Terrific. I would like to do this. People, look over the goals that I wrote down. Let's modify them, refine them. Then, let me know if you want to help, and how. Happy hacking, joelh -- http://www.wp.com/piquan --- Joel Ray Holveck --- joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu All my opinions are my own, not the Free Software Foundation's. Second law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation -- core dumped