Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 04:01:30 -0400 From: Joel Ray Holveck <joelh@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 Subject: Re: To UNIX or not to UNIX ;-). Was: PPP problems. Message-ID: <199706160801.EAA18063@ethanol.gnu.ai.mit.edu> In-Reply-To: <18103.866446312@time.cdrom.com> (jkh@time.cdrom.com)
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>> 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, > No, you've only outlined the _goals_. You haven't even come remotely > close to outlining an actual plan yet. ;-) I've been going over plan in my head. I didn't want to start posting thoughts about plan until goals had been made good; a plan to poor goals is pointless, and discussion about a plan to goals that are changing at the moment is even more so. >> 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? >I or someone else just sat down and coded them. Sure, I could have >asked for lots of input and general feedback before doing the package >tools or the ports collection, but then we'd still be talking about it >to this day if I had - see the Grand Unified Console Driver project >for a good example of that process gone deeply wrong. I'm not familiar with this project. Please, tell me more. >I'm normally a big fan of getting lots of input from the crowd, don't >get me wrong, but there are also many instances where this just plain >doesn't work. You either get lots of good ideas which totally [snip] >once with any accuracy - sometimes you have to say "yes, I agree we >need that too, now please shut up so that I can do this other stuff >before the current year is over." :-) Correct. But I am young and inexperienced, and this has been discussed so much, I decided that finding out the result of previous discussion that I may have forgotten would be a good thing to do. >> 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? >I think you already know that - you outlined some of the points more >than reasonably in your "UNIX goals" message which sparked this. What >we need now are more down-to-earth ideas. Right. I've been coming up with some. I wanted to make sure that my goals were sound before trying to implement them. >To draw an analogy, it's as if you have a room full of unwashed >people. No, that's the Linux crowd. [gr&d] >around and saying "my, those folks sure reek, are we all in agreement >that bathing them would be a *really good idea*?" or you can start Actually, the message that the "UNIX goals" was in reply to was instead saying that it would be a bad idea. >So, as I mentioned before, what we've been over so many times are the >goals. We all know we have unwashed people and we all know that >they'd smell a lot better clean. What we need to handle here is the >problem Mike talked about, where one guy stands up and declares "OK, >by god, I've located some plastic piping and I know where the river >is! Who will join me in hooking it all up and creating a pipeline?" >[dead silence] Well, I've volunteered to help, as has one other gentleman other than Mike, I believe. What was it you said about only one or two visionaries getting it started? "Ladies and gentlemen, the supply of great leaders has been canceled due to a shortage of devoted followers." 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
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