Date: Sat, 06 Jan 1996 18:12:40 EDT From: "Kaleb S. KEITHLEY" <kaleb@x.org> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: hackers@freefall.FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Demand loading (Re: FreeBSD, Zappa & PCI) Message-ID: <199601062312.XAA18349@exalt.x.org> In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 06 Jan 1996 13:55:27 EDT. <17133.820965327@time.cdrom.com>
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> > Next thing you'll be telling me I don't want a malloc that agressively > > sbrks memory back to the system. I'm the customer damn it. What I want is > > not right or wrong, it's just what I want. If you don't want to give it > > to me, I'm sure I can find someone else who will! Linux perhaps? Linux > > has ELF, Linux has gnumalloc in libc. Gee, Linux looks mighty damn good. > > I think we're getting a little overheated here, Where there's smoke, there's fire. But I don't think it's the same fire you think it is. > perhaps, albeit with > the odd smiley still in attendance. At least you saw them. > Perhaps it's not too late. Never say die. > Look, I don't think that it's worth-while debating the technical > merits of ELF here. I think that, all things considered, it's > probably a better mousetrap than a.out and sort of a moot point in the > comparison anyway since SVR4 and Linux have both adopted it and we're > going to be bombarded with ELF fanatics from now until doomsday until > *some* type of support emerges. Ultimately, the "customers" will win > out. > > However, everything is a question of trade-offs and Kaleb, being from > the X Consortium, should be well aware of that. Hell, being from the > X Consortium, I think he'd be *more* than aware of that. Let's see if > we can't use X itself as something of an analogy: > > <XFLAME> > [ much that's true deleted ] > X is, in short, in almost complete refutation of > every point Kaleb makes about giving the customers what they want! > > </XFLAME> Are you saying that the past sins of the MIT X Consortium somehow make it okay for FreeBSD to make the same mistakes today? For what it's worth, I'll just say that was then, this is now. I'm busting my butt trying to make sure the customers get what they want. So get a new color to paint the X Consortium, Inc., with. > ELF is one of those technologies that may well prove useful to us > someday, but we need to be careful about when we go to it. Right now, > we're just trying to repair our reputation for stability that was > tarnished somewhat in the 2.0 merger and another big shake-up right > now would be really poorly timed. We also need to be wary of adopting > technologies for adopting's sake. I've heard some good reasons why > ELF would be *nice*, but I see no reason why it'd be *necessary* at > this particular point in time. I can think of a lot of other things > that are pretty necessary, however, and it would seem to be an > effective *compromise* to agree to look at those things first. > > As I said, I fully expect Kaleb to be aware of the need to compromise > occasionally.. :) > I never said it had to be *right now*, now did I? I did however sense another episode of "we, the hackers, will decide what's good for the masses." I got it from Andre about a cleaner 8-bit clean libc, I got it from Poul when I wanted agressive sbrking memory back to the OS, and Joerg about the usefulness of ld.so.cache. Three times I've said "it would be better if..." Three times I've had someone from -hackers come back with "no, you don't want that". Well, yes, I do want those things, to the extent that they don't break standards conformance. (See, I did compromise on the 8-bit clean libc stuff. Did I get the rest of what I wanted though?) Is it not surprising that I think I see a pattern emerging? I'm thinking about nominating the lot of you for the ``Gary "I don't want no $12,000,000,000, I just want to fly my plane while the IBM executives sit and wait for me" Kildall award.'' And no, I'm not putting a smiley on it like I did when I made this comment to Joerg in email. Even if I'm not handing you the key to a gigabuck business, maybe the next guy will. Don't go fly your plane when the next guy comes along. And here's a smiley for you. :-) I'll tell you, in the real world, I *never* bother to tell a merchant how to make me a happy customer, I just take my business to the next guy. You should be happy to have "customers" telling you what you need to do to improve the product; it means they care, so you don't need to go on the defensive every time someone makes a suggestion. -- Kaleb "*I* am the customer, damn it" KEITHLEY
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