On Fri, Apr 21, 2000 at 11:20:55PM +0200, "Martin v. Loewis"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was heard to say:
> > > Just to disturb an urban legend: Windows NT is *not* based on Mach
> > > technology.
> [...]
> > Ignoring these people, one can just look under the hood of NT: it is clear
> > that many of the techniques developed by the CMU Mach group are present.
> > I feel that once you have taken a peek, it will be hard to ignore its
> > microkernel heritage.
>
> I don't argue whether NT is a microkernel system, and it may be
> "influenced" by Mach. It's just the claim that "based on" that I think
> is totally incorrect. I doubt that a single line of Mach is found in
> the Windows NT kernel. To quote Helen Custer, from "Inside Window NT"
[snip]
> So while Microsoft thinks NT is a microkernel system, and while the
> microkernel idea was pioneered in CMU Mach, NT is hardly "based on"
> the Mach. This is like says "the German constitution is based on the
> British constitution", just because the British constitution was
> first. Can you give a single example for a Mach system interface that
> is also found in Windows NT (with similar operation names, and
> parameter types)?
I think the two of you are in violent agreement. :-)
If the writers of the German constitution drew many of their ideas from,
say, the British constitution, then yes, I would say that the German
constitution would be based on the British, even if there was not a single word
directly taken from it. (I don't know what's true in fact..) The American
constitution (to take another example) was based on many ideas of the French
Enlightenment. Linux was based on UNIX kernels.
Please don't keep arguing over semantics.
Daniel
PS - I don't know whether NT is really based on Mach, but everything that
*both* participants in this thread have said supports that statement
in my opinion. But like I said, this is really an argument over the
semantics of the idiom "based on" rather than an argument over the
design of NT..
--
"People would panic?"
"Very briefly, I'm afraid."
-- The dangers of colliding with a star examined;
Terry Pratchett, _The Light Fantastic_
