On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 3:04 AM, Thomas Kern<[email protected]> wrote:

> Back to the linux implementation, I don't think it has to be something
> invasive that requires acceptance from all the x86 linux authorities,

One of the risks of single operating system for multiple platforms is
that you end up restricting yourself to only supporting the function
that all platforms have in common. Or in the case of Linux, because of
the pure numbers: when it is also available and needed on x86. When
many developers have their fingers in the code, it is very hard to
justify complicating the code just for a small percentage of the
installations. That's why CMM-2 ended up the way it did.

And it turns out that the requirements in those areas are also
different. If you're used to dedicated hardware and consider "top"
your main/only source of information, then you probably don't worry
about capture ratio of process usage accounting. Why else do you think
we find the bugs in Linux process accounting.

The same thing also happens on application level. When the vendor
decides to use a single source for his application on different
operating systems, the easiest approach is to "dumb down" the OS
interface to the minimum supported anywhere. So instead of proper
inter-process communication, we find the application polling. By the
time the application is used on shared hardware and it causes
performance issues, it is too late to change the design.

Rob
--
Rob van der Heij
Velocity Software
http://www.velocitysoftware.com/

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