I thought there were already an open-source microkernel being used out there: Darwin's Mach, deeply buried into every Mac OS X.
On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 7:11 PM, John Moser <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Patrick Goetz <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Subject: Re: Supporting a GNU Hurd port? > >> From: John Moser <[email protected]> > >> Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 10:07:44 -0500 > >> > >> you know the microkernel arguments, and they're actually > >> pretty considerable. The idea of a system that's easier to maintain > >> (face it, operating systems are huge now; smaller chunks are easier) > >> and self-error-correcting (MULTICS did it, Minix does it) is not > >> really far fetched > > > > If this were really true, why has it taken so long to get GNU Hurd into > > an even vaguely functional state? > > > > Or Minix for that matter. > > Lack of interest doesn't mean lack of practicalability. Why did it > take so long to get an airplane? DaVinci thought we could fly, Edison > was the only person working on the light bulb. Most major surgical or > pharmapseutical treatments today were considered impossible and not > worth investigating at some point, aside from by one person or firm. > > Again, I only submit that statemets like "This is a useless waste of > resources" in this particular topic are impossible to validate in > either direction. We are in a state of waiting for somebody else with > minimal commercial interest and minimal general visibility to prove or > disprove this for us. Consider the two major options here? > > GNU HURD is a joke, GNU is a political entity and not a technical one, > and their driver is pushing the political agenda of the FSF rather > than making their technical product popular (much less finishing it). > There's no reason for GNU to ever finish HURD, when they can drive > people towards Linux, built on their compiler, with their userland, > with a kernel that falls under their license and thus is valid in > their philosophy. > > Minix, the only other visible "Next Big Thing" shift if microkernels > are the next big thing, is a research OS now in its third stage, which > happens to be "make an actual, practical operating system." This > happens to be condusive to our needs: one day Minix will be a viable > alternative, probably at the core of a shakey Debian system it's > wedged under, and we can see how that goes. Unfortunately, it's also > driven by the specific purpose of teaching a bunch of students about > operating systems; this isn't a huge, widely visible, well-funded > (either by money or popularity drawing engineers) project that's going > to get drilled through hard and fast. It won't be 2, 3, 5 years; > it'll be 10, 15, 20 years. > > > Speaking as a mathematician, a good rule of thumb to keep in mind at all > > times: theory != reality. > > > > No kidding. Be mindful that goes both ways. > > > The linux kernel is an amazingly stable piece of software with a > > mind-numbingly rapid rate of constant revision. There are plenty of > > things in Ubuntu that could use some attention (gnome comes to mind > > immediately); the linux kernel is not one of them. > > > > This is actually a core part of my argument: Linux is working, the > fact that HURD or Minix "Could" be better (BSD is irrelevant, we can > see that plainly) is a big step with no -visible- guaranteed or > strongly likely benefit, and thus devotion of engineering resources to > any effort to evaluate and possibly migrate to Minix particularly fall > more towards "lack of clear benefit" rather than the previously stated > "known lack of any benefit." There's a difference. > > I'm not arguing that it's imperitive we move to a microkernel; I'm > just arguing against the arguments made against the move. I know this > seems strange, but to me the argument presented sounds more like dogma > than a real argument; it takes a decision that basically ends with > "this may be interesting but right now we have other, more clearly > beneficial things to do; we may examine this at a later date if it > becomes interesting" and changes it to "no, that's stupid, stop being > an idiot; we should never look at this again." > > For the moment, I think a move to a microkernel would be interesting > as someone's personal side project, and a very valuable effort for > study (we could say this about LOTS of crap we could do but don't due > to lack of perceived benefits, i.e. using something other than gcc); > but I don't believe there's any argument currently that would place > such a thing as an appropriate task for major effort. If it ever > falls into scope, I'll be making feature suggestions that I don't > think are physically possible on a monolythic kernel architecture (at > least, not in any non-hideous way). > > -- > Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss > -- [] Alexandre Strube [email protected]
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