The lessons of yesteryear's OS are getting lost in translation.
This is by me on El Reg, and it's part 2 of this year's FOSDEM talk. It will (I hope!) make more sense in context with the rest.
This is by me on El Reg, and it's part 2 of this year's FOSDEM talk. It will (I hope!) make more sense in context with the rest.
Maybe read “Worse is Better” before writing part 3.
And “Unix” is orthogonal with FLOSS.
Sorry to be such a downer — been reading el reg since it started.
Way ahead o' ya, kid.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/25/the_war_of_the_workst...
Note that this is loosely based on part of a FOSDEM talk I gave 4 years ago.
Your headings are
What is 'Unix' anyway?
Generations and the gaps between
Turn it up to 11
I believe your ultimate point is about Wayland and perhaps that it should follow everything-is-a-file. But that comes so late in the article that you barely give it a passing mention, and it isn't consistent with the premise of the article.
Nah. :-) I am not terribly interested in Wayland, myself, and I suspect that in the fullness of time it will turn out to be a not-very-interesting blind alley.
« This article is the second based on The Reg FOSS desk's talk at FOSDEM 2024 (part 1 was Drowning in code). »
That para contains hyperlinks to both.
The talk was a couple of weeks ago now and is already online:
https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3095-one-...
You can read the script if you want.
The title of the OP is "Forgetting the history of Unix is coding us into a corner." At no point do you explain who is forgetting what lessons, or why such forgetting is coding us into a corner.
In any case, the history is interesting and clearly well-researched. I offer as constructive criticism that your structure and clarity could benefit from continued editing.
A title that reflects the laundry list of topics:
Background Relevant to Revisiting Unix: The Tree of Unixes, Different Kernel Approaches, and the Baked But Broken "Everything is a File" Assumption
I beg to differ. This is part 2 of an estimated 4. They are heavily interdependent; a talk is, of necessity, linear.
> nor does it excuse rambling.
Guilty as charged.
My plan was 3 parts, but this section would have been circa 3½ thousand words, which is way too long, so I cut it in approximately half. Currently I think there'll be 4 parts, probably published over the next 2 weeks.
And, as I said, if you want to skip to the end, the script is right there, but it's not as coherent as something intended to be read would be.
P.S. Thanks for the comments!
Sadly deadlines in online publishing come twice a day, and thus, on average, I only have 4 hours to bash an article into shape.
As Blaise Pascal wrote in 1657: “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter."
Or, as Churchill allegedly said:
"If you want me to speak for two minutes, it will take me three weeks of preparation. If you want me to speak for thirty minutes, it will take me a week to prepare. If you want me to speak for an hour, I am ready now."
So maybe the biggest problem here was just posting this on HN prematurely, maybe it would have worked better if you'd waited until the whole thing had been published.
The talk was a couple of weeks ago now and is already online: https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3095-one-...
I linked to it in the first paragraph. You can read the script if you want.
Redox, OTOH, no: it does not even enter into it. Although I do not address it, if pressed, I might concede that if there is a Rust involvement, it's R9, the successor to Harvey OS.
Thanks!
I had some great feedback from some 9Front folks and ended up meeting up with a bunch of them after the event.
Given that I was half-expecting a lynch mob, this was a very pleasant surprise indeed... ;-)