Re: Free Lunches (was: OUTREACH 101)

mark@unicorn.com
Wed, 17 Dec 1997 09:25:58 -0800 (PST)


Personally I've been offered software contracts by people on the Net
who've seen the GNU work I've done in the past; so giving software away
for free certainly can pay.

Eugene Leitl [eugene@liposome.genebee.msu.su] wrote:
>True. But I consider its complexity (it is admittedly a powerful, not a
>pointless complexity) a handicap. It has to be complex to be able to deal
>with barnacle-encrusted mainframe heritage. I'd like OS kernels to have
>10, not 100 kBytes. It is software which constraints hardware, today.

Hmm, you're not trying to imply that Windows, with its DLLs scattered
all over the disk, is less complex than Linux? The last time I installed
Linux I just slapped in a CD-ROM and floppy, booted it up, and that was
pretty much that.

As for kernels, while a microkernel is nice there's little advantage to
the user in just stripping out most of the functionality and putting it
into DLLs. If you want an OS which can readily perform complicated tasks,
you're going to get a complicated OS whether the kernel is 10k or 100k.

Mark