From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 31602 invoked from network); 9 Feb 2021 02:05:36 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 9 Feb 2021 02:05:36 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id B6EC09C9A9; Tue, 9 Feb 2021 12:05:33 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 54D369BA47; Tue, 9 Feb 2021 12:05:01 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 294619BA47; Tue, 9 Feb 2021 12:04:58 +1000 (AEST) X-Greylist: delayed 313 seconds by postgrey-1.36 at minnie.tuhs.org; Tue, 09 Feb 2021 12:04:56 AEST Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu [18.9.28.11]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B88A49BA43 for ; Tue, 9 Feb 2021 12:04:56 +1000 (AEST) Received: from cwcc.thunk.org (pool-72-74-133-215.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [72.74.133.215]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id 1191xd32003174 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Mon, 8 Feb 2021 20:59:40 -0500 Received: by cwcc.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id 501E115C3708; Mon, 8 Feb 2021 20:59:39 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2021 20:59:39 -0500 From: "Theodore Ts'o" To: Justin Coffey Message-ID: References: <20210208182123.GI13701@mcvoy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Subject: Re: [TUHS] Macs and future unix derivatives X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: TUHS main list Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On Mon, Feb 08, 2021 at 10:32:03AM -0800, Justin Coffey wrote: > This describes pretty much every project I've ever worked on. It starts > small, with a manageable feature set and a clean and performant codebase > and then succumbs to external pressure for features and slowly bloats. If > the features prove useful then the project will live on of course (and > those features may well be the reason the project lives on), but at some > point the bloat and techdebt become the dominant development story. The problem is users all want a different set of features. One person's "small and clean" is another person's "missing critical feature". This is one of the problems which the Linux enterprise distro's see. Everyone wants everything to stay the same --- except for their own pet feature. Or because they want their new hardware (say, NVMe, which wasn't present in the version of the Linux kernel that was frozen for the enterprise distro three years ago). Ultimately, the reason why you can't have what you want boils down to sheer economics. If you want to pay a small team to give you exactly what you want, but nothing else, then sure, you can have what you want. If you and two dozen want _exactly_ the same thing, then it will be a lot cheaper. But if you want something which is free as in beer, or even the cost of iOS, then it needs to have all of the features and hardware support for a much larger set of customers. It's interesting that some folks are complaining about "elistism"; but they don't seem to recognize that asking for something super small and clean, that is inherently elitist. I also suspect they don't *actually* want something _that_ small, in terms of feature set. Do they *really* want something which is just V7 Unix, with nothing else? No TCP/IP, no hot-plug USB support? No web browsing? If so, it shouldn't be that hard to squeeze a PDP-11 into a laptop form factor, and they can just run V7 Unix. Easy-peasy! Oh, you wanted more than that? Feature bloat! Feature bloat! Feature bloat! Shame! Shame! Shame! - Ted