From: krewat@kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Subject: [TUHS] System Economics (was is Linux "officially branded UNIX")
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2017 11:36:21 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <e9f54c27-837b-9e95-1355-47c40a1001dd@kilonet.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20170315143228.GG25424@yeono.kjorling.se>
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You make a valid point, and re-reading what I wrote, I find that I
pushed the example too far :)
The subject was originally that SunOS at it's end-of-life did not have
the features that Linux now does, and comparing their development
lengths brings up an interesting question. What would SunOS have become
if it had been actively developed for as long as Linux has? I was trying
to make the point that SunOS didn't have the same amount of elapsed time
invested in it's development, and yet in fairness it was based on BSD
which adds to that elapsed time significantly.
Off-topic: Anyone ever run SunOS on a Sparc-10 or similar platform
(670?) with two processors? Was it my imagination or did it actually use
both processors?
Side note: I was one of those people who was pulled
kicking-and-screaming into the Solaris (SVR4) world after having
administered SunOS for years.
On 3/15/2017 10:32 AM, Michael Kjörling wrote:
> On 14 Mar 2017 15:48 -0400, from krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat):
>> Again, I'm including everything ... You could make a case for
>> certain Unixes that do not include a pre-existing C compiler being
>> bounded by their own development (or any other operating system that
>> needs a precursor). For example, say there was an operating system
>> that used a C compiler to build itself that was developed 10 years
>> before. That example operating system's timeline would have to
>> include said C compiler IMHO.
>>
>> On the other hand, an operating system who's sole method of creation
>> was engineered in year 0, and was "developed" for 10 years and
>> ended, we could say that OS's timeline was a solid 10 years.
> Then why limit yourself to the C compiler? The operating system
> probably relies on an early bootstrapper layer to start (on the IBM PC
> and similar systems this is the BIOS or more recently UEFI; other
> architectures are similar or different). The code was probably written
> using keyboards, which may or may not rely on firmware for the
> physical key to key code to operating system input mapping, let alone
> the editor and file system code used to store those first few chunks
> of code. And what about the timelines of _those_? At some point the
> system becomes self-hosting in the software sense, but it took work to
> get to that point. And so on.
>
> I think you see where I am heading with this; if we're going to
> include things that were not done specifically for the operating
> system in question, then unless we draw a clear line somewhere, we end
> up with some guy working on vacuum tube theory a century ago and
> _still_ aren't anywhere near an answer to "how long is the timeline of
> this piece of software?". Hence, absent some kind of demarcation, that
> discussion becomes meaningless.
>
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2017-03-15 15:36 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 67+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2017-03-14 14:43 Clem Cole
2017-03-14 15:38 ` Larry McVoy
2017-03-14 15:51 ` Arthur Krewat
2017-03-14 15:56 ` Larry McVoy
2017-03-14 15:57 ` Michael Kjörling
2017-03-14 16:20 ` Arthur Krewat
2017-03-14 18:06 ` Jason Stevens
2017-03-14 18:31 ` Clem Cole
2017-03-14 18:59 ` Jason Stevens
2017-03-14 18:20 ` Clem Cole
2017-03-14 19:48 ` Arthur Krewat
2017-03-15 14:32 ` Michael Kjörling
2017-03-15 15:36 ` Arthur Krewat [this message]
[not found] ` <58c9623b.law1Aw2ufj3DFNA1%schily@schily.net>
2017-03-15 15:54 ` Arthur Krewat
2017-03-15 15:59 ` Larry McVoy
2017-03-15 17:43 ` Warner Losh
2017-03-15 19:02 ` Larry McVoy
2017-03-15 19:14 ` Warner Losh
2017-03-14 18:41 ` Warner Losh
2017-03-17 18:16 ` [TUHS] GNU vs BSD before the lawsuit and before Linux Tony Finch
2017-03-17 18:52 ` Jeremy C. Reed
2017-03-19 7:18 ` arnold
2017-03-19 9:05 ` Wesley Parish
2017-03-19 18:37 ` Warner Losh
2017-03-17 19:54 ` Ron Natalie
2017-03-14 18:18 ` [TUHS] System Economics (was is Linux "officially branded UNIX") Clem Cole
2017-03-14 16:20 ` tfb
2017-03-14 22:45 ` Josh Good
2017-03-15 1:11 ` Clem Cole
2017-03-15 7:55 ` arnold
2017-03-15 19:28 ` Josh Good
2017-03-15 19:35 ` Clem Cole
2017-03-15 20:26 ` Ron Natalie
2017-03-15 23:22 ` 'Josh Good'
2017-03-15 19:45 ` Clem Cole
2017-03-15 20:27 ` Larry McVoy
2017-03-15 20:48 ` Clem Cole
2017-03-15 23:46 ` Arthur Krewat
2017-03-16 0:45 ` Clem Cole
2017-03-16 1:27 ` Steve Nickolas
2017-03-16 3:09 ` Ron Natalie
2017-03-16 3:18 ` Charles Anthony
2017-03-16 3:36 ` Dan Cross
2017-03-16 4:08 ` arnold
2017-03-16 12:51 ` Arthur Krewat
2017-03-16 13:18 ` William Pechter
2017-03-17 21:20 ` Josh Good
2017-03-16 15:42 ` Chet Ramey
2017-03-16 17:29 ` William Pechter
2017-03-15 23:55 ` Josh Good
2017-03-16 0:05 ` William Pechter
2017-03-15 20:08 ` Clem Cole
2017-03-16 0:46 ` Wesley Parish
2017-03-16 0:52 ` Clem Cole
2017-03-16 19:47 ` Dave Horsfall
2017-03-17 2:16 ` Jason Stevens
2017-03-17 15:55 ` Warner Losh
2017-03-17 21:11 ` Dave Horsfall
2017-03-14 19:01 Noel Chiappa
2017-03-14 20:05 Clem Cole
2017-03-14 20:16 ` Arthur Krewat
2017-03-14 20:54 ` Dan Cross
2017-03-14 21:19 ` Clem Cole
2017-03-16 15:40 Norman Wilson
2017-03-16 17:26 ` William Pechter
2017-03-16 18:45 ` Clem Cole
2017-03-16 22:17 ` Dave Horsfall
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