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=-1.1 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID, DKIM_VALID_AU,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 13065 invoked from network); 10 Nov 2022 00:48:12 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 10 Nov 2022 00:48:12 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EBFC240CA7; Thu, 10 Nov 2022 10:47:58 +1000 (AEST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=tuhs.org; s=dkim; t=1668041279; h=from:from:reply-to:reply-to:subject:subject:date:date: message-id:message-id:to:to:cc:cc:mime-version:mime-version: content-type:content-type: content-transfer-encoding:content-transfer-encoding: in-reply-to:in-reply-to:references:references:list-id:list-help: list-owner:list-unsubscribe:list-subscribe:list-post; bh=NeVO5yTt9jlP4YkVk52G5xKfxAV3UFFCiXZxUJ/sZTk=; b=kpluVkrkoU3Z0bEDqVtCjtPPqcG4wIcgQHXBA3+rriQv4BPP3dwzB7nOaZC7TfU8lf/HmA ObmPvXd97JjXC1IIdCoC92Y5EWv58+mThvI6wGlJHhyg5Ljryy0pNcr5RyY0ifFRMz0kPM tHnBA5HFBZmxeVa4YSklHy3Ulp5uoGQ= Received: from mail-40130.protonmail.ch (mail-40130.protonmail.ch [185.70.40.130]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 90AE240131 for ; Thu, 10 Nov 2022 10:47:55 +1000 (AEST) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2022 00:47:37 +0000 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=protonmail.com; s=protonmail3; t=1668041273; x=1668300473; bh=NeVO5yTt9jlP4YkVk52G5xKfxAV3UFFCiXZxUJ/sZTk=; h=Date:To:From:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:In-Reply-To:References: Feedback-ID:From:To:Cc:Date:Subject:Reply-To:Feedback-ID: Message-ID:BIMI-Selector; b=lphnzYm2V/Mski+xjtzbITy2xxGAo3Eta/SRNGpk998o7Y/sXxDNdtYeGZFfEWxW5 ALc4mCLUBMqiG4UAtQLeWvOxvRqe4VrcIAY8tZwneQMB9mIhUbYbLmg9f1HRQBUyyd HtaSm4XQE3pV5Gvl6gB6hqsNlQKbhDJ8Sz5yTgJZfJHiQAFp0OtYT6UE5MX0W4XDOe hOdMlTTa1Tc1XFsim9lit99Jj3mupRHjUc6D1c/anM7L2JR6cm+d0pc4EM+KGOk6BY 1uZCL9L0DvEA/FYoARfERmimHEtqm/EwXU6vfpIFN+yYhl/p0cKH3k3TKm/OWAQL6s Qv7BAk62wKI5g== To: Joseph Holsten Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <314617d9-2e2b-4f88-bce3-ec82e4fb378e@app.fastmail.com> References: <20221109221648.GS6203@mcvoy.com> <314617d9-2e2b-4f88-bce3-ec82e4fb378e@app.fastmail.com> Feedback-ID: 35591162:user:proton MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID-Hash: TLHH7LSLUQSUNESEZS2DPP3HJF43NBCB X-Message-ID-Hash: TLHH7LSLUQSUNESEZS2DPP3HJF43NBCB X-MailFrom: segaloco@protonmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: segaloco X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: [OT?] 1993 'Sourceware' paper anniversary. What was right & any surprises? List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: From: segaloco via TUHS Reply-To: segaloco X-Spam: Yes What I find incredibly interesting any time the concept of fragmentation co= mes up is how did several versions of UNIX with slightly differing interfac= es create such a headache for UNIX vendors and users in the day, but now we= 've got a Linux/BSD landscape out there with still pretty significant diffe= rences between distributions and UNIX's progeny seem to be doing just fine. Were users looking for different things from their computers in the 90s vs = today? Have folks just gotten more used to variability in computing enviro= nments and just accept it as part of the plan? What comes to mind for me is the different init systems, desktop environmen= ts, networking tools, user management tools, and basically that anything th= at isn't lore in POSIX seems to be up in the air these days. However, you = go back to when SVR4 derivatives were king, they all had the same init, the= same useradd, the same /etc/passwd, the same ifconfig. Maybe some of the = snazzier new features were pretty variable, but the most basic stuff like s= tarting your system, creating a user, seeing if you were connected to a net= work, essential administrative functions, were relatively consistent. Nowadays I have to wonder if my init system is runlevel based or some syste= md monstrosity. I have to question whether I can rely on useradd or some o= ther tool being present or if I should forgo it all and just edit the /etc = files directly. Heck, I couldn't say which but I seem to recall a distro I= played around with in the past year where this actually didn't work, I had= to research whatever arcane user management tools they shipped with that o= ne because whatever they chose broke with convention so much. I have to pr= ay it has ifconfig or else go look up the docs for iproute2 and iw because = nobody can make up their mind on what to replace ifconfig with, just that i= t has to go and replacing it haphazardly and non-universally is better than= fixing/modernizing it. Not looking to start some great debate over which of these components is id= eal of course, just remarking at the fact that in the early 90s, if you wer= e on a contemporary UNIX system, you'd probably have no trouble modifying s= ystem init, adding users, networks, etc., but today I sit down at an unknow= n Linux machine and I have no confidence that the particular flavor of syst= em administration that I'm used to will be even remotely represented in the= subset of tools that particular distro ships. Luckily, it's free, so perh= aps that is what has made the difference, folks are more willing to deal wi= th variability when they aren't paying for what should be a consistent expe= rience, but regardless, the fragmentation in Linux world today feels like i= t is much more severe than UNIX was in the past, but that's also looking th= rough a lens upon a time I certainly wasn't cognizant of this stuff in. Anywho, that was definitely an informative read, thanks for the share. As = someone who is constantly trying to dial in my own personal Linux distro, t= he questions of standardization and uniformity feature in my mind often. - Matt G. ------- Original Message ------- On Wednesday, November 9th, 2022 at 2:51 PM, Joseph Holsten wrote: > On Wed, Nov 9, 2022, at 14:16, Larry McVoy wrote: >=20 > > On Thu, Nov 10, 2022 at 09:01:42AM +1100, steve jenkin wrote: > >=20 > > > I???ve only recently stumbled across this paper. > > >=20 > > > It gives the answer to one question I???ve had: > > >=20 > > > Why did Linux become more popular than everything that came before it= ? > >=20 > > Yeah, that was a difficult time. My boss, Ken Okin (SVP of all server > > hardware) didn't like the switch from SunOS to SVR4 any more than I did= . > > He paid me to go argue with the execs for 6 months. That paper was > > the result. > >=20 > > It obviously went nowhere and Linux won. Big surprise. > >=20 > > The one thing I learned in that 6 months was respect for the execs. > > As an engineer, I had the luxury of taking the time to solve a problem = and > > know that I solved it correctly. The execs didn't have that. They had > > to make decisions essentially with their gut, they couldn't afford the > > time to figure out the right answer, they had to come up with the right > > answer on the fly. I don't think I could do that. >=20 >=20 > It=E2=80=99s painful to look at where (Open)Solaris was when Oracle acqui= red it and where it is now. SMF, Zones, ZFS, dtrace, mdb. Oracle Cloud does= n=E2=80=99t use Solaris for anything. I can=E2=80=99t recall hearing anyone= using dtrace or ZFS around the place. >=20 > Meanwhile, illumos derivs have actually done interesting things. Not that= NexenStor or SmartOS have made a big dent, but at least they=E2=80=99ve ha= d more recent ideas to copy. >=20 > -- > Joseph Holsten > http://josephholsten.com > mailto:joseph@josephholsten.com > tel:+1-360-927-7234