There has been a lot of talk about ancient unix
lately. I do know there are quite a few ports for the
ancient unix but the main question is it legal? It is
possible to port and distribute the port without the
warth of the company that owns the IP?
Regards,
John Chung
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Waddayamean?
I mean: what does it mean to you 'the spirit of
ancient
Unix'?
If by that you mean the fact that they were simple,
slim and efficient, doing one simple thing and doing
it right, you may then consider the effort by
ast in the 80's with MINIX. OK, it used it's own
microkernel, but the basic idea is the same... and has
been followed on by Mach, BSD-lites, Flex, MacOS X,
Tru64, Linux on L4, etc...
As a matter of fact I always felt UNIX after v7 got it
wrong: e.g. network data is no longer another stream
(I'd have loved it to be a file system with
directories
representing network addresses and ports being files
or
pipes). Thus, later unices increased complexity by
abandoning the simlicity of the original design. If
that is the case, Plan 9 is a good update. And so is
Inferno.
Actually, I always felt that many additions to UNIX
might have been better implemented outside the kernel
if only the kernel had been expanded to allow
user-mode
expansions. But that's already here with kernel
modules
in Linux, BSDs, Solaris, etc... which are becoming
more
and more microkernelized each day. As microkernels
become bigger :-)
OTOH, if you mean adding 'modern' services, perhaps
QNX
is doing it with its support for Real-time. Or adding
dynamic libraries, networking, modern virtual memory
(beyond swapping), etc... which at the plainest level
is what more or less likeably all modern UNIX have
done.
Extending into the future? Distributed computing,
clusters, etc? Like some commercial UNIX, Amoeba,
Inferno and the like?
If you only mean resurrecting these ancient UNIX on
modern hardware, there have been initiatives to
rewrite
v7 alike systems for other architectures (say OMU,
UZI,
MINIX, Coherent, Xinu, etc.). But for that you already
have emulators that provide you the original flavor at
even higher speeds in a virtualized environment.
So? waddayamean?
I think the answer to your question is YES! Lots of
people have tried to improve ancient UNIX more or less
successfully, and many people is still trying, using
microkernels, no-kernels, adding RT, VM, dynamic
libraries, kernel modules, etc... Each with their own
approach.
This said, if I were to pick an initiative that gets
closest to the wishes of the original designers, that
should undoubtedly be Plan 9 and its successor,
Inferno, as they are what the 'Original Designers'
themselves have done when they tried to repeat it
doing
it 'right' (or at least better) no matter what my
personal opinions regarding the issue may be.
Regarding my opinion, yes, I would go for the good old
leather-bound days of IBM mainframes with MVS. (zOS?)
which oddly enough are finally reaching the rest of us
with Xen and emulators like QEMU. If I were to wish,
I'd like a no-kernel approach (everything independent,
cooperating, hot-substitutable, fully migratable
processes) over a virtualizing system that allows me
to
run several OSs and update/change any OS component on
the fly without service interruption, and to migrate
everything between machines on demand ('cos of
overload
or hw failures or whatever, or just 'cos I wish to).
Now, _that_ would IMHO be close to ultimate OS design:
something that can always be updated on the fly and
may
survive any change, something that can adapt and
evolve
without interruption or even the user noticing. But
that is a complex enough concept to expect most system
programmers to grasp, let alone sysadmins, programmers
or users not to pervert. Not to talk of salesmen and
marketroids!
j
--
Jose R. Valverde
EMBnet/CNB
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Bill Cunningham:
Has anyone had the idea to take the ancient unix, at least in spirit
into the modern age?
Warren Toomey:
Plan 9?
=======
Plan 9 is to UNIX as SVr4.2.2.2.2.2.2 is to Sixth Edition.
If that's the spirit of the modern age, give me the good
old leather-bound days, without all that modern rhythm-
type dancing and hooting and waving.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
PS: This message is not intended to supply the minimum
daily requirement of serious thought. Consult your doctor
or pharmacist, but not the one that just sent you electronic
junk mail or promises to make explicit drugs fast.
