7 Jan
2019
7 Jan
'19
12:41 a.m.
Been wanting to wade into this for a few days but needed to think about how.
I think that we're all aware that RMS has atrocious personal habits. But I
don't think that this mailing list is the place to discuss them unless it's
somehow in the context of UNIX.
Many seem to excuse RMS's revisionist view of the history of technology on
the grounds that RMS claims that his memory isn't very good. I think that
if he knows that he doesn't remember things then he should refrain from
talking about them as if he does.
As others have said, I don't conflate coding prowess with the ability to
design. I've had many an argument with John Gilmore (one of the people
who doesn't mind footing the cleaning and repair bill after allowing RMS
to stay at his place) where he begins with "When I wrote GNU tar..." I've
always responded by saying that writing tar is no big deal; the specification
was the hard part.
One place where I completely disagree with RMS that I think is in context
for this list is his claim that Linux should be called GNU/Linux. I've
written tons of software in my life, and I don't preface the name of each
one with the parts list.
Even if one believed that such an attribution scheme made sense, I would
claim that it should be called internet/Linux. I would argue that Linux
would not have happened without the internet making it possible for folks
around the world to participate. And I think that there's a good chance
that the tools would have been created anyway.
Of course, I acknowledge that the GNU tools have been ported to Linux.
Big deal. I haven't seen RMS arguing for GNU/Windows now that Microsoft
has seen the light.
Like many of you, Linux is not where I first started using GNU tools; I
started using them on my Sun machines after Sun started charging extra
for the compiler and included a licensing system that was broken and often
interfered with getting work done.
Jon
7 Jan
7 Jan
2:29 a.m.
New subject: Isaacson v Unix [really RMS bashing]
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 7:43 PM Jon Steinhart <jon(a)fourwinds.com wrote
<snip
I would argue that Linux would not have happened
without the internet
> making it possible for folks around the world to participate. And I think
> that there's a good chance that the tools would have been created anyway.
That's more or less how I look at it. Back in the day there was
comp.sources.unix for example. In Unix itself, there was /usr/ where tools
developed by users other than the core developers belonged, and there was
/usr/ucb/ where they put stuff from Berkeley. The culture surrounding Unix
has always seemed to encourage outside participation, going back to the
lenient licensing of Research Unix, and even before that, when it just
existed at Murray Hill.
2:59 a.m.
New subject: Isaacson v Unix [really RMS bashing]
On Sun, 6 Jan 2019, A. P. Garcia wrote:
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 7:43 PM Jon Steinhart
<jon(a)fourwinds.com wrote
<snip
I would argue that Linux would not have
happened without the internet
> making it possible for folks around the world to participate. And I think
> that there's a good chance that the tools would have been created anyway.
That's more or less how I look at it. Back in the day there was
comp.sources.unix for example. In Unix itself, there was /usr/ where tools
developed by users other than the core developers belonged, and there was
/usr/ucb/ where they put stuff from Berkeley. The culture surrounding Unix
has always seemed to encourage outside participation, going back to the
lenient licensing of Research Unix, and even before that, when it just
existed at Murray Hill.
If not for GNU, Unix would still have been cloned. Net/2 happened in
parallel, did it not?
-uso.
3:39 a.m.
New subject: Isaacson v Unix [really RMS bashing]
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 7:06 PM Steve Nickolas <usotsuki(a)buric.co wrote:
On Sun, 6 Jan 2019, A. P. Garcia wrote:
That's more or less how I look at it. Back in the day there was
comp.sources.unix for example. In Unix itself, there was /usr/ where tools
Berkeley actively rewrote most of unix yes. Net/1 was released about the
same time GNU was getting started. Net/2 and later 4.4 BSD continued this
trend, where 4.4 was finally a complete system. BSD386 only lagged Linux by
about a year and had much stronger networking support, but supported fewer
obscure devices than linux...
Warner
Ps I know this glosses over a lot, and isn't intended to be pedantic as to
who got where first. Only they were about the same time... and I'm
especially glossing over the AT&T suits, etc.
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 7:43 PM Jon Steinhart
<jon(a)fourwinds.com wrote
<snip
I would argue that Linux would not have
happened without the internet
> making it possible for folks around the world to participate. And I
think
> that there's a good chance that the
tools would have been created
anyway.
developed by users other than the core developers
belonged, and there was
/usr/ucb/ where they put stuff from Berkeley. The culture surrounding
Unix
has always seemed to encourage outside
participation, going back to the
lenient licensing of Research Unix, and even before that, when it just
existed at Murray Hill.
If not for GNU, Unix would still have been cloned. Net/2 happened in
parallel, did it not?
3:59 a.m.
New subject: Isaacson v Unix [really RMS bashing]
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 9:39 PM Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 7:06 PM Steve Nickolas <usotsuki(a)buric.co wrote:
It's really hard to say. How would you compile it? Clang didn't come along
until 2007. The Amsterdam Compiler Kit, perhaps?
On Sun, 6 Jan 2019, A. P. Garcia wrote:
If not for GNU, Unix would still have been cloned. Net/2 happened in
parallel, did it not?
Berkeley actively rewrote most of unix yes. Net/1 was released about the
same time GNU was getting started. Net/2 and later 4.4 BSD continued this
trend, where 4.4 was finally a complete system. BSD386 only lagged Linux by
about a year and had much stronger networking support, but supported fewer
obscure devices than linux...
Warner
Ps I know this glosses over a lot, and isn't intended to be pedantic as to
who got where first. Only they were about the same time... and I'm
especially glossing over the AT&T suits, etc.
4:32 a.m.
New subject: Isaacson v Unix [really RMS bashing]
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 7:59 PM A. P. Garcia <a.phillip.garcia(a)gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 9:39 PM Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com wrote:
The portable c compiler PCC was used to bootstrap a lot of this. It kinda
sucked, but was decent enough. Early unix vendors used it on a variety of
platforms. Here different universities produced different back ends. But
there was no central clearing house. Gcc was a bit innovative in that it
provided that, which allowed people to cooperate enough to make it better
than PCC, at first. Then better or comparable to vendor compilers.
Competition with gcc in large measure drove Sun to unbundle its compilers
so there was a revenue stream that could be pointed at technology
improvements. Somewhere between 4.3 and 4.4 BSD started using gcc over pcc
since it was easier to distribute. The gnu project was important, but not
because it rewrote the kernel. It provided the enabling compilers for
that...
Warner
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 7:06 PM Steve Nickolas <usotsuki(a)buric.co wrote:
It's really hard to say. How would you compile it? Clang didn't come along
until 2007. The Amsterdam Compiler Kit, perhaps?
On Sun, 6 Jan 2019, A. P. Garcia wrote:
If not for GNU, Unix would still have been cloned. Net/2 happened in
parallel, did it not?
Berkeley actively rewrote most of unix yes. Net/1 was released about the
same time GNU was getting started. Net/2 and later 4.4 BSD continued this
trend, where 4.4 was finally a complete system. BSD386 only lagged Linux by
about a year and had much stronger networking support, but supported fewer
obscure devices than linux...
Warner
Ps I know this glosses over a lot, and isn't intended to be pedantic as
to who got where first. Only they were about the same time... and I'm
especially glossing over the AT&T suits, etc.
6:05 a.m.
New subject: Isaacson v Unix [really RMS bashing]
On 2019-01-06 9:59 PM, A. P. Garcia wrote:
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 9:39 PM Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com
<mailto:imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 7:06 PM Steve Nickolas <usotsuki(a)buric.co
<mailto:usotsuki@buric.co> wrote:
On Sun, 6 Jan 2019, A. P. Garcia wrote:
If not for GNU, Unix would still have been cloned. Net/2
happened in
parallel, did it not?
Berkeley actively rewrote most of unix yes. Net/1 was released about
the same time GNU was getting started. Net/2 and later 4.4 BSD
continued this trend, where 4.4 was finally a complete system.
BSD386 only lagged Linux by about a year and had much stronger
networking support, but supported fewer obscure devices than linux...
Warner
Ps I know this glosses over a lot, and isn't intended to be pedantic
as to who got where first. Only they were about the same time... and
I'm especially glossing over the AT&T suits, etc.
It's really hard to say. How would you compile it? Clang didn't come
along until 2007. The Amsterdam Compiler Kit, perhaps?
If you're asking about non-gcc ANSI C compilers? There were dozens;
sometimes several per platform. One random example was lcc* (1994). And
of course the vendor compilers at which gcc specifically took aim.
There were also quite a number of non-GNU C++ compilers.
--Toby
* - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCC_(compiler)
6:36 a.m.
New subject: Isaacson v Unix [really RMS bashing]
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019 at 9:01 PM A. P. Garcia <a.phillip.garcia(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 9:39 PM Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com wrote:
I find it ironic that BSD people are so quick to bash RMS, yet they
have been using his tools (gcc and various utils) for years... By
reading this thread it appears there are more people that have
personal issues with RMS than technical ones. I find usually there
are two sides to each story though.
One side is eloquently presented in 2001 movie "Revolution OS"[1]
starring RMS amongst others.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vW62KqKJ5A
--Andy
--Andy
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 7:06 PM Steve Nickolas <usotsuki(a)buric.co wrote:
It's really hard to say. How would you compile it? Clang didn't come along
until 2007. The Amsterdam Compiler Kit, perhaps?
On Sun, 6 Jan 2019, A. P. Garcia wrote:
If not for GNU, Unix would still have been cloned. Net/2 happened in
parallel, did it not?
Berkeley actively rewrote most of unix yes. Net/1 was released about the same time GNU
was getting started. Net/2 and later 4.4 BSD continued this trend, where 4.4 was finally a
complete system. BSD386 only lagged Linux by about a year and had much stronger networking
support, but supported fewer obscure devices than linux...
Warner
Ps I know this glosses over a lot, and isn't intended to be pedantic as to who got
where first. Only they were about the same time... and I'm especially glossing over
the AT&T suits, etc.
2:38 a.m.
New subject: Isaacson v Unix [really RMS bashing]
On 2019-01-06 6:41 PM, Jon Steinhart wrote:
...
As others have said, I don't conflate coding prowess with the ability to
design. I've had many an argument with John Gilmore (one of the people
who doesn't mind footing the cleaning and repair bill after allowing RMS
to stay at his place) where he begins with "When I wrote GNU tar..."
I've
always responded by saying that writing tar is no big deal; the specification
was the hard part.
Hear, hear. I'd aver this is very much the case in any typical
software-related day job, and _definitely_ mine.
--Toby
3:11 a.m.
New subject: Isaacson v Unix [really RMS bashing]
On Sun, Jan 06, 2019 at 08:38:45PM -0500, Toby Thain wrote:
On 2019-01-06 6:41 PM, Jon Steinhart wrote:
Yep. The spec is hard, the code is easy. That is a pattern.
I've been the guy behind decent sized projects, BitKeeper is 2673371
lines of code. Getting to a spec was hard, writing the code was easy.
We were a tiny distributed team of about 10 engineers, the hard part was
agreeing on a design. Which we did by getting on the phone and talking
about what we talked about yesterday. We passed the idea between people
and when we could do the pass back and forth and nothing had changed
from the previous pass, we had a design. Coding that was just typing.
It's very similar to what Udi Manber told me as an under grad, he said
writing papers is easy. Not for me. But I came to understand that
papers are two things: a big base of knowledge and an outline. If you
have those two then the paper is just typing. He was right.
...
As others have said, I don't conflate coding prowess with the ability to
design. I've had many an argument with John Gilmore (one of the people
who doesn't mind footing the cleaning and repair bill after allowing RMS
to stay at his place) where he begins with "When I wrote GNU tar..."
I've
always responded by saying that writing tar is no big deal; the specification
was the hard part.
Hear, hear. I'd aver this is very much the case in any typical
software-related day job, and _definitely_ mine.
3:31 a.m.
New subject: Isaacson v Unix [really RMS bashing]
On Sun, Jan 6, 2019, 9:12 PM Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 06, 2019 at 08:38:45PM -0500, Toby Thain
wrote:
Yep. The spec is hard, the code is easy. That is a pattern.
I've been the guy behind decent sized projects, BitKeeper is 2673371
lines of code. Getting to a spec was hard, writing the code was easy.
We were a tiny distributed team of about 10 engineers, the hard part was
agreeing on a design. Which we did by getting on the phone and talking
about what we talked about yesterday. We passed the idea between people
and when we could do the pass back and forth and nothing had changed
from the previous pass, we had a design. Coding that was just typing.
It's very similar to what Udi Manber told me as an under grad, he said
writing papers is easy. Not for me. But I came to understand that
papers are two things: a big base of knowledge and an outline. If you
have those two then the paper is just typing. He was right.
Coming back full circle, maybe the person with the right viewpoint was
actually RMS. It's not about the technology. It's not about the code or the
spec. Maybe it really is about the freedoms that he talks about. Maybe if
bit keeper were FOSS from the start, the world would be using that instead
of git. But where would be the value proposition in that? It's a tough
question.
On 2019-01-06 6:41 PM, Jon Steinhart wrote:
> ...
> As others have said, I don't conflate coding prowess with the ability
to
> design. I've had many an argument with
John Gilmore (one of the people
> who doesn't mind footing the cleaning and repair bill after allowing
RMS
> to stay at his place) where he begins with
"When I wrote GNU tar..."
I've
> always responded by saying that writing tar
is no big deal; the
specification
was the
hard part.
Hear, hear. I'd aver this is very much the case in any typical
software-related day job, and _definitely_ mine.
2142
days inactive
2143
days old
10 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
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A. P. Garcia -
Andy Kosela -
Jon Steinhart -
Larry McVoy -
Steve Nickolas -
Toby Thain -
Warner Losh