From: hayes@cps.msu.edu.cps.msu.edu (Hayes John H) Subject: Re: Creeping featursm (Was: Re: ANNOUNCE: linux-0.99 patchlevel 3) Date: 14 Jan 1993 15:02:12 GMT
In article <JEM.93Jan14151001@vipunen.hut.fi> jem@vipunen.hut.fi (Johan Myreen) writes:
>In article <jpo.726998071@hrz.tu-chemnitz.de> jpo@kappa.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de (Joerg Pommnitz) writes:
>
>>Some days ago Peter MacDonald wrote, that he had included
>>the ipcbeta patches to the SLS release.
>>Isn't it time to make this beast part of the standard kernel ?
>>It will become harder and harder to apply these patches,
>>if the kernel changes more and more.
>>I think, having shared memory, message queues and semaphores
>>isn't such a bad idea.
>
>Linus is of course the definite authority on this, but I'd like to add
>my two cents. I think there should be some limit to what gets added to
>Linux; does it really need everything? If I remember correctly, one of
>the goals Linus had was to keep Linux a small and simple, but Posix
>compatible kernel.
>
>We don't want Linux to become a new AIX, do we?
>
>If Peter MacDonald distributes a kernel different from the "standard"
>kernel (Linus' version), then I think it is questionable if that
>kernel is Linux at all.
>
>--
>Johan Myreen
>jem@cs.hut.fi
I don't see anything wrong with added features - as long as they are
standard, meaning that they are agreed upon by the designer. Three
different versions of Linux with different added features could become
confusing - especially the way Linux is developing.
If the features are included as a standard to Linux ( as opposed to a
particular version of Linux ) what could be wrong with that? What if it
is supposed to be a small kernel? Make it a small kernel with respect to
the features that it has, not a small kernel just for the sake of making
it small ( and by sacrificing all sorts of utility ).
I like the idea of message queues, semaphores etc.
John Hayes
jhh@scss3.cl.msu.edu