Re: VSTa

[josh <xjharding@newbedford.k12.ma.us> writes:]

>Hello. I was looking through Altavista the other day for a Plan9 variant that
>was free, and I stumbled across VSTa, but from the looks of your web page, it
>looks rather dead. Is there any work going on still? If there is, I might be
>willing to keep your web page up to date. It seems like a very worthy project,
>mainly because I think Linux has grown too big and lost that sense of
>community. I would also be interested in doing a Perl port if there is 3c509
>ethernet driver, as my only box left is a 386sx33 with such an adaptor.

VSTa has pretty much coasted to a halt. In a couple of years I'll
probably be able to retire (economy willing), and then I'll probably pick
up VSTa and take it to the next level. Very likely this will de-emphasize
the UNIX source port nature and emphasize more a next generation platform
approach. For instance, www.squeak.org is a very powerful Smalltalk
implementation which might make a nice starting point for all upper level
functions. Imagine where the VSTa kernel runs the disks, ticks the clock,
and so forth, and then Squeak powers all the upper level
protocols--windowing, mail, UI, graphics, browser, web server, and so
forth.

Or perhaps there's a better approach. But in any case, I really doubt at
this stage of the industry that there's much to be gained by trying to
look enough like Linux that you can try and port Linux's applications onto
Yet Another Free OS. Linux has that front covered, so my interest is in
moving out into more speculative areas.

For the time being I would welcome help in maintaining the web pages. One
benefit of tending our little campfire is that there are a number of
educational institutions which use VSTa in OS courses now and then.

                                                        Regards,
                                                        Andy Valencia
Received on Mon Apr 19 11:52:46 1999