Re: VSTa

Well, one of the important things I would keep in mind is that a) unix started
off as an enviroment for Ken Thompson and crew to continue their development
on the "Space Travel" game. A good deal of the ideas and concepts behind Unix
where adopted to give the Unix developers an enviroment that did not force
them to do things any certain way. Be it a specific language, a specific set
of API's they must use, none of that. C was developed parrallel with Unix and
it to went under the same considerations. That and the fact that the entire
development team where ex-Multics developers made for an enviroment where the
developer could choose from nearly any language they wanted to, and any
library routines. And if they didn't have something they wanted or didn't
like an already existing version they where allowed write it for themselves.

Constraining a developer enviroment to any one language sounds to me like
certain suicide.

Don't forget .. "unix" is nothing more then a license any more. The original
"unix" wasn't allow to be "sold" due to a decree AT&T had signed with the
goverment "restricting" them from selling any product not directly related to
carrier wave or telegraph communication. They where also not allowed to do
business that was not directly related to telephone or telegraph
communication. So Unix was originally distributed at no cost, with only a
small fee apon distribution itself. Before 1978 Unix became so dominant
because it was in all essence "free". Though AT&T still controled source
rights to the entire OS. Later AT&T went on to get that decree thrown out and
suddenly allowed to charge insane license rights for unix. It was thanx to
items such as Minix and BSD that the universities still used a unix enviroment
at all.

Soo .. while I would say "yes" it was thanx to the fact that Linux is a POSIX
compliant OS that "assisted" with an easy transition to using it from higher
priced OS's that contain strict restrictions for ussage. I would also note
that Linux and Unix share a common method for market entry. Free Source. The
only significant differances between them at the time was that AT&T's Unix was
not copyleft.

On Wed, Apr 21, 1999 at 12:38:14PM -0700, Erich Boleyn wrote:
>
> David Jeske <jeske@chat.net> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Apr 20, 1999 at 06:14:42PM -0400, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote:
> > > > approach. For instance, www.squeak.org is a very powerful Smalltalk
> > > > implementation which might make a nice starting point for all
> > >
> > > Well, as much as I like Smalltalk, it's still too far "out there".
> > > VSTa could get a lot of benefit from exploring some of the more
> > > interesting things in QNX et al. I think.
> >
> > Really? Hmm.. I think I much more agree with Andy. While I don't know
> > if I would use smalltalk, I think today's expanding problems with
> > software and operating systems do not rely around which kernel
> > orginization can get 4k/s faster I/O. Increasingly, desktop and
> > embedded applications are built with commodity software systems
> > sitting on top of whatever kernel is convinent.
>
> Agreed. OS kernels (or even user-level environments) are mostly
> considered interchangeable these days. Compatibility (i.e. does
> it work in the first place, can you maintain it, does it interoperate
> with what you have, etc.) is more important in most markets than even,
> say, a 2X performance difference.
>
> The only thing that will make a new kernel/user-level environment
> take off is new fundamental capabilities people want PLUS sufficient
> compatibility to what's already there to be useful in the non-critical
> areas. Even that may not be enough if sufficient time passes to
> entrench the expected approximate kernel interfaces. In that case
> all "standard" apps will be written to about the same API.
>
> BTW, I think Linux is taking off at least partly because it is so
> much like the UNIXen that many are already familiar with and has
> lots of software that people use (not desktop, but development/
> engineering apps/code). If it was a truly new OS with what it
> offers, it wouldn't have a chance.
>
> > What interesting things in QNX were you referring to?
>
> As a pot-shot, I'd say QNX does offer some interesting things,
> but most of them that I know of (core is small & efficient, works
> on embeddable systems easily, and can support network proxy for
> some OS services) are insufficiently interesting given the lack
> of compatibility with other user frameworks.
>
> --
> Erich Stefan Boleyn \_ <erich@uruk.org>
> Mad but Happy Scientist \__ http://www.uruk.org/
> Motto: "I'll live forever or die trying" ---------------------------

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