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From: u31b3hs@cip-s01.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Michael Haardt)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: >>Where is MINIX going?
Message-ID: <3735@rwthinf.UUCP>
Date: 12 Dec 90 13:54:09 GMT
Sender: news@rwthinf.UUCP
Reply-To: u31b3hs@cip-s01.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Michael Haardt)
Organization: Informatik RWTH Aachen
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In ">Where is MINIX going?" Jim Paradis writes:

>Actually, as for 32-bit and VM and all that... I for one agree that
>the official release of MINIX should be "lean and mean", and that you 
>should resist creeping featureism as much as possible.  I have no problem 
>with adding additional features (like the VM implementation I'm working 
>on) as long as they remain unofficial additions to the base release
>and not a part of the base system itself.  Bruce Evans, Earl Chew, et al
>have shown us that "unofficial" need not mean "unprofessional".
> 
>Perhaps one way to "resist" the pressure to add features would be
>to do what a lot of other OS vendors do:  have an "official" 
>distribution, and also have an "unspported features" tape/disk
>set.  The latter would contain all the goodies people are likely to
>ask for but that you don't want to make part of the "official"
>distribution.  It comes on a strictly as-is, no-support, buyer-beware
>product (sort of like a lot of anonymous-ftp software is today).

I agree, but only for features which are not part of official MINIX,
like virtual consoles, shared memory and so on...  On the other side,
some people rewrote programs distributed with official MINIX, e.g. 
mail, ls, tsort.  I would appreciate it, if the official programs are
replaced by their improved versions, espacially if the official programs
do not compile (ls!) or do not work (tsort).  I suggest, that big
archive servers reorganize their archives in:
   
   (unofficial) upgrades for official sources
   rewritten programs which replace official sources

Each program should have its version number in its name (only archive!),
so everyone can see, if he/she has the newest version.  If there is
anything wrong with the rewritten programs, people can fix it. 
Otherwise, the next official version makes them official.  In my
opinion, this is very important because I have mail, tsort, lp[drq], ls,
man, curses, ...  and each one is better than the official.  There are
patches for ps, login ...  from virtual consoles, shared text segments,
more serial lines ...  too.  Note, that the patched versions are still
working in the official environment and no #ifdefs are needed.

If would not like if PH sells a "unsupported features" tape/disk as part
of MINIX, because the price for MINIX will rise.  Perhaps this can be a
option or one PD shop sells it for a low price, like all other public
domain software.  This will be nice for all people without net access,
too.

Michael Haardt

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