Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!unisoft!greywolf
From: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: POSIX bashing (Was Re: Retaining file permissions)
Message-ID: <3446@unisoft.UUCP>
Date: 26 Mar 91 09:43:21 GMT
References: <3419@unisoft.UUCP> <5980071@hpfcdc.HP.COM>
Reply-To: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf)
Organization: Foo Bar and Grill
Lines: 31

/* <5980071@hpfcdc.HP.COM> by donn@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Donn Terry)
 * 3) What is minimally required is very much subject to debate.  POSIX.1 is
 *    pretty minimal, yet job control, Berkeley-style signals, and several
 *    other "minimal" functions met with very strong opposition.  The flames
 *    around waitpid(), although vital to fix blatant bugs in popen()/pclose()
 *    and system(), were spectacular.

That job control and self-resetting signal handling met with opposition is
only a sign that the dinosaurs (people-type dinosaurs, not machines) are
fighting a losing battle and they want everyone else to feel the wounds they
are taking.  An interactive operating system without the capacity for
job control is as next to useless as one can get without removing, say,
the "minimal" tty editing functions (erase, kill, intr, quit, [d]susp
(at least in this case)...).

Oh, and everyone worries about security, too.  What a joke!  You want
security?  Hire two military goons (best descriptive term, no offense meant)
to guard the fireproof, lead-shielded door to a fireproof, lead-shielded
room, and cut off all serial and network ports to the computer save the
peripherals in the same room (and the console).  Not only will your system
be secure after that, but because you don't have the overhead of dealing
with the interrupts caused by serial port or ethernet traffic, you'll find
the response time on the console real snappy! :-) :-) :-)

 * 
 *    One persons's minimal is another's creeping featurisim.

One person's minimal is another's nightmare.

 * Donn Terry
 * Speaking only for myself, again.