Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!relay.nswc.navy.mil!oasys!mimsy!nocusuhs!nmrdc1!minixug!uwalt!waltje From: waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org (Fred 'The Rebel' van Kempen) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: Message-ID: <9105201108@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org> Date: 20 May 91 14:59:54 GMT References: <1991May12.143246.18877@MDI.COM> Organization: MicroWalt Corporation, for MINIX Software Development Lines: 86 mitchell@MDI.COM (Bill Mitchell) wrote: > In article <9911@star.cs.vu.nl> ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >> >> I don't care about how big the programs are when they >>are in memory. What I care about is how big they are on the distribution >>disks. > > I've seen Andy express concern over the number of disks running > the cost of the distribution up several times. As I recall, some > useful utilities were omitted from the distribution at some point > to save a disk or two. > > I've also seen concern about increasing the complexity of the system, > and shared libraries would add complexity. Correct, and so it should be. Let us keep Standard MINIX small! > How about making the distribution format a bit more flexible, offering > a stripped-down distribution with minimum disks at minimum cost and > offering add-ons separately. > > If PH doesn't want to deal with the add-ons, perhaps they could distribute > just the stripped-down (PH Copyright?) material, and other distribution > channels could be developed for the rest. NLMUG might cover holland > and maybe other european countries. Wasn't there a similar organization > in the UK which was distributing minix materials? Austin Code Works > and various Shareware distributers here in the US would probably be > interested in this. I think PH probably has too much inertia to handle > the OS add-ons and contributed/ported applications effectively anyway. Forget it. Prentice Hall will not ever allow anyone but PH to sell goodies like these. I know... > Someone other than Andy (NLMUG?) could administer "the rest" and > perhaps provide one distribution channel, with other distribution > channels getting master distribution kits from whoever administers > them and duplicating them for further distribution. The big > complication here is version control, keeping upgrades and applications > which are sensitive to minix release versions in sync, and keeping > universal applications separated from those which require one or > more OS upgrades (eg. 386 support). That's work which the administrators > and distributers have to do, and which they can be compensated for > by charging for the disks. Forget it, Andy won't ever allow _me_ to administer "the MINIX collection". > The distribution format might run something like this: > > Orderable from PH: > > OS and key utility binaries > OS and key utility sources > OS and key utility documentation > OS and key utility binaries and sources > OS and key utility binaries and documentation > OS and key utility sources and documentation > OS and key utility binaries, sources and documentation I tried this (_exactly_ !!!) with Advanced MINIX. You all know what happened... > Orderable from PH or some other source, with ordering information > provided in PH materials: > > 386 upgrade kit, allowing programs larger than 64+64 > smart scheduler kit > multi-threaded FS kit (if one appears and gains acceptance) > Hard disk boot utilities (shoelace, etc.) > expanded utilites selections > kermit, indent, basic, pascal, forth, lisp, pcomm, > crisp, elvis, eliza, wmail, smail, uucp, rn, > and whatever else gains general acceptance Ahh. And who will get the royalties involved? Bruce Evans deserves a fair bit off it. That is one of the problems with creating, main- taining and _selling_ packages like these... > Maybe I'm dreaming, but this seems to me a workable scheme which > allows an uncomplicated minix system distributed by PH on a minimum > number of disks and easily controlled by Andy and PH; plus a > channel for distributing upgrades and add-ons which is not constrained > by desires to keep internals simple or to minimize the number of disks > and which has a chance to be more effective than the present near-anarchy. Correct, but not everyone is accepting this... sigh... Fred. -- MicroWalt Corporation, for MINIX Development waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org Tel (+31) 252 230 205, Hoefbladhof 27, 2215 DV VOORHOUT, The Netherlands "An Operating System is what the _USERS_ think of it- me"