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From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: UNIX - the "don't worry about it" operating system?
Message-ID: <17108@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Mon, 29-Jun-87 21:52:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: glacier.17108
Posted: Mon Jun 29 21:52:42 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jul-87 22:25:34 EDT
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 29
Keywords: locking safety integrity security


     It strikes me that problems that were solved with immense effort in
other operating systems are generally ignored in UNIX, with amazingly
little effect.  Consider the recent discussion on backing up "live" file
systems.  Let me summarize the UNIX atttude.

     File system integrity: "Sometimes the dump tapes will be bad, and
	sometimes restore will crash, but a guru can fix up the damaged
	file system."

     Spoolers: "Well, sometimes the spoolers hang up, but just become
	the super-user, kill all the spool processes, and start the spoolers
	again".

     Locking: "Aren't lock files good enough?  Even under NFS they almost
	always work."

     Security: "Well, it isn't the system's fault if the users aren't
	very careful about the protection modes on all their files."

     System administration: "Of course it's complicated.  What did you
	expect?"

Recognize that solutions are known for all these problems and there
have been operating systems in which they were adequately addressed.
UNIX addresses all of these problems inadequately.  Somehow this bothers me.


					John Nagle