Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!mcnc!thorin!wasp!gallmeis
From: gallmeis@wasp.cs.unc.edu (Bill O. Gallmeister)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: ITS translations: security prob
Message-ID: <1097@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 9 Feb 88 17:22:37 GMT
References: <1515@osiris.UUCP> <28200096@ccvaxa>
Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu
Reply-To: gallmeis@wasp.UUCP (Bill O. Gallmeister)
Followup-To: comp.unix
Organization: UNC Department of Computer Science -- CLOCS Project
Lines: 40
Summary: The universe is not just the kernel and the shell

In article <28200096@ccvaxa> aglew@ccvaxa.UUCP writes:
>
>>>In article <9690@tekecs.TEK.COM> andrew@frip.gwd.tek.com (Andrew Klossner) writes:
>>>	  So you add s|^/bin/rm$|/user/me/bin/rm| to your translation list."
>>
>>	Rather than building things like this into the OS, they can just as
>>easily be handled in the shell.
>>
>>--mjr();
>
>I am sure that mjr is aware of the obvious deficiency of shell only 
>translations: execl("/bin/cp",...).
>
>The shell is not the place to put all extensions. Witness how RMS is trying
>to get POSIX to phrase file name semantics so that ~ can be put in GNU.

First point:  Is this really architectural discussion?  Let's put it in
comp.unix.  I've directed followups there.

Second point:  There is more than OS and applications in the (UNIX) world --
there are libraries.  Why cannot a library be built to adequately
support a user's environment?  Granted that UNIX doesn't do it now, and
granted that you will probably end up with a big ol' library.  So use
shared libraries.  This technique is already being used for big
windowing stuff like Sun Windows (not exactly a library, but shared, it
is).

There are two groups of function that a system provides:
protected-type stuff, and generally-helpful-type stuff.  Examples of
the two are devices:  protected, and printf/string functions: generally
helpful.  Seems obvious that you needn't weigh down the operating
system with the generally helpful stuff.  Instead, just allow the
generally helpful stuff to be shared efficiently among everybody.

- billo
---
Bill O. Gallmeister					gallmeis@cs.unc.edu
"You're just one of those boys with a sink full of dishes.  You ain't
looking for nothing but someone dumb enough to come and wash your dishes.
You go home and play your radio."