Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!necntc!encore!boykin
From: boykin@encore.UUCP (Joe Boykin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re: commentary on "532 Manifesto"
Keywords: 32532, PD board
Message-ID: <3069@encore.UUCP>
Date: 16 May 88 19:01:24 GMT
References: <17145@gatech.edu>
Reply-To: boykin@encore.UUCP (Joe Boykin)
Organization: Encore Computer Corp, Marlboro, MA
Lines: 36

In article <17145@gatech.edu> ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes:

>	Mach:  This is a marvilous job.  Well though out and well executed.
>Even better, it doesn't cost anything.  Mach, from CMU, is a rewrite from 
>(almost) the ground up of BSD 4.3.  Mach does nifty computer science-y things
>like lightweight processes, advanced memory management and a buch of other
>goodies.  The catch is that the group that wrote Mach didn't want to write
>certain things like device drivers, so they used AT&Ts.  That means you have to 
>have a source license to get mach going.  I have heard that the GNU guys are
>working on removing the AT&T stuff from Mach so that it really will be
>free.  I have my finger crossed.  Perhaps we sould lend them a hand so we
>can use Mach on our little beasty.......

Unfortunately, not quite true...  For the present, look at MACH as two
operating systems rolled into one, BSD 4.3 and MACH.  The MACH portion,
things like threads, IPC's, etc. is all new stuff.  In addition, the BSD
virtual memory system has been rewritten.  The BSD portion, little things
like open, close, read, write, creat, socket, pipe, the network, etc.
while modified, is straight from Berkeley.  CMU (and others) might like remove the 
requirement of an AT&T license, but that's a long way in coming.

Even if the kernel was rewritten, what about all the utilities?  Who's going to
rewrite nroff, csh, sh, sed, awk, lex, c, ed, vi, etc. etc. etc?  Sure there's
some public domain stuff which is quite good, but the job is not even close
to being finished.  The MACH kernel will need an AT&T license for some time
to come and the utilities which we all know and love will need to be replaced.

----

Joe Boykin
Encore Computer Corp Research Group
Chairman, IEEE Computer Societies
    Technical Committee on Operating Systems

UUCP: encore!boykin
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