What kinds of things would you want in the GNU OS?

[Mike Haertel]

In article <10317 at smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn at brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>In article <106326 at sun.Eng.Sun.COM> bitbug (James Buster) writes:
>>What kinds of things should be in the GNU Kernel?
>
>Why do you ask?  Will this actually have an effect on the GNU kernel?
>
>My opinion is that the GNU kernel should either provide an exact
>duplicate of a standard UNIX system interface, preferably SVR4,
>or it should be a quantum leap forward in OS design.  The latter
>will not be achieved by piling "features" into it.

No promises, but . . .

The major goal of the GNU project has been compatibility with Berkeley
UNIX, and then improvements.  Now that POSIX is beginning to solidify,
we are taking that into account.  So I think it's fairly safe to say
that we will be compatible with 4.3BSD (or perhaps 4.4, when it comes
out), and that we will be compatible with POSIX.  System V is a secondary
concern, but we will probably try to be compatible with it insofar as
it does not conflict with higher priorities.  Compatibility with any
of the above systems may be implemented at the library level rather
than the system call level.  We intend to support the usual protocols,
like TCP/IP and NFS, but not necessarily in the kernel.

I'm told that System V.4 is rather like two big rocks, stuck together with
a small amount of glue.  I don't see why that is `preferable.'  I would
tend to prefer pure Berkeley with a few concessions made (like a compatible
tty driver) to ease the porting of System V stuff.  In fact, I would tend
to prefer pure-something-simpler-than-berkeley, with all concessions for
compatibility at the library level or in user level servers.

Some things I will agitate for are v9 style pipes and stream i/o,
and putting system objects into the file system name space.  I will
also agitate against the creeping featurists, but I don't know if
it will do much good.  Even if the feeping creaturists win, I suppose
those of us who care can spend a few months removing features to
get a clean, small, system, and distribute it ourselves.
-- 
Mike Haertel <mike at stolaf.edu>
``There's nothing remarkable about it.  All one has to do is hit the right
  keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.'' -- J. S. Bach