Do you know why rms didn't start with a kernel?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482855

by access_denied • 17 years ago

6 23 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Does anyone here knows, why Richard Stallman choose the order for developing the several GNU programs he did? Why didn't he start with the kernel? Also, why the name GNU? Shouldn't be the kernel the only part of GNU named GNU? After all, all the other programs could be Unix.

markup3• 17 years ago

UNIX is a proprietary operating system (not a kernel) and GNU aims to be quite the opposite, hence that acronym (GNU is Not UNIX). As for the decision to leave the kernel at last, well just give a look at how long is it taking for HURD to be completed... also I am guessing he needed other stuff to be created first (compiler, etc)

access_denied7• 17 years ago

What is the difference between an operating system and a kernel? (HaHa) Well, if you can point me out to some ressource regarding my questions about RMS' decisions, that would be cool. Regarding the GNU name, as far as I am informed RMS wanted to point out that the GNU is a UNIX-like OS as opposed to a non-UNIX like VMS. He decided to go with a unix because it had proven itself to be portable (unlike ITS for example).

markup3• 17 years ago

A kernel is part of the operating system, but the operating system is not composed by the kernel only. Take MacOSX: it is an operating system, its kernel is XNU. Linux itself is a kernel, not an operating system, etc.

gaius• 17 years ago

Don't confuse unix (which doesn't really mean anything, it's just a general set of philosophies of how an operating system should be structured) with Unix(tm) which is a wholly owned trademark and a set of technical standards to which a unix must conform if it is to be a Unix(tm). Linux for example is not a Unix(tm) (OSX is).

The simple answer is that the hardware available at the time wasn't up to getting a useful level of performance out of the HURD microkernel architecture and so he gave up. HURD still isn't any closer to being a production kernel.

access_denied7• 17 years ago

Do you can point me out to some reference re "and so he gave up"? Thanks!

cchooper3• 17 years ago

To look at the question the other way around: is there any reason he should have started with the kernel?

access_denied7• 17 years ago

The name GNU suggests this.

cchooper3• 17 years ago

How?

lgriffith5• 17 years ago

Stallman objected to the fact that software could be sold so he made software that couldn't be sold. I am sure he understood its true value and priced it accordingly.

Create and deliver value. Demand to be paid for it according to its value to the customer. If the customer refuses to pay, find another customer.

Free is as successful as poverty.

chris_l2• 17 years ago

You can deliver value without being paid for it. For example by raising a child.

lgriffith5• 17 years ago

Who is the customer? You or the child or both?

Perhaps you are paid for the value you deliver. If not, why did you do it? However, it is a payment that cannot be transformed by exchanging it for other things you need or want. Its primary benefit resides within you and your child.

Money is not the only form of payment but it is an extremely important form. This is because of its use as a medium of exchange in a division of labor economy. The existence of both supports and sustains a far higher standard of living than could otherwise exist.

Stillman's philosophy is to reduce the production of intellectual values to the state of a barter economy. That kind of economy rises only slightly above subsistence. This is why I say "Free is as successful as poverty."

access_denied7• 17 years ago

You have the historical facts wrong re Stallman's motivation.

lgriffith5• 17 years ago

I disagree. What he says is totally and absolutly irrelevant compared to what he actually does accomplish. The purpose of a system is what it does. Reduction to the barter system is what application of Stallman's philosophy accomplishes. THAT is his purpose.

According to Stallman, one should only be able to trade software artifacts for other software artifacts. This is even worse than a barter economy. Its as if an egg producer could only trade his eggs for other eggs or a potato farmer could only trade his potatoes for other potatoes. This in one simple step eliminates a division of labor economy with all of its attendant benefits and multiplication of productivity.

aagnihot• 17 years ago

Interesting (and critical) article by Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov.

http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Stallman/failure_with_hur...

access_denied7• 17 years ago

Thank you for the informative link!

hapless• 17 years ago

- GCC was a necessary prerequisite to starting in on a kernel. What good would a free OS have been if it wasn't self-hosting on free software?

- Emacs was a politically important project because there had been a serious free-software kerfuffle among emacs-like editors. The most popular such editor for unix, Gosling emacs, had recently gone from open source to closed source without warning.

Do you know why rms didn't start with a kernel?

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