> Lately it seems to become a problem for projects trying something new to
> get accepted. Have a look at GNU-Hurd, the Berlin-Project or the GGI.
> All of them get flamed if they are only named somewhere.
> "There is X. Why are you doing the same again? Stop it!"
> "There is Linux. Noone will ever use Hurd. Useless work..."
> "X or text."
> But why?? Can't you just think of something new? Do you fear this new thing
> becomes important and all your knowledge 'bout todays things gets useless?
> Come on, that can't be it. Let them do their work, you are not forced to
> use it.
Oh, please. _Hurd_ is your idea of a fancy new project? Look, the Mach
microkernel is hardly a new idea. In theory, it was great. In
practice, not so great. This hasn't changed in at least ten years. My
objection to Hurd isn't because I fear change; it's because I used to
have a Mach-based machine on my desk, and I have no desire to do so
again.
It's not enough for an idea to be different. It also has to be good.
The flip side of this fear of change you see is endless hordes of
people constantly reinventing the wheel. How many crappy X toolkits do
we need? Instead of writing two or three new windowing systems that
will probably never be finished, why not just try to improve the
existing ones?
Look at Berlin. I don't think it's necessarily a poor idea, but I do
have serious doubts about whether it will eve be finished. And even if
it is, what chance does it have of displacing X?
--nat
-- nat lanza --------------------- research programmer, parallel data lab, cmu scs magus@cs.cmu.edu -------------------------------- http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~magus/ there are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths -- alfred north whitehead- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/