Re: X and other visions

[Soeren D. Schulze]

Ognyan Kulev wrote:
> soeren.d.schulze@gmx.de wrote:
> > Please do not ignore or flame down me because I'm not so used to  
> > hacking
> > that stuff. I think I'm experienced enough to GNU/Linux to know how  
> > a
> > realization should not look like, and I'd like GNU/Hurd to be  
> > better.
>
> It's good you are concerned with Hurd's future, but I think we have  
> some more fundamental problems to solve now (like the 1.*G limitation  
> for ext2fs).

I agree those problems are more urgent and should be solved before.
Even though I think it's not good Hurd development is continued on Mach  
instead of porting all the stuff to L4 before.

And while GNU/Hurd is not ready for that stuff, we can talk about  
technical realization.
When GNU/Hurd is ready, everyone wants to hack, but the result may be  
unpleasing if no concrete realization ideas exist then. Have a look at  
GNU/Linux:
It contains lots of really good software, but everybody only looks on  
the own project; so even the interface-independent features are always  
reimplemented instead of implementing them at their true place miles  
below, where they can be used by every-one/thing. If those things had  
been available from the beginning, a lot of work would not have been  
necessary and could have been used for improving the software itself.

Example:
Every Desktop Environment has its own handling of virtual file systems  
(which will become redundant in the Hurd) and URL openings (would be  
done by something like httpfs in the Hurd).
Though these are not even things that are DE-specific. They would be  
also useful for other software - even text-based.

Such a situation is the result of enthusiastic hackers (though they  
probably call themselves "developers") of end-user software and an  
underlying system that doesn't fit the nessecities.

I don't want GNU/Hurd to be a such one, so we have to discuss _now_,  
before GNU/Hurd is in such a situation as GNU/Linux.

(I hope I've found back to topic well ...)

Sören

PS:
Sorry for the adversiting of my WebMailer in the last mail.