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Another notable difference between Hurd and MINIX is that Tanenbaum got millions of funding from the EU to improve MINIX. Having the organizational backing of

Another notable difference between Hurd and MINIX is that Tanenbaum got millions of funding from the EU to improve MINIX. Having the organizational backing of a research university helps, too.

nickpsecurity 11y ago
Hey, millions of dollars can always help. It will be in my HOWTO for successful FOSS if I ever write one. :) I think the simple architecture is their main benefit, though. They only put in complexity where the most benefit. Then they reused NetBSD's work. A common cheat.
- carussell 11y ago
  The units of measure there are Euro, even, so after the conversion to USD, we're talking about even larger numbers. Not an order of magnitude in difference, though.
gaius 11y ago
How is that a difference? Stallman has goten millions from the MacArthur Foundation, Takeda Foundation, etc etc. Neither project is short of funding.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  It's not except in terms of features they can produce and bugs they can eliminate. The research I did in response to vezzy-fnord's comment shows that Hurd ignored a proven codebase (4.4BSD) in favor of trying to build on Mach, a problematic microkernel. The Hurd author admitted the first part. They continue down the path that didn't work while Minix 3 adopted a better microkernel architecture built on their proven codebase. So, their stuff is predictably in better shape.
  - gaius 11y ago
    Right, but "they are more successful because they made better decisions" is tautological.
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      A kind of troll-like remark that offers no counter-points or further information. I'll reply to it anyway. Here's the specifics I gave that they could've applied at the start or later on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486120 Note the quote from the head of the project who confessed to the specific mistake. That's not tautological at all: it's what 5-10 seconds of Google would've earned you. It also matched the first idea that came to my head about where I would've started at the time. Linus and Tannenbaum both started with Minix codebase, one indirectly and one directly, to achieve success. So, Hurd was just Doing It Wrong. Further, that starting with a poor architecture or not building off a good codebase often leads to failure are proven heuristics.
      - gaius 11y ago
        Yes I suppose you could consider better decisions leading to better outcomes to be "problematic". Much more convenient to ascribe it to more funding i.e. privilege. Now who's trolling?
        nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Hard to imagine a better outcome when Hurd still hasn't achieved original goals, is worse than small monoliths, is behind many microkernels, and its own author said doing BSD instead would've been "ideal." More like worst outcome one can get.
- carussell 11y ago
  Not true. The awards from MacArthur and Takeda that Stallman received when combined total to just over half a million USD[1][2]. Keep in mind that this is spread across all of GNU and to keep the FSF machine going as well. Meanwhile, Tanenbaum's grants from the EU total approx $6 million for the express purpose of producing a reliable microkernel and to build an operating system on top of it[3], all under the auspices of a research university. And as others have noted, most of MINIX's userland is the result of splicing in large parts of the existing NetBSD userland, so the skew in attention that the kernel received is pretty significant, cf GNU's Hurd. 1. http://tech.mit.edu/V110/N30/rms.30n.html http://tech.mit.edu/V110/N30/rms.30n.html 2. http://www.gnu.org/press/2001-12-03-Takeda.html http://www.gnu.org/press/2001-12-03-Takeda.html 3. https://www.bsdcan.org/2015/schedule/speakers/258.en.html https://www.bsdcan.org/2015/schedule/speakers/258.en.html
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    Which means funding or sponsored developers are critical to the success of OS projects if anything significant is to happen in reasonable amount of time. So, the failure was to match funding rather than features per developer. ;) On top of their design decisions that made the project ridiculously hard in the first place.

Another notable difference between Hurd and MINIX is that Tanenbaum got millions of funding from the EU to improve MINIX. Having the organizational backing of a research university helps, too.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

Hey, millions of dollars can always help. It will be in my HOWTO for successful FOSS if I ever write one. :) I think the simple architecture is their main benefit, though. They only put in complexity where the most benefit. Then they reused NetBSD's work. A common cheat.

carussell 11y ago
The units of measure there are Euro, even, so after the conversion to USD, we're talking about even larger numbers. Not an order of magnitude in difference, though.

gaius 11y ago

How is that a difference? Stallman has goten millions from the MacArthur Foundation, Takeda Foundation, etc etc. Neither project is short of funding.

nickpsecurity 11y ago
It's not except in terms of features they can produce and bugs they can eliminate. The research I did in response to vezzy-fnord's comment shows that Hurd ignored a proven codebase (4.4BSD) in favor of trying to build on Mach, a problematic microkernel. The Hurd author admitted the first part. They continue down the path that didn't work while Minix 3 adopted a better microkernel architecture built on their proven codebase. So, their stuff is predictably in better shape.
- gaius 11y ago
  Right, but "they are more successful because they made better decisions" is tautological.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    A kind of troll-like remark that offers no counter-points or further information. I'll reply to it anyway. Here's the specifics I gave that they could've applied at the start or later on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486120 Note the quote from the head of the project who confessed to the specific mistake. That's not tautological at all: it's what 5-10 seconds of Google would've earned you. It also matched the first idea that came to my head about where I would've started at the time. Linus and Tannenbaum both started with Minix codebase, one indirectly and one directly, to achieve success. So, Hurd was just Doing It Wrong. Further, that starting with a poor architecture or not building off a good codebase often leads to failure are proven heuristics.
    - gaius 11y ago
      Yes I suppose you could consider better decisions leading to better outcomes to be "problematic". Much more convenient to ascribe it to more funding i.e. privilege. Now who's trolling?
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Hard to imagine a better outcome when Hurd still hasn't achieved original goals, is worse than small monoliths, is behind many microkernels, and its own author said doing BSD instead would've been "ideal." More like worst outcome one can get.
carussell 11y ago
Not true. The awards from MacArthur and Takeda that Stallman received when combined total to just over half a million USD[1][2]. Keep in mind that this is spread across all of GNU and to keep the FSF machine going as well. Meanwhile, Tanenbaum's grants from the EU total approx $6 million for the express purpose of producing a reliable microkernel and to build an operating system on top of it[3], all under the auspices of a research university. And as others have noted, most of MINIX's userland is the result of splicing in large parts of the existing NetBSD userland, so the skew in attention that the kernel received is pretty significant, cf GNU's Hurd. 1. http://tech.mit.edu/V110/N30/rms.30n.html http://tech.mit.edu/V110/N30/rms.30n.html 2. http://www.gnu.org/press/2001-12-03-Takeda.html http://www.gnu.org/press/2001-12-03-Takeda.html 3. https://www.bsdcan.org/2015/schedule/speakers/258.en.html https://www.bsdcan.org/2015/schedule/speakers/258.en.html
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Which means funding or sponsored developers are critical to the success of OS projects if anything significant is to happen in reasonable amount of time. So, the failure was to match funding rather than features per developer. ;) On top of their design decisions that made the project ridiculously hard in the first place.