5 ms·

This is absurd and will probably be about as successful as GNU Hurd.

by naner 17y ago

wazoox 17y ago
Absolutely not, this is absolutely right to the point. I'm saddened to see people unable to understand anything.
- forkandwait 17y ago
  The OP's post was sort of dumb, but he has a more general point: there is a danger that the people who get involved will see it as a purely technical exercise, ignore the user component, and quite possibly magnify complexity when they should be choking complexity down as far as possible. We don't need a concept car (Gnu Hurd), we need a Datsun B210 (Linux).
  - tree_of_item 17y ago
    Neither GNU Hurd nor Linux have focused on the user component very much.
    - forkandwait 17y ago
      Linux distributions (Redhat and Ubuntu especially) have very much focused on being user friendly, even if their idealized users are more sophisticated than those of other consumer OS makers. Re Hurd -- umm, I was setting up a contrast...
    - blasdel 17y ago
      user ≠ grandma Linux was written by someone who wanted to use a kernel that took advantage of the MMU in his new 386. One did not exist, and he couldn't practically fork Minix because of draconian licensing issues, so he wrote his own for himself to use. Linux was written by and for a user. Hurd, on the other hand, was designed for several orthogonal ideological reasons, and never really written. There was never a user within sight of it, including its creators.
- naner 17y ago
  I actually understand the risks and importance of software freedoms. I just think this isn't marketable or practical at all. And if nobody wants to do it then you don't have a social network.
  - wingo 17y ago
    The networking concerns (Metcalfe's law and all that) are definitely a problem. I don't think that an autonomous network could start with facebook; it would have to build up to that kind of application through iterative development and refinement, accompanying deployment increases. The typical scaling problem, in the end, but not insurmountable, given the demand.

This is absurd and will probably be about as successful as GNU Hurd.

by naner 17y ago

This is absurd and will probably be about as successful as GNU Hurd.

wazoox 17y ago

Absolutely not, this is absolutely right to the point. I'm saddened to see people unable to understand anything.

forkandwait 17y ago
The OP's post was sort of dumb, but he has a more general point: there is a danger that the people who get involved will see it as a purely technical exercise, ignore the user component, and quite possibly magnify complexity when they should be choking complexity down as far as possible. We don't need a concept car (Gnu Hurd), we need a Datsun B210 (Linux).
- tree_of_item 17y ago
  Neither GNU Hurd nor Linux have focused on the user component very much.
  - forkandwait 17y ago
    Linux distributions (Redhat and Ubuntu especially) have very much focused on being user friendly, even if their idealized users are more sophisticated than those of other consumer OS makers. Re Hurd -- umm, I was setting up a contrast...
  - blasdel 17y ago
    user ≠ grandma Linux was written by someone who wanted to use a kernel that took advantage of the MMU in his new 386. One did not exist, and he couldn't practically fork Minix because of draconian licensing issues, so he wrote his own for himself to use. Linux was written by and for a user. Hurd, on the other hand, was designed for several orthogonal ideological reasons, and never really written. There was never a user within sight of it, including its creators.
naner 17y ago
I actually understand the risks and importance of software freedoms. I just think this isn't marketable or practical at all. And if nobody wants to do it then you don't have a social network.
- wingo 17y ago
  The networking concerns (Metcalfe's law and all that) are definitely a problem. I don't think that an autonomous network could start with facebook; it would have to build up to that kind of application through iterative development and refinement, accompanying deployment increases. The typical scaling problem, in the end, but not insurmountable, given the demand.