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> RedHat just goes with what Linux already has More like, Redhat/IBM defines what Linux has simply by paying most Linux devs, and of course they take advantage

> RedHat just goes with what Linux already has More like, Redhat/IBM defines what Linux has simply by paying most Linux devs, and of course they take advantage of it in userspace and sys management. cgroups/namespaces, systemd, gnome (and it's integration with systemd) plus others are two-sided swords: one one hand they create new functionality, but on the other hand the price to pay is concentrating Linux know-how in one place, and greatly diminishing portability of Linux apps vs other Unix O/Ses and even other Linuxes that don't want to go with the program of absorbing ever more functionality into kernels and system frameworks for no real reason other than monopolization. Unix was designed as a simple portable operating system in very short time. With 30 years of development, the situation today could also be interpreted in such a way that Linux devs just can't stop to add code. Time will tell if Linux can be maintained if the original generation of devs step down. I'd feel more comfortable if we've let kernels stay minimal rather than becoming kitchen sinks. Apart from better portability, this would've also enabled younger devs to start from scratch rather than having to maintain daddy-o's monstrosity.

spijdar 6y ago
As a 23 y/old younger (well, young-ish) dev, it strikes me that this isn't anything new. Old commercial solutions since nearly the beginning have been predicated on proprietary solutions specific to some vendor's UNIX based OS. HP-UX, AIX, even back to the really early commercial releases of v7 all seem to have a common theme of having that unix core but with a lot of nice features added on, typically with pretty insane and convoluted frameworks. Tru64's clustering, AIX's management interface, all the competing UIs and management interfaces. All nice features deeply integrated into a proprietary solution as a form of vendor lock-in. To your point, it seems like eventually this ends poorly for the incumbents, when they become too bloated and too difficult to extend or modify, since you have to work around some over-engineered high-availability process clustering to touch anything. In Linux's case, I think the kernel itself is actually fine, but the user land is increasingly tightly glued to an increasingly convoluted set of RedHat stacks. I mean, it always has -- RedHat made the modern posix threads library, Linux's PAM, and several other core parts, but at least those were pretty modular and "unixy", by comparison to the monolith being developed now.
pjmlp 6y ago
Having used several UNIX flavours since 1992, I can't relate to what is simple in UNIX, unless you are speaking about V6.
coldtea 6y ago
>and greatly diminishing portability of Linux apps vs other Unix O/Ses Thank's god for that! An OS should build on its strenghts, not be a least common demoninator for portabillity's sake. If that was ok we might just as well just use one OS
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Indeed, for me the best UNIX experiences that have been created so far have been NeWS and NEXTSTEP (macOS), and I wouldn't mind if Linux would just standardize on one stack as well.

spijdar 6y ago

As a 23 y/old younger (well, young-ish) dev, it strikes me that this isn't anything new. Old commercial solutions since nearly the beginning have been predicated on proprietary solutions specific to some vendor's UNIX based OS. HP-UX, AIX, even back to the really early commercial releases of v7 all seem to have a common theme of having that unix core but with a lot of nice features added on, typically with pretty insane and convoluted frameworks. Tru64's clustering, AIX's management interface, all the competing UIs and management interfaces. All nice features deeply integrated into a proprietary solution as a form of vendor lock-in. To your point, it seems like eventually this ends poorly for the incumbents, when they become too bloated and too difficult to extend or modify, since you have to work around some over-engineered high-availability process clustering to touch anything. In Linux's case, I think the kernel itself is actually fine, but the user land is increasingly tightly glued to an increasingly convoluted set of RedHat stacks. I mean, it always has -- RedHat made the modern posix threads library, Linux's PAM, and several other core parts, but at least those were pretty modular and "unixy", by comparison to the monolith being developed now.

pjmlp 6y ago

Having used several UNIX flavours since 1992, I can't relate to what is simple in UNIX, unless you are speaking about V6.

coldtea 6y ago

>and greatly diminishing portability of Linux apps vs other Unix O/Ses Thank's god for that! An OS should build on its strenghts, not be a least common demoninator for portabillity's sake. If that was ok we might just as well just use one OS

pjmlp 6y ago
Indeed, for me the best UNIX experiences that have been created so far have been NeWS and NEXTSTEP (macOS), and I wouldn't mind if Linux would just standardize on one stack as well.