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Assuming the last question is earnest: while I think "amateur" is a tad strong, I do think that Linux suffers enormously from NIH; it remains the first system
by bcantrill 12y ago
Assuming the last question is earnest: while I think "amateur" is a tad strong, I do think that Linux suffers enormously from NIH; it remains the first system (or first Unix system, anyway) for many of its contributors, who seem to know no other way -- and this shows up all over the system.[1]
In terms of how this has changed over time: if anything, it used to be much, much worse. For example, Linus' attitude on kernel debugging circa 2000[2] is not merely amateurish, and not merely irresponsible, but actively dangerous. While his attitudes have soften over the years, there still remain striking differences of engineering principle between Linux and other systems -- of which systemd is merely (in my opinion) one particularly egregious manifestation.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrfD3pC0VSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrfD3pC0VSs
[2] https://lkml.org/lkml/2000/9/6/65 https://lkml.org/lkml/2000/9/6/65
- stefantalpalaru 12y agoDon't blame the systemd wart on Linux - it's user level madness that can abuse any kernel, even your precious illumos ;-)
- BrainInAJar 12y agoan operating system comprises more than just a kernel.
- bcantrill 12y agoOh, I don't blame Torvalds -- but I do think it's coming out of that same NIH culture that seems deliberately unwilling to look beyond their own system. As for illumos, we already have SMF. I have often said that the only thing worse than SMF is not having SMF -- and at some point I intend to tell the full story there: it wasn't always pretty, and it actually makes for an interesting comparison with the systemd adventure.
- vezzy-fnord 12y agoGiven the huge heat over systemd that happened throughout 2014, hearing the story of SMF would be quite interesting, indeed.
- Sanddancer 12y agoGiven other systems that systemd has enveloped, like udev, and insanities that they've pushed into kernel space, like kdbus, I'd blame quite a bit of that madness on systemd. Systemd is a symptom of the pervasive lack of engineering hygiene in the linux world that has pushed me away from linux and makes me dread having to work with an OS I used to rather enjoy.
- stefantalpalaru 12y agoDon't throw the baby out with the bath water. Use OpenRC on Gentoo and keep on enjoying Linux.
- Sanddancer 12y agoThat's just one symptom of the disease. Linux is polluted with silly pseudo-filesystems to handle systems tuning, poor documentation, and after some time in the BSDs, an inferior userland. Unfortunately, the baby got killed with the poison a few groups of people put in the bathwater.
- mwcampbell 12y agoThe question was earnest, and thanks for linking to that informative, entertaining talk. I currently run GNU/Linux on servers (mostly virtual servers) for pragmatic reasons, but I'm always interested in learning about alternatives and different approaches. In the talk, you said that you and the Illumos community believe that the kernel and the system libraries (e.g. libc) should be inseparable, whereas Linux places a sharp boundary between the two. Why do you believe the Linux approach is suboptimal (except that it makes it easier for you to emulate Linux)? Is there any existing writing on this topic that I can read?
- bcantrill 12y agoThat's an excellent question, and no, I don't think that we have historically expanded on it. It merits an explanation though -- and it strikes me that it may be worth explaining our engineering ethos in some detail. Would that be of interest? Perhaps I could use the SMF example as the motivating example of systems thinking...
- mwcampbell 12y agoI'm interested in any explanation of Solaris/Illumos's engineering ethos that you'd care to provide. Maybe you should blog about it.