From: tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o)
Subject: Re: It's installed, now what?  (was Re: A flight of marketing fancy)
Reply-To: tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o)
Organization: The Internet
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 18:08:00 GMT

   From: richb@jti.com (Richard Braun)
   Date: 9 Jan 93 19:28:53 GMT

   My point wasn't about geography, it was about development philosophy;
   it's wise for those of us who are now (or are considering) contributing
   to Linux to remember that a system like this could have "big tent"
   appeal to far more people if the development isn't accompanied by too
   much religious dogma.  (E.g., we'll make software developers happy now
   and we'll get to the rest later, etc.)

I don't think there's any religious dogma at all in the current
"development philosophy" of Linux.  The people who contribute to Linux
*are* the software developers.  Since the contributors are volunteers,
presumably they will only be volunteering if they are happy to do so.  

Some people are very much interested in making Linux "take over the
world".  They do this by working on easy to use releases, and
wonderful FAQ's, and that's great!  Some people are working on a DOS emulator
for the same reason.  But you are the one adding the religious dogma if
you say that everyone who is working on Linux should devote all of their
efforts to the "big tent appeal".  For example, you will offend those
people working on the DOS emulator who are doing so for very selfish
reasons: they want to be able to MoneyCounts, or Captool, or some other
MS-DOS program without needing to leave Linux.

   OS/2, MS-DOS, Unix, and Linux are like cars:  different ways of getting
   places.  But right now they're all on different continents and the ferries
   are rather expensive and/or tedious.  (OK, that's enough of this analogy!)

   I'd like to see Linux interoperate well with DOS, OS-2, Unix, and any
   other popular system, handling network connectivity, data file
   formats, file systems, program execution, ease of administration, and
   so on.  By doing so, it'll find a bigger niche, and Linux hackers
   won't be off in some separate virtual corner of the planet.  It's got
   a great start, and my postings should be taken as encouragement in
   this direction, not bashing, since I have yet to learn who many of the
   developers are.

What do you mean by "interoperate"?  Linux is POSIX complaint; Linux
runs TCP/IP, like a large part of the world, Linux runs X11.  There are
many different levels of "interoperability" between different operating
systems, and it doesn't mean much to say that "OS XXX" interoperates
with "OS YYY" without some additional details.  For example, it is
altogether unrealistic to demand that Linux be able to run an executable
for every other operating system in the world; I hope it is obvious
that this is simply unrealistic.  On the other hand, if a developer is
interested in being able to run a MS-DOS, or a Xenix, or some other
operating system binary, at least he/she has a chance to make it work
under Linux, since the source code is availble.  On Windows NT, or OS/2,
or Coherent, said developer would just be completely out of luck.

						- Ted
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux