On the "Unix(TM) is dead" premise: Isn't Apple (Mac) OS still certified? https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/ shows OS 13

On Wed, 18 Jan 2023 at 15:56, Ralph Corderoy <ralph(a)inputplus.co.uk> wrote: *Heh* mostly Indeed it does. I wrote it. Thanks to Arnold for posting it. I am getting some grief on Twitter too for "omitting" FreeBSD. I didn't, but the BSDs don't fit either definition of "Unix". The pre-1993 one being "based on AT&T code" -- after all, BSD (4.4 Lite r2 was it? Before my time!) -- went to a lot of effort to eliminate AT&T code. The post-'93 definition, after Novell donated the trademark to the Open Group, is "passed Open Group testing". Nobody has the time or the inclination to pay, and indeed, why should they?

I hope to return to the subject of the BSDs in general on the Reg in future.

It makes perfect sense, it's a repeated story, commercial loses out to free. On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 08:13:13AM -0700, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

I just hope we'll see some attempts at opening up these code bases as time goes on. Seeing as they're no longer going to be pushing new copies and will eventually ramp down maintenance releases, opening up the source would give their end users the ability to potentially float their own improvements if they can't immediately migrate to Linux or BSD. That said, security implications of course, don't want to just hand bad actors a code base to comb for memory unsafety in. Also this article is BSD erasure :(, no mentions of the big three save that OpenServer and Darwin have chunks of FreeBSD in them. I guess Berkeley is just chopped liver... - Matt G. ------- Original Message ------- On Wednesday, January 18th, 2023 at 7:14 AM, Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote: > It makes perfect sense, it's a repeated story, commercial loses out > to free. > > On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 08:13:13AM -0700, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: > > > Interestingly enough, Phil Hughes, who founded Linux Journal > > in the early 1990s, predicted that this would happen one day. > > This was in a private conversation we had. I thought he > > was crazy, but he was right. > > > > arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: > > > > > https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/unix_is_dead/ > > > > > > FYI. > > > > > > Arnold > > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

Occassionally, we???d get random other IBM hardware dropped on us. One day an RS/6000 showed up. The problem was that they didn???t give us any indication what the logins were (let alone the root password). Being the long time security ???investigator??? that I was I started poking around at the thing while waiting for IBM to call me back. The thing had a key switch that switched you from power OFF to NORMAL ot a WRENCH icon (maintenance mode). So I powered it up in the wrench mode. The thing booted up Unix but rather than a shell gave some maintenance program. I poked around at the options hoping for something that would be useful for me without luck. One option was to view the documentation so I brought that up and it displayed some text. The neat thing (for me) was that it used ???more??? to paginate it. Sure enough, when I got to the end of the first page, I could just hit ! at the prompt and get a root shell. It was then pretty easy to get the machine set up to our liking.

On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 11:39 AM Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote: A reasonable point, but I think it really depends on the UNIX implementation I suspect. Current mac OS is pretty well hardened from this, with their current enclaves and needing to boot home to Apple to get keys if things are not 100% right. Not saying you or I can not, but basically means the same cracking tricks you need to use for iPhones. It's not as easy as you describe. The ubiquitous Internet/WiFi changed the rules - as you can start to keep some set of keys somewhere else and then encrypt the local volumes. In fact, one of the things they do if mac OS boot detects that root has been modified (it has a crypto index stored away when it was made read-only), the boot rolls back to the last root snapshot -- since they are all read-only that works. In fact, it is a PITA to update/fix things like traditional scripts (for instance the scripts in the /etc/periodic area). Basically, they make it really unnatural to change the root files system, make a new snapshot and index (I have yet to see it documented although, with much pain, I previously created a procedure that is close -- i.e. it once worked on my pre-Ventura Mac - but currently -- fails, so I need to some more investigation when I can bring this back to the top of the importance/curiosity stack (I have a less than satisfying end around for now so I'm ignoring doing it properly). Clem ᐧ

On Jan 18, 2023, at 9:21 AM, Will Senn <will.senn(a)gmail.com> wrote: Wow, we're all over the place on this thread. I stopped updating my Mac with Mojave. Occasionally, I flirt with more recent incarnations and much like with recent Windows incarnations, I scurry back pretty quickly to the stable and fast. ... and Mojave support 32 bit apps, which is nice. It's fast, responsive, and locked down the way I like it. The mutually exclusive goals represented by security/it lockdown obsession and OS phone homeitis is ridiculous. One hopes that this is not a permanent set of affairs. I would prefer my OS to be under my control and secure my information, for me. Lately, I've been doing work with SculptOS on Genode - a capabilities based OS running on a microkernel (trusted computing base). Sculpts got a ways to go, but I like the way the architects are thinking. Will On 1/18/23 11:08 AM, segaloco via TUHS wrote:

Someone once told me that if they had physical access to a Unix box, they would get root. That has been true forever and it's even more true today, pull the root disk, mount it on Linux, drop your ssh keys in there or add a no password root or setuid a shell, whatever, if you can put your hands on it, you can get in.

Pretty unrealistic to expect the users to suddenly have the time to do kernel dev. Solaris opened sourced itself and it's dead. It's a lot of work to maintain and evolve an OS. Windows, MacOS, and Linux seem like the future. As for BSD, they pretty much killed themselves by all the in-fighting and the lack of someone like Linus. That was obvious 30 years ago and it hasn't changed. That's why I switched from BSD to Linux. On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 04:10:34PM +0000, segaloco wrote: > I just hope we'll see some attempts at opening up these code bases as time goes on. Seeing as they're no longer going to be pushing new copies and will eventually ramp down maintenance releases, opening up the source would give their end users the ability to potentially float their own improvements if they can't immediately migrate to Linux or BSD. That said, security implications of course, don't want to just hand bad actors a code base to comb for memory unsafety in. > > Also this article is BSD erasure :(, no mentions of the big three save that OpenServer and Darwin have chunks of FreeBSD in them. I guess Berkeley is just chopped liver... > > - Matt G. > > ------- Original Message ------- > On Wednesday, January 18th, 2023 at 7:14 AM, Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote: > > >> It makes perfect sense, it's a repeated story, commercial loses out >> to free. >> >> On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 08:13:13AM -0700, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: >> >>> Interestingly enough, Phil Hughes, who founded Linux Journal >>> in the early 1990s, predicted that this would happen one day. >>> This was in a private conversation we had. I thought he >>> was crazy, but he was right. >>> >>> arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: >>> >>>> https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/unix_is_dead/ >>>> >>>> FYI. >>>> >>>> Arnold >> >> -- >> --- >> Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

Wishful thinking. An OS needs critical mass in terms of developers. The BSD efforts divided their devs by having multiple efforts. It was very obvious from the beginning that Linux was getting all the developers. Go look at the rate of commits to Linux vs the rate of commits to {Net,Open,Free,DragonFly,etc}BSD. They aren't dead as in nobody does anything to them but they are dead in that very few people use them. Look, Linux users are tiny compared to Windows / MacOS, I think the desktop users is around 1%. BSD users are even more tiny than Linux. On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 10:36:48AM -0600, Will Senn wrote: > Hi Larry, > > I disagree, but only time will tell. I don't think BSD is dead is really a > fair statement, unless you're referring to the actual distribution. As a > line, I think it's still viable (I run it in several flavors and it works, > much more reliably than most linuxes which I also run in multiple flavors). > That said, everybody :) it seems, seems to be on the Linux is the future > bandwagon with seemingly only a few of us holdouts. Just a couple of days > ago I spun up a TrueNAS instance and it was glorious - of course it was > CORE, try that with SCALE :). > > It does seem like the wave favors Windows, Mac, and Linux... But, just cuz > they're popular doesn't mean the less popular OSes are dead (I say this as I > gaze fondly over towards my KIM-1 clone and think of Monitor. > > Will > > On 1/18/23 10:19 AM, Larry McVoy wrote: >> Pretty unrealistic to expect the users to suddenly have the time to do >> kernel dev. Solaris opened sourced itself and it's dead. >> >> It's a lot of work to maintain and evolve an OS. Windows, MacOS, and >> Linux seem like the future. >> >> As for BSD, they pretty much killed themselves by all the in-fighting and >> the lack of someone like Linus. That was obvious 30 years ago and it >> hasn't changed. That's why I switched from BSD to Linux. >> >> On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 04:10:34PM +0000, segaloco wrote: >>> I just hope we'll see some attempts at opening up these code bases as time goes on. Seeing as they're no longer going to be pushing new copies and will eventually ramp down maintenance releases, opening up the source would give their end users the ability to potentially float their own improvements if they can't immediately migrate to Linux or BSD. That said, security implications of course, don't want to just hand bad actors a code base to comb for memory unsafety in. >>> >>> Also this article is BSD erasure :(, no mentions of the big three save that OpenServer and Darwin have chunks of FreeBSD in them. I guess Berkeley is just chopped liver... >>> >>> - Matt G. >>> >>> ------- Original Message ------- >>> On Wednesday, January 18th, 2023 at 7:14 AM, Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote: >>> >>> >>>> It makes perfect sense, it's a repeated story, commercial loses out >>>> to free. >>>> >>>> On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 08:13:13AM -0700, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: >>>> >>>>> Interestingly enough, Phil Hughes, who founded Linux Journal >>>>> in the early 1990s, predicted that this would happen one day. >>>>> This was in a private conversation we had. I thought he >>>>> was crazy, but he was right. >>>>> >>>>> arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/unix_is_dead/ >>>>>> >>>>>> FYI. >>>>>> >>>>>> Arnold >>>> -- >>>> --- >>>> Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

Well if you want to use your precious time working on some BSD, by all means, it's your time. I looked at where the BSDs were going 30 years ago and decided that helping Linux would be a better return on investment. I don't say that happily, SunOS was my happy place and it was the best BSD that ever existed. Turning to Linux was not easy but history has shown it to have been the right choice for me. The problem with BSD is a lack of users. Linux has so many more people using it, the chances of one of them finding the problem and getting it fixed, before I hit it, are dramatically higher than the same thing with a BSD release. On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 10:57:17AM -0600, Will Senn wrote: > Pretty sure Netflix CDN is still using it as are other vendors in need of > stable and fast. Just cuz my neighbor doesn't use it, or joe website hoster > doesn't use it doesn't relegate it to the nobody uses it pile. > > On 1/18/23 10:42 AM, Larry McVoy wrote: >> Wishful thinking. An OS needs critical mass in terms of developers. >> The BSD efforts divided their devs by having multiple efforts. It >> was very obvious from the beginning that Linux was getting all the >> developers. Go look at the rate of commits to Linux vs the rate >> of commits to {Net,Open,Free,DragonFly,etc}BSD. >> >> They aren't dead as in nobody does anything to them but they are >> dead in that very few people use them. >> >> Look, Linux users are tiny compared to Windows / MacOS, I think the >> desktop users is around 1%. BSD users are even more tiny than Linux. >> >> On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 10:36:48AM -0600, Will Senn wrote: >>> Hi Larry, >>> >>> I disagree, but only time will tell. I don't think BSD is dead is really a >>> fair statement, unless you're referring to the actual distribution. As a >>> line, I think it's still viable (I run it in several flavors and it works, >>> much more reliably than most linuxes which I also run in multiple flavors). >>> That said, everybody :) it seems, seems to be on the Linux is the future >>> bandwagon with seemingly only a few of us holdouts. Just a couple of days >>> ago I spun up a TrueNAS instance and it was glorious - of course it was >>> CORE, try that with SCALE :). >>> >>> It does seem like the wave favors Windows, Mac, and Linux... But, just cuz >>> they're popular doesn't mean the less popular OSes are dead (I say this as I >>> gaze fondly over towards my KIM-1 clone and think of Monitor. >>> >>> Will >>> >>> On 1/18/23 10:19 AM, Larry McVoy wrote: >>>> Pretty unrealistic to expect the users to suddenly have the time to do >>>> kernel dev. Solaris opened sourced itself and it's dead. >>>> >>>> It's a lot of work to maintain and evolve an OS. Windows, MacOS, and >>>> Linux seem like the future. >>>> >>>> As for BSD, they pretty much killed themselves by all the in-fighting and >>>> the lack of someone like Linus. That was obvious 30 years ago and it >>>> hasn't changed. That's why I switched from BSD to Linux. >>>> >>>> On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 04:10:34PM +0000, segaloco wrote: >>>>> I just hope we'll see some attempts at opening up these code bases as time goes on. Seeing as they're no longer going to be pushing new copies and will eventually ramp down maintenance releases, opening up the source would give their end users the ability to potentially float their own improvements if they can't immediately migrate to Linux or BSD. That said, security implications of course, don't want to just hand bad actors a code base to comb for memory unsafety in. >>>>> >>>>> Also this article is BSD erasure :(, no mentions of the big three save that OpenServer and Darwin have chunks of FreeBSD in them. I guess Berkeley is just chopped liver... >>>>> >>>>> - Matt G. >>>>> >>>>> ------- Original Message ------- >>>>> On Wednesday, January 18th, 2023 at 7:14 AM, Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> It makes perfect sense, it's a repeated story, commercial loses out >>>>>> to free. >>>>>> >>>>>> On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 08:13:13AM -0700, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Interestingly enough, Phil Hughes, who founded Linux Journal >>>>>>> in the early 1990s, predicted that this would happen one day. >>>>>>> This was in a private conversation we had. I thought he >>>>>>> was crazy, but he was right. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/unix_is_dead/ >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> FYI. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Arnold >>>>>> -- >>>>>> --- >>>>>> Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

Something I think would do wonders for UNIX diversity (although I obviously haven't done a feasibility analysis) is a convergence or at least some sort of homogenization of driver interfaces. That is one of the key areas where I think faster movement would have me using BSDs exclusively, but at any given time I can't expect the same hardware support from anything other than the Linux kernel. I'm not in the know on current driver interfaces to know if its apples to apples, apples to oranges, or apples to hypercubes. But still, if *BSD supported the BCM2711 in entirety w/ graphics accel and onboard SDIO-driven wifi, Linux would serve me no advantage at present other than I know how to tune the kernel build a lot better.

Granted, driver support is not only implicated here, I'd be a lot more nomadic with operating systems if I knew I could work on hobby projects across the preponderance of them efficiently. At the end of the day I just want a system with a POSIX-friendly kernel that works with all my devices and doesn't have a complicated userland. As of present, GNU/Linux w/ sysvinit is the happy medium, although one of these days I mean to research in earnest if there's a BSD/V7-ish init that actually gels well with Linux+Glibc userspace. - Matt G. ------- Original Message ------- On Wednesday, January 18th, 2023 at 9:25 AM, Will Senn <will.senn(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Fair enough, but the worlds a little more forgiving than all that doom > and gloom :). If an innovation happens in BSDland, it generally gets > ported into Linuxland, in time, and visa versa. I heart linux, don't get > me wrong. I just wish they would... > > > On 1/18/23 11:16 AM, Larry McVoy wrote: > > > Well if you want to use your precious time working on some BSD, by all > > means, it's your time. I looked at where the BSDs were going 30 years ago > > and decided that helping Linux would be a better return on investment. > > I don't say that happily, SunOS was my happy place and it was the best > > BSD that ever existed. Turning to Linux was not easy but history has > > shown it to have been the right choice for me. > > > > The problem with BSD is a lack of users. Linux has so many more people > > using it, the chances of one of them finding the problem and getting it > > fixed, before I hit it, are dramatically higher than the same thing with > > a BSD release. > > > > On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 10:57:17AM -0600, Will Senn wrote: > > > > > Pretty sure Netflix CDN is still using it as are other vendors in need of > > > stable and fast. Just cuz my neighbor doesn't use it, or joe website hoster > > > doesn't use it doesn't relegate it to the nobody uses it pile. > > > > > > On 1/18/23 10:42 AM, Larry McVoy wrote: > > > > > > > Wishful thinking. An OS needs critical mass in terms of developers. > > > > The BSD efforts divided their devs by having multiple efforts. It > > > > was very obvious from the beginning that Linux was getting all the > > > > developers. Go look at the rate of commits to Linux vs the rate > > > > of commits to {Net,Open,Free,DragonFly,etc}BSD. > > > > > > > > They aren't dead as in nobody does anything to them but they are > > > > dead in that very few people use them. > > > > > > > > Look, Linux users are tiny compared to Windows / MacOS, I think the > > > > desktop users is around 1%. BSD users are even more tiny than Linux. > > > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 10:36:48AM -0600, Will Senn wrote: > > > > > > > > > Hi Larry, > > > > > > > > > > I disagree, but only time will tell. I don't think BSD is dead is really a > > > > > fair statement, unless you're referring to the actual distribution. As a > > > > > line, I think it's still viable (I run it in several flavors and it works, > > > > > much more reliably than most linuxes which I also run in multiple flavors). > > > > > That said, everybody :) it seems, seems to be on the Linux is the future > > > > > bandwagon with seemingly only a few of us holdouts. Just a couple of days > > > > > ago I spun up a TrueNAS instance and it was glorious - of course it was > > > > > CORE, try that with SCALE :). > > > > > > > > > > It does seem like the wave favors Windows, Mac, and Linux... But, just cuz > > > > > they're popular doesn't mean the less popular OSes are dead (I say this as I > > > > > gaze fondly over towards my KIM-1 clone and think of Monitor. > > > > > > > > > > Will > > > > > > > > > > On 1/18/23 10:19 AM, Larry McVoy wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Pretty unrealistic to expect the users to suddenly have the time to do > > > > > > kernel dev. Solaris opened sourced itself and it's dead. > > > > > > > > > > > > It's a lot of work to maintain and evolve an OS. Windows, MacOS, and > > > > > > Linux seem like the future. > > > > > > > > > > > > As for BSD, they pretty much killed themselves by all the in-fighting and > > > > > > the lack of someone like Linus. That was obvious 30 years ago and it > > > > > > hasn't changed. That's why I switched from BSD to Linux. > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 04:10:34PM +0000, segaloco wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > I just hope we'll see some attempts at opening up these code bases as time goes on. Seeing as they're no longer going to be pushing new copies and will eventually ramp down maintenance releases, opening up the source would give their end users the ability to potentially float their own improvements if they can't immediately migrate to Linux or BSD. That said, security implications of course, don't want to just hand bad actors a code base to comb for memory unsafety in. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Also this article is BSD erasure :(, no mentions of the big three save that OpenServer and Darwin have chunks of FreeBSD in them. I guess Berkeley is just chopped liver... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > - Matt G. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------- Original Message ------- > > > > > > > On Wednesday, January 18th, 2023 at 7:14 AM, Larry McVoy lm(a)mcvoy.com wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > It makes perfect sense, it's a repeated story, commercial loses out > > > > > > > > to free. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 08:13:13AM -0700, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Interestingly enough, Phil Hughes, who founded Linux Journal > > > > > > > > > in the early 1990s, predicted that this would happen one day. > > > > > > > > > This was in a private conversation we had. I thought he > > > > > > > > > was crazy, but he was right. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/unix_is_dead/ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > FYI. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Arnold > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > > > > > > > > --- > > > > > > > > > > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

if there's a BSD/V7-ish init that actually gels well with Linux+Glibc userspace.

Look, Linux users are tiny compared to Windows / MacOS, I think the desktop users is around 1%. BSD users are even more tiny than Linux.

On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 04:02:18PM +0100, Liam Proven wrote: I think you need to s/people/schools/ on that statement. Education really ramped in that time frame to get every student a chromebook.

My_impression_ is that European schools do not routinely provide students with computers, and mostly that students are not allowed to use computers in class, except possibly in computer classes. Wealthier families may of course buy them for their children but this is not a given or a universal or even all that common.

Pretty unrealistic to expect the users to suddenly have the time to do kernel dev. Solaris opened sourced itself and it's dead.

Yeah, I'm not a Solaris fan (because SunOS) but there was some good technology in there. Would have been cool if IBM kept it going. I never really understood why Sun was up for sale.

its specs, that it was more powerful in every dimension than the IBM ES/3090-600S I used briefly in the early 1990s...and that machine routinely supported 1,000 interactive timesharing users under VM/ESA!

On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 05:09:39PM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote: From my understanding, Sun was up for sale because of competitive challenges with the high-end servers (due to delays in their high-end Sparc chips, such as Rock) against products such as IBM's Power (pSeries) machines. These systems had a much better margin, and so if you're making money primarily off of hardware, this segment is super important. The x86 servers don't make as much money, which is why IBM would end up divesting their xSeries business to Lenovo. IBM was primarily interested in Sun for the Java business; it was super important for IBM Software side of the business, since all of its major products (Webshere, Tivoli, etc.) were written in Java. IBM didn't really care about Solaris or the Sparc business; after all, IBM's pSeries with AIX was doing quite well from a sales perspective in the customer segments that were most important for IBM. When I was part of the IBM Linux Technology Center, I participated in an IBM-wide study about whether or not it made sense to invest in file system technologies. What was interesting about it was that it was *purely* from a business perspective; would it drive business to IBM? Would IBM customers find it useful enough to pay $$$ for it? IBM's decision to not try to invest in some of the cool technologies like those that ZFS was pioneering was purely made as a purely cold-hearted business decision. Whether it was cool technology or not didn't enter into the evaluation and decision function.

I'm not going to say that this way of making technology decisions is perfect; it definitely has downsides. But I *am* sure it reflected what IBM was willing to pay for Sun Microsystems the company --- and Sun was hoping for more $$$ for its shareholders, which is a completely fair attitude. Was Sun Microsystems worth more to Oracle? I'm not sure, especially since Oracle has mostly treated Solaris as a program loader for Oracle Enterprise Database. But at the end of the day Larrison Ellison was willing to pay more, whether or not it was a principled business decision, or just a desire to take home the Sun Microsystems trophy. And at some level, it really doesn't matter. Realistically, I'm not sure Solaris would have fared that much better under IBM's stewardship. I'm sure IBM would make Solaris available to those customers who wanted to use it, and IBM would have maintained Open Solaris as a open source project. But the decision on how much to invest into new technologies like DTrace and ZFS would have been made the same way that IBM *declined* to try to create a next generation file system for AIX or Linux. And the DTrace and ZFS technologies would have been integrated into Linux (under the GPL license) and AIX, thus adding Solaris technological distinctiveness to those OS's. And while Sun's existing customers might still want Solaris, IBM's customers would very likely stick with the AIX and Linux that they knew.

So that would leave Open Solaris competing with Linux as an open source project, without necessarily IBM investing much into Open Solaris except from a hardware enablement perspective, and with the best Solaris features getting cherry-picked into Linux. So it would ultimately depend on how much external investment from other companies might make into Open Solaris versus Linux. And there, a lot of Linux investment came because its use in the embedded and mobile space. (Linux's ext4 encryption and fsverity features was for Android and ChromeOS; it was *not* developed for the data center use cases, although there are now some use cases starting to pick up the data center world.) Would Open Solaris been flexible enough to fit on wrist watches and handheld phones? It's definitely an interesting question, especially, given Linux would have a head start in those worlds. - Ted

I won't bore you with all of the details, but it was a struggle.

Pretty unrealistic to expect the users to suddenly have the time to do kernel dev. Solaris opened sourced itself and it's dead.

As for BSD, they pretty much killed themselves by all the in-fighting and the lack of someone like Linus. That was obvious 30 years ago and it hasn't changed.

Meh. I don't know. I'll make a prediction: at least one of the BSDs will outlive Linux.

Linux right now sort of reminds me of commercial Unix in the 90s. Personally, I think something's going to come from out of left field and displace it within the next 15 years, just like Linux displaced (and yes, killed) commercial Unix. Compatibility shims for the API will continue to exist, but the implementation will be very different.

Is the future coming where I will only be allowed to run approved applications on my device (via something like an App store or somesuch)?

Several projects are attempting to target cell phones with (mostly) Linux variants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_mobile_devices). Most of these are focused on particular (or even custom) hardware, but at least one has the explicit goal of supporting "old" hardware: https://postmarketos.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostmarketOS I'm particularly interested in this project, because it might let a few billion (!) retired cell phones be used as portable computing and communication devices. Here is a current snapshot of their porting progress: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices -r > On Jan 19, 2023, at 12:09, segaloco via TUHS tuhs(a)tuhs.org wrote: > ... I want to be excited about the idea of potentially having a powerful computer with me just about anywhere, but at the same time, if that power is significantly throttled (see Game "Optimizing" Service...), and full root access to the device is not granted easily, then it's not any more useful to me than a kiosk at Walmart. ...

On Thu, 19 Jan 2023 at 21:10, segaloco via TUHS tuhs(a)tuhs.org wrote: I recently reviewed a Murena 1 that might tick some of your boxes: https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/02/murena_e_foundation_phone_test/ De-Googled Android, sends nothing back to anyone, but can run off the shelf Android apps. If even that is too much, then there are other options. I am considering buying a 2nd Planet Computers Gemini in order to run Jolla Sailfish on it. I would also rather like some used Google Pixel or something that I could put Ubuntu Touch on. Work continues even though Canonical cancelled it 5 or 6 years ago, and it's getting there. I've seen in the flesh demos at the Ubuntu Summit here in Prague last November, including one version of UT running a newer version inside a VM, on a JingPad tablet. Or PostmarketOS if you prefer a more DIY experience, perhaps on a FairPhone or a PinePhone. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven(a)cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven(a)gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053

One of the problems that cell phones solve is providing (relatively) instant-on capability. The RasPi processor doesn't have hardware support for this; dunno which others might... -r > On Jan 20, 2023, at 07:51, segaloco via TUHS tuhs(a)tuhs.org wrote: > > To be completely honest, I'm considering just building myself a mobile using a single board computer with a small external display. ...

I have heard that firmware blobs are just as ubiquitous and hard to eliminate on RISC-V boards as they are everywhere else. This is a real problem for establishing a trusted computed base. It seems everybody who makes support chips is arc-welded to unverifiable code. We'll have to replace the stuff ourselves, slowly and painfully. I submit that the only way to win that battle in the long run is to copyleft it; otherwise the community's work will simply wind up re-closed, with new features to sell the board, and new backdoors thanks to sloppy bugs and friendly handshakes from friendly guys in suits.

It makes perfect sense, it's a repeated story, commercial loses out to free. On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 08:13:13AM -0700, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

I had already been using Linux for a while by then I believe. I used it before it had networking. Pretty early on I got to be friends with Linus and was really impressed with his leadership. That's what sold me on Linux, he was the thing that was missing in the BSD world. If someone like him had appeared and unified the BSD world I think we'd all be running BSD.

On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 01:02:20AM -0700, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 8:04 AM Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote: By the time even 4.3BSD was released, there were dozens of people that could work on the kernel at a high level of skill.

There was no one person who created it who could have the gravitas to pull that off. Let alone a decade later when it was freed up, by then there were hundreds. The dynamics of the situation were quite different: Linus always was in charge because he wrote the whole thing... BSD was a victim of it's own success in the 80s and 90s in a way...

> On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 01:02:20AM -0700, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: > > In hindsight, I agree. But at the time, Linux was less than > > five years old, and it wasn't so obvious. > > > > Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote: > > > > > It makes perfect sense, it's a repeated story, commercial loses out > > > to free. > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 08:13:13AM -0700, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: > > > > Interestingly enough, Phil Hughes, who founded Linux Journal > > > > in the early 1990s, predicted that this would happen one day. > > > > This was in a private conversation we had. I thought he > > > > was crazy, but he was right. > > > > > > > > arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: > > > > > > > > > https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/unix_is_dead/ > > > > > > > > > > FYI. > > > > > > > > > > Arnold > > > > > > -- > > > --- > > > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat

On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 9:41 AM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote: This matches my experience: Lots of gatekeepers, any one of which can take a disliking to your submission for what, at times, seems like arbitrary and capricious reasons. If you make it to the 'in crowd' it becomes more of a rubber stamp at times... I have recently been successful at submitting an obvious fix to a tiny backwater area of the kernel without undue stress though... But I submitted it to the maintainer of the area, who then submitted it to the 'greater maintainer', and then to the greater maintainer and then to the tree. So my tiny fix has more Signed-off-by: lines than lines of change and took about two weeks to make its way all the way up into the repo... For me, it took about 2x as long to prep and send the change than it does for the direct commit access I have for FreeBSD, but I've spent more than 10x on other submissions that ultimately didn't make it in.

I looked into Linux's processes to improve FreeBSD's. And came to the conclusion that in large part they succeed despite their processes, not because of them. They have too much overhead, rely too much on magic bots that are hard to replicate and I'm astonished that things work as well as they do.

It's a grown culture / process that relies on old tools mixed with new in weird ways you'd never think of standing up today. Things can be learned from it, but it seems to be a unique snowflake relative to all the other projects I looked at...

Bringing it back around to AIX, this may be a bit of a leading question, but for those who are more in the know than not on how AIX works, is there any chance there are little design nuggets hidden down in there that now, not being critical to an active IBM project, may find their way out there into the world? This is kinda my latent curiosity with any of these commercial systems, if there's something absolutely amazing hiding down in one of the codebases just waiting to see the light of day in some post-commerical source release that might improve the situation out there in open source UNIX-like land. Some ideal SMP scheduler, quality drivers, etc.

Of course, the usefulness of any such thing would depend on any theoretical eventual license applied to a source code release. Something restrictive would prevent proliferation of a good idea, but in any case, there are so many lineages just ripe for plundering, and as time goes on, it becomes more likely those source codes will actually be accessible and licensed to allow that. Who knows though... - Matt G. ------- Original Message ------- On Thursday, January 19th, 2023 at 9:19 AM, Adam Thornton <athornton(a)gmail.com> wrote: The era of general-purpose computers won't end. The problem is that a great many single-purpose items are (and increasingly will be), for reasons of scale/developer availability/familiarity, general-purpose computers that come from the factory supposedly packaged to do only one thing. But all of them will have brains that will let them do arbitrary things. Some of these things will be done at the behest of the organizations controlling the society where the developers come from. Some of them will be done at the behest of transnational organized crime rings. Some will be done by enthusiasts. But I don't think we are too far from the world where you can't trust your toothbrush unless you carved it yourself from a stick with a knife that's been in your family for generations. But really, this is all just "Reflections on Trusting Trust," which was, what, 1984?

The era of general-purpose computers won't end.

The problem is that a great many single-purpose items are (and increasingly will be), for reasons of scale/developer availability/familiarity, general-purpose computers that come from the factory supposedly packaged to do only one thing. But all of them will have brains that will let them do arbitrary things. Some of these things will be done at the behest of the organizations controlling the society where the developers come from. Some of them will be done at the behest of transnational organized crime rings. Some will be done by enthusiasts. But I don't think we are too far from the world where you can't trust your toothbrush unless you carved it yourself from a stick with a knife that's been in your family for generations. But really, this is all just "Reflections on Trusting Trust," which was, what, 1984?

species list. You know, the kind on a desk, with a keyboard ...

Well, that's a comforting thought, I hope it goes that way. On 01/19/2023 06:10 PM, John Cowan wrote:

What % of people running Chromebooks, Android or IOS do any real programming on it? Even for laptops and desktops that % is quite low. Most people run just a few apps.

I think development environments will follow the people onto their preferred platforms, and will change or adapt as necessary. So the kind of computing we are used to, with a "computer", may become more and more marginalized. Business will go where the numbers are, and what we think of as mainstream will become "retro" or "vintage". Most of my acquaintances who are 20 or 30 years younger than me, or my now-grown children, already think using a "computer" is kind of a "boomer" thing. On 01/19/2023 03:29 PM, Rich Salz wrote:

So what. How many people fix their own cars, TVs, etc.

To me, the biggest surprise about Unix history is that the Bell patent office secretaries were able to use ed and [nt]roff. I cannot imagine the general populace doing that. Folks on this list will be fine, there will always be programming environments for us. For the rest of the world, simpler is better and simpler isn't Unix.

Before Lions, before the Epoch even, there was Muir's Compleat Idiot manual (https://technologists.com/photos/1960s/fullsize/1969JohnMuir.jpg) which suited me well until it didn't. Charlie On 1/19/2023 5:51 PM, segaloco via TUHS wrote: -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/Twitter: CharlesHSauer

Rich Salz says: I've similarly heard that Sun secretaries were pretty adept at using Emacs. -- geo:37.783333,-122.416667

I never said women, I said secretaries. Deliberately so.

Just coincidentally, there is currently discussion in Linux kernel circles about whether it's time to drop support for JFS. JFS was originally from OS/2 and then ported to Linux and AIX, although JFS for Linux and JFS2 for AIX have diverged. JFS has been in maintenance mode in 2008, and the number of users is close to zero at this point.