What do to about BitKeeper and the Linux Kernel

[Jeroen Dekkers]

On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 09:41:53PM +0100, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 09:22:27PM +0100, Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
> > On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 07:51:44PM +0100, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
> 
> > I haven't seen any piece of nice free software from Linus. No, I don't
> > consider Linux nice and you don't want to get me started about it.
> 
> Okay.
> But note that we also can have _some_ competition and 
> different opinions within the Free Software camp.

I certainly agree, but still I want to tell my opinion.

> Some people will consider linux and important piece of Free Software.  
> Others will consider Hurd more important.
> We need more people for the hurd, though.

GNU is the most important thing and I think nobody can deny that.

> > I don't like the phrase "The Linux kernel". It's a pleonasm, it
> > implies that Linux is more than a kernel and that you're talking about
> > just the kernel of the bigger thing, which clearly isn't the case.
> 
> I wanted to make sure that people recognise that "linux" is the kernel
> and not an operating system.

I'm not a native English speaker, but I think "the kernel Linux" make
people recognise it better.
 
> [ About the reasons to develop Hurd ]
> 
> There are good reasons to continue to develop the hurd and put it into a
> useful state. However it is not as urgent anymore as there are
> some free software kernels. 

The Hurd is technically better and it also promotes free software and
GNU better. The claims of microsoft saying that free software isn't
innovative would just be void, for example.

> Thus there are areas, where we do not have Free Software at all.
> To conquer these might be more important than to develop another kernel.

The Hurd isn't just another kernel. It isn't even a kernel, it is a
multiserver system running on a microkernel (gnumach). Also Linux
isn't really going good IMHO (just look at the 2.4 versions). IMHO
GNU/Hurd also has the potential to be the world leading operating
system.

> > > Additionally different people have different ideas on how to promote
> > > and progress things. Linus is definatly doing good things for the 
> > > Free Software-Community. We want him to keep doing this.
> > 
> > I don't see much good things. I see broken 'stable' versions of Linux,
> > waste of manpower, promoting of non-free software, etc.
> 
> I'd wish that more people were interested in the Hurd or the GNUStep projects.

That's basically the reason why I write mails promoting the
Hurd. Especially because we lack manpower.

> But we do not need to downgrade the archievements of the linux developers 
> for this to be a legitimate wish.

I don't want to downgrade, but this is my opinion based on seeing how
Linux development goes, what Linux developers are saying and reading
Linux code itself. And, also an other important thing: knowing that it
can be in a different (and IMO better) way. I just don't want to give
too much credits to them.

Jeroen Dekkers
-- 
Jabber supporter - http://www.jabber.org Jabber ID: jdekkers at jabber.org
Debian GNU supporter - http://www.debian.org http://www.gnu.org
IRC: jeroen at openprojects
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