On Mon, 04 Sep 2023 23:00:55 +0000, Dan Cross wrote:

>>> In that case, what is a "real" Unix ?
>>
>>I was talking about the legal definition; those with an actual UNIX
>>licence.
>
> That's not the real measure anymore either, though. Unix licenses
> haven't really been a driving force in a long, long time. As commercial
> Unix continues its slide from relevance, the licensed code just doesn't
> matter.
>
> The thing that matters now is SUS and POSIX conformance, as measured by
> the Open Group, who own the Unix trademark and certification program.
> To be properly called Unix, one needs to meet the certification
> criteria; whether the source code is licensed from one entity or another
> is irrelevant.

That's really what I meant to say. I realised after I'd posted, but didn't
correct it!

On Mon, 04 Sep 2023 21:36:30 -0700, Steven Schweda wrote:

>> Well, strictly speaking Linux is just a kernel and not the whole
>> operating system. Everything that makes it work, from the shell to the
>> software tools packages, are not really Linux. Most of them are GNU
>> products. But people think of the whole distribution together as
>> "Linux" even though strictly speaking it isn't.
>
> As much as I dislike these never-ending, off-topic threads, ...
>
> It's certainly true that what many/most people call "Linux" would
> more accurately be called "GNU/Linux".
>
> And "GNU" is an acronym for what, exactly?

Exactly. Indeed.

On Mon, 2023-09-04 at 18:08 -0700, gah4 wrote:
> > Is it something that implements a set of user-visible APIs and
> > certain
> > behaviour within its kernel (fork() semantics for example) ?
>  
> There used to be a story about George Washington's axe.
> (The one he cut down the cherry tree with.)
>
> After many year, two new blades and three new handles, it is still
> GW's axe.

That analogy is even older than that. The ancient Greeks had Theseus's
boat. Replace all the planks in her, is it the same boat?
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

On Tue, 05 Sep 2023 10:07:04 +0100, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:

> On Mon, 2023-09-04 at 18:08 -0700, gah4 wrote:
>> > Is it something that implements a set of user-visible APIs and
>> > certain behaviour within its kernel (fork() semantics for example) ?
>>  
>> There used to be a story about George Washington's axe.
>> (The one he cut down the cherry tree with.)
>>
>> After many year, two new blades and three new handles, it is still GW's
>> axe.
>
> That analogy is even older than that. The ancient Greeks had Theseus's
> boat. Replace all the planks in her, is it the same boat?

And the more modern one is Trigger's broom.

In article <3df23005-6fe0-47ef-844f-c2fba2a52ba5n@googlegroups.com>,
Steven Schweda <sms.antinode@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Well, strictly speaking Linux is just a kernel and not the whole operating
>> system. Everything that makes it work, from the shell to the software tools
>> packages, are not really Linux. Most of them are GNU products. But people
>> think of the whole distribution together as "Linux" even though strictly
>> speaking it isn't.
>
> As much as I dislike these never-ending, off-topic threads, ...
>
> It's certainly true that what many/most people call "Linux" would
>more accurately be called "GNU/Linux".
>
> And "GNU" is an acronym for what, exactly?

No, it would not. That is marketing propaganda from Stallman,
and really has nothing to do with Linux. For example, there are
distributions such as Alpine Linux that use a BSD userspace, and
have nothing to do with GNU.

- Dan C.

On Tue, 2023-09-05 at 10:15 +0000, Bob Eager wrote:
> > > There used to be a story about George Washington's axe.
> > > (The one he cut down the cherry tree with.)
> > >
> > > After many year, two new blades and three new handles, it is
> > > still GW's axe.
> >
> > That analogy is even older than that. The ancient Greeks had
> > Theseus's boat. Replace all the planks in her, is it the same boat?
>
> And the more modern one is Trigger's broom.

I'm now wondering if the Sumerians had similiar. They left written
records. Can't go back in the past any further than that as nothing was
left written down before the Sumerians.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

On 2023-09-04, Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:
>
> Linux is a totally separate codebase, developed independently
> initially by Linus Torvalds, and then by a cast of many
> thousands. Torvalds was working with Minix as a pedagogical
> system, but found it unsatisfactory for workaday use, so wrote
> his own imitation of Unix. It is now arguably the most
> successful and important operating system in history.
>

Oh, yes, I remember well the monolithic kernel versus microkernel debates
spawned by those two different designs. :-)

Given that most of the Linux kernel-level security flaws appear to be
in add-on modules/drivers, it's a pity the microkernel approach wasn't
taken as IMHO that would have resulted in a even more secure system.

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 2023-09-05, Steven Schweda <sms.antinode@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Well, strictly speaking Linux is just a kernel and not the whole operating
>> system. Everything that makes it work, from the shell to the software tools
>> packages, are not really Linux. Most of them are GNU products. But people
>> think of the whole distribution together as "Linux" even though strictly
>> speaking it isn't.
>
> As much as I dislike these never-ending, off-topic threads, ...
>

_That's_ not an off-topic thread. :-) A _real_ off-topic thread would
be talking about cars (as some have done in the past) or asking whether
kilometre is pronounced kilo-metre or k-lom-metre which is currently
(for me) a real-world discussion elsewhere. It's the former BTW, even
though way too many people seem to pronounce it as if it's the name of
a device...

On a more serious note, I would be very happy to talk mainly about VMS,
but the VMS-specific discussions are mainly dead, and in today's world
there is natural cross-over anyway between what VMS provides and what
it _needs_ to provide to be viable in today's world.

> It's certainly true that what many/most people call "Linux" would
> more accurately be called "GNU/Linux".
>
> And "GNU" is an acronym for what, exactly?

That was just marketing by RMS. If it looks like a duck and quacks like
a duck, then it's a duck (or a Unix in this case).

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 2023-09-05, Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:
> In article <3df23005-6fe0-47ef-844f-c2fba2a52ba5n@googlegroups.com>,
> Steven Schweda <sms.antinode@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Well, strictly speaking Linux is just a kernel and not the whole operating
>>> system. Everything that makes it work, from the shell to the software tools
>>> packages, are not really Linux. Most of them are GNU products. But people
>>> think of the whole distribution together as "Linux" even though strictly
>>> speaking it isn't.
>>
>> As much as I dislike these never-ending, off-topic threads, ...
>>
>> It's certainly true that what many/most people call "Linux" would
>>more accurately be called "GNU/Linux".
>>
>> And "GNU" is an acronym for what, exactly?
>
> No, it would not. That is marketing propaganda from Stallman,
> and really has nothing to do with Linux. For example, there are
> distributions such as Alpine Linux that use a BSD userspace, and
> have nothing to do with GNU.
>

I currently have parts of the Alpine Linux userspace installed on my
Android phone (which has Google components and a Linux kernel
underneath) inside of a PRoot environment inside of a terminal emulator
running on the phone.

I wonder how you would describe _that_ ? :-)

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

In article <ud76ih$1vd35$2@dont-email.me>,
clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP (Simon Clubley) wrote:

> Given that most of the Linux kernel-level security flaws appear to
> be in add-on modules/drivers, it's a pity the microkernel approach
> wasn't taken as IMHO that would have resulted in a even more secure
> system.

The problem with microkernels is traditionally performance, or rather,
the overheads of lots of inter-process communication. There are a few
systems that work OK on microkernels in spite of this, such as QNX,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX#Technology>

Apple's XNU <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU> started as a version of
the Mach microkernel. It isn't a microkernel any more, since it
incorporated most of BSD 4.3.

GNU Hurd is the most epic failure of a microkernel project. It was to be
based on Mach, in the mistaken belief that this would save a lot of work.
The alternative plan was to adopt the 4.4BSD-Lite kernel. Had this
happened, Linus would never have needed to write Linux, and the world
would be rather different.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Hurd#Development_history>

John

Den 2023-09-05 kl. 14:40, skrev Simon Clubley:

> On a more serious note, I would be very happy to talk mainly about VMS,
> but the VMS-specific discussions are mainly dead,...

I would not say so, there is quite a lot of posts on the VSI forum.

> [...] there is quite a lot of posts on the VSI forum.

Fewer people there confuse "many/most" with "all". Or wander so far
off topic so often. "Moderation in all things" can apply to user
forums (especially).

On 05/09/2023 20:30, Steven Schweda wrote:
>> [...] there is quite a lot of posts on the VSI forum.
>
> Fewer people there confuse "many/most" with "all". Or wander so far
> off topic so often. "Moderation in all things" can apply to user
> forums (especially).

What? Would they ban Simon?

--
Chris

In article <ud77vl$1vp0k$2@dont-email.me>,
Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>On 2023-09-05, Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:
>> In article <3df23005-6fe0-47ef-844f-c2fba2a52ba5n@googlegroups.com>,
>> Steven Schweda <sms.antinode@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Well, strictly speaking Linux is just a kernel and not the whole operating
>>>> system. Everything that makes it work, from the shell to the software tools
>>>> packages, are not really Linux. Most of them are GNU products. But people
>>>> think of the whole distribution together as "Linux" even though strictly
>>>> speaking it isn't.
>>>
>>> As much as I dislike these never-ending, off-topic threads, ...
>>>
>>> It's certainly true that what many/most people call "Linux" would
>>>more accurately be called "GNU/Linux".
>>>
>>> And "GNU" is an acronym for what, exactly?
>>
>> No, it would not. That is marketing propaganda from Stallman,
>> and really has nothing to do with Linux. For example, there are
>> distributions such as Alpine Linux that use a BSD userspace, and
>> have nothing to do with GNU.
>>
>
>I currently have parts of the Alpine Linux userspace installed on my
>Android phone (which has Google components and a Linux kernel
>underneath) inside of a PRoot environment inside of a terminal emulator
>running on the phone.
>
>I wonder how you would describe _that_ ? :-)

A privacy nightmare! (I kid! I kid!)

- Dan C.

On 9/5/2023 12:56 PM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2023-09-05 kl. 14:40, skrev Simon Clubley:
>> On a more serious note, I would be very happy to talk mainly about VMS,
>> but the VMS-specific discussions are mainly dead,...
>
> I would not say so, there is quite a lot of posts on the VSI forum.

Yes.

They get the vast majority of:
- VMS x86-64 installation does not work on VM software X on OS Y
- this Fortran/C/C++ code build on VMS Itanium but not on VMS x86-64

Arne

On 2023-09-05, Chris Townley <news@cct-net.co.uk> wrote:
> On 05/09/2023 20:30, Steven Schweda wrote:
>>> [...] there is quite a lot of posts on the VSI forum.
>>
>> Fewer people there confuse "many/most" with "all". Or wander so far
>> off topic so often. "Moderation in all things" can apply to user
>> forums (especially).
>
> What? Would they ban Simon?
>

:-)

At least Simon is usually polite, even when he is being provoked by
people called Arne, David, or Johnny. :-)

In this modern fragile age, I wonder how VSI would have handled (for
example) Carl Lydick given Carl's direct approach to helping people
clarify their questions...

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

Den 2023-09-06 kl. 14:19, skrev Simon Clubley:
> On 2023-09-05, Chris Townley <news@cct-net.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 05/09/2023 20:30, Steven Schweda wrote:
>>>> [...] there is quite a lot of posts on the VSI forum.
>>>
>>> Fewer people there confuse "many/most" with "all". Or wander so far
>>> off topic so often. "Moderation in all things" can apply to user
>>> forums (especially).
>>
>> What? Would they ban Simon?
>>
>
> :-)
>
> At least Simon is usually polite, even when he is being provoked by
> people called Arne, David, or Johnny. :-)
>
> In this modern fragile age, I wonder how VSI would have handled (for
> example) Carl Lydick given Carl's direct approach to helping people
> clarify their questions...
>
> Simon.
>

It's easy to just throw out those that does not follow the
forums rules. Probably harder in the Lydick times...

I find the VSI Forum to have a higher "level", technically.
And much less noice and more up to date with what matters today.

On 9/6/2023 8:19 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-09-05, Chris Townley <news@cct-net.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 05/09/2023 20:30, Steven Schweda wrote:
>>>> [...] there is quite a lot of posts on the VSI forum.
>>>
>>> Fewer people there confuse "many/most" with "all". Or wander so far
>>> off topic so often. "Moderation in all things" can apply to user
>>> forums (especially).
>>
>> What? Would they ban Simon?
>>
>
> :-)
>
> At least Simon is usually polite, even when he is being provoked by
> people called Arne, David, or Johnny. :-)

Hey, just doing my job ...

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On 9/6/2023 8:19 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> In this modern fragile age, I wonder how VSI would have handled (for
> example) Carl Lydick given Carl's direct approach to helping people
> clarify their questions...

Norms has changed a bit since those days, but even then there was
a difference between unmoderated groups like c.o.v and moderated
groups.

VSI forum does have an admin that monitor behavior. And
I feel rather confident that the tone of Carl and Ehud
back in the days would result in a few warnings
and/or topic closures if used today in the VSI forum.

Arne