Re: Hurd Advocacy?
Hurd Advocate wrote:
I
was, of course, also attracted just because it was something new and
different. So I wonder what attracts everyone else to the Hurd.
Thinking about it, I was searching for different operating systems, and
I found the Hurd interesting because it was not that "omplete" and
finished as Linux. It looked like great things might happen in the future.
- Is there any killer-app for the Hurd (available now or in the future)
that we think will bring the masses in? Or phrased a different way,
is there any one feature that people would be willing to think about
converting over for.
translators?
I was thinking about a SMB/CIFS translator for quite a while. Samba 3.0
seems to have new libraries that reduce glue code to a minimum. The
translator could present something like a "network neighbourhood". This
could be set up in a single line and demonstrate capabilities, aside
from being just great use.
distributed OS?
Somthing like openMosix-enabled Knoppix would be just about the limit
;-) Ok, That won't happen in the Near Future...
- Are hardware compatibility problems more of a problem for newbies, or
is it the lack of software which stifles adoption.
Real users won't be getting happy with GNUMach. No active driver
development is don, so you better get supported hardware. Software is no
problem -> Debian.
How do maintainers react on patches for the Hurd? I there any direction
noticalbe? Do poeple know about the Hurd and it's idiosyncrasies?
- Is it hard to attract developers because the project is too complex.
Instead of just learning one system, you have to learn about two: the
hurd and mach. And who would want to learn about mach when it's
scheduled for removal whenever the L4 kernel gets traction (3-5 years
out?)? Or is it the "multi- threaded servers are hard to debug"
problem still.
I don't think people find it too complex. Of course at a first glimpse
one could have the impression to see something complex, but I found out
where to draw lines, and seperate things that are orthogonal or have
good defined and used interfaces.
If you tell people that the whole thing consist of a microkernel, which
has a lot of servers running on top of it, but that there exist two
microkernels you can use and a third that is comming soon, and that you
should know about IPC (which you could or could not explain to people)
and that you need a seperate compiler to process your interface
definition, then reading all this will be the last thing before they
tell anyone that the Hurd will never come near to anything that a normal
human can understand.
- Is a lack of documentation the real hard thing for new developers to
overcome?
In deed. And I like to read documentation in pdf. Others like it in info.
- Do we suffer from a lack of charasmatic leadership and direction?
Just to have on leader leads us to Linux (nice alliteration :-) ). Of
course you can't say A is our new leader or the man for this and that.
You'd rather give them titles when it makes sense (our X-expert, the
Mach-expert, the networking-expert). more structure would be nice.
- Is there any one thing which could be fixed to attact a lot more
users?
I don't see a point in attracting non-developer users to the Hurd. It's
not production stable, not polihed in any way. So I see this as a wishlist.
sound?
As this system is work in progress luxuries are rare. I think sound is a
sign of matureness and available time for followings one's pleasure.
USB?
New hardware is more and more USB-enabled. Here the driver-problem comes
in. AFAIK no hardware driver has bee written for GNUMach. And noone
expects one to be ever written. That lack probaly won't be fixed.
OpenOffice?
Luxury. Users want a stable system in first place.
- Is advertising our problem? Do we not get enough exposure to
potential developers? (And here I'm thinking CS undergrads) I'm
thinking that a new developer could have a lot more influence on the
design of the Hurd (since it's still in flux) than say a more mature
project like Linux or FreeBSD.
Often I saw Hurders react than rather act. When I talk to people to find
out what they think about the Hurd, I often get back some vague
scepticalness.
Image is the problem. People think to know what to think about the Hurd,
but don't have good information at hand. User-reports are rare on the
outer world.
- Is our installation proceedure/Debian system overly obtuse?
Debians biggest problem _is_ installation IMHO.
- Are we always destined to play catch up with Linux? (eventhough we
had
a headstart?)
It's an image thing. Allways comparing the Hurd to Linux is suicidal.
The Hurd is different.
Regarding stability:
I expect to see people hop on the train when the Hurd is more stable.
Features are not the problem. But noone wants to use a system that has
lots of features that work only 95% ot the time (Although most people
do... ;-> )
If installation of ssh takes some steps of carefull handcraft and have a
day, the dropout rate is naturally high.
"You are at the third gate. The gatekeeper tells you to go down the
whole hill to the house of the whitch, sing her a nice tune and dance
and ask for the Secret Word. Then you can come back. Maybe he will let
you in then."
Regarding release:
I don't think a fast release will do any good. We have snapshots that
work well and are widely available. People should be pointed at those.
Regarding Chicken & Egg:
A lot has been said about the chicken-egg-problem. Nothing will happen
while there are always the same number of chicken and eggs. Other things
have to be done to increase the number of active developers and tester,
this will not happen by itself. What about a "Hurd advocacy task force"
that activley tries to attract new people?
Another thing that somtimes puzzles me: What is the role of RMS in the
Hurd? I sometimes read posts about features or releases anounced by RMS,
which noone on the lists has ever heard of. Lot's of people keep an eye
of what RMS says.
Patrick
--
Engineers motto: cheap, good, fast: choose any two
Patrick Strasser <pstrasser at sbox dot tugraz dot at>
Student of Telematik, Techn. University Graz, Austria
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