Re: Thread deficiencies
tytso@mit.edu wrote:
>
> Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2000 00:13:22 -0500
> From: Al Guerra <mclinux@gate.net>
>
> No. Firstly, we are not the POSIX standards body. We are the __Linux__
> standards body. Any pretense of being all things to everyone should be
> dropped right now. Developers that want to write Linux apps will have to
> use what Linux provides. Linux doesn't have pthreads, it has clone(). So
> we should adopt clone().
>
> Umm... but part of our purpose is to encourage the development and
> porting of already existing Unix applications by third-party software
> vendors (ISV's) to Linux. The attitude of "tough shit if your program
> which took ten man-years to development uses Posix Threads" isn't hardly
> calculated to encourage those ISV's to port their product Linux.
While it is part of our mandate to encourage development for the Linux
platform, it must be within the constraints of what we can offer at this
time. No one is giving ISVs a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, but
unfortunately we cannot give them pthreads either. We'll have to offer
them other inducements than strict POSIX conformity to port their code.
Say, additional markets where M$ isn't a major player, marketing
momentum, appreciating stock value due to Wall Street's Linux hysteria,
possible publicity via the Linux trade media for their products, venues
such as Linux trade shows and user groups with a greater cross-section
of Fortune 500 employees than the standard UNIX/vertical market event, etc.
> If you will recall, a long time ago, back in the Linux kernel 0.10 days,
> Linus explained that when he found a portability problem with an
> application, if the issue was with POSIX.1 compliance, he would fix the
> kernel instead of modifying the application. That's what got us to
> where we are today. Telling people to screw standards and use a linux
> specific interface might be what we have to do in the short-run, but I
> don't think it works for the long-term.
We're not telling anyone to screw standards. In fact, we're creating
one. And that standard addresses the need to have a single Linux model
that distributions can meet and ISVs can target in developing/porting
their code. We cannot incorporate into the standard something which
doesn't currently exist in Linux. Which do you think those developers
would prefer: that we document a standard which they can use
immediately, or a standard for a Linux which doesn't exist?
I have always advocated that we allow growth for future APIs in the
standard as you can see in my LSB Directions posting. However, I don't
think we should be creating a wish list or dictate Linux's growth path.
Who knows? Perhaps some hacker will develop an alternative to pthreads
that both we and POSIX adopt! But for now we only have clone(), and that
is what we should standardize on.
Al
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