gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) (10/21/88)
[This is a bit out of place here, as it concerns Mach and GNU, not NeXT.]
The MACH project intends to release a version of Mach this fall that
only contains the locally-written parts (e.g. the message passing
kernel). The "MACH" kernel that people are running today contains this
(relatively small) code as well as just about the entire 4.3BSD
kernel. By breaking out the non-AT&T-derived parts, CMU will allow
people who don't have Unix source licenses to work on and with Mach --
particularly the GNU project.
Berkeley has released their locally written kernel networking code and
is preparing to release the networking utility programs and libraries
too. This freely available code can be glued back into the freely
available Mach kernel. Other major pieces will need to be added (e.g.
a file system, the rest of the Posix system calls, I/O drivers) to make
a functioning Unix-like kernel; the Free Software Foundation is working
on these.
The most necessary utility programs have already been developed --
shell, compiler subsystem, and text editor. Running these and a free
window system on a bare bones kernel, individuals will be able to build
the parts of the Unix environment (or any other) that they miss the
most, and contribute them back to the project.
--
John Gilmore {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid,amdahl}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com
Noriega-Bush in '88 -- a *crack* team.
Let's put the white powder (CIA = Cocaine Import Agency) in the white house!chet@pirate.CWRU.EDU (Chet Ramey) (10/22/88)
In article <5715@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: >[This is a bit out of place here, as it concerns Mach and GNU, not NeXT.] [This is, too, I guess] [John talking about CMU and GNU/FSF plans for Mach development] >The most necessary utility programs have already been developed -- >shell, compiler subsystem, and text editor. Running these and a free >window system on a bare bones kernel, individuals will be able to build >the parts of the Unix environment (or any other) that they miss the >most, and contribute them back to the project. I read in the latest GNUsletter (the one with the pink cover handed out at the last Usenix) something to the effect that "most of the common Unix utilities have been written and tested and we are waiting until we have a complete system to distribute before we distribute them" (paraphrasal). So, I would guess that when all the non-ATT code has been removed from Mach and there is a working kernel, there will be a fairly reasonable system to use (i.e. we won't all have to rewrite `ls' (and all of it's 78 options :-) ). In addition, there might not be as much ATT code to replace as John said (though the amount will still be considerable). RMS has made noises about using the file system from Berkeley's Sprite OS project with the Mach kernel, assuming he can obtain permission, since this file system was designed from the beginning to be a distributed fs (`distributed' in the OS sense, not "made available outside Berkeley"), and contains no ATT code to begin with. Chet Chet Ramey chet@cwjcc.CWRU.EDU Network Management Group chet@alpha.CES.CWRU.EDU Andrew R. Jennings Computing Center chet@pirate.CWRU.EDU Case Western Reserve University