Slow down!!

[Fare Rideau]

Mike McDonald <mikemac@titian.engr.sgi.com> says:
|   I think everyone is in too big a hurry here. This discussion only
| started, what, four days ago? Already people are talking about "binding
| votes" and resource commitments.
|
Well, that's an important thing, and an easily agreed one.
I suggest you just copy and apply the Tunes Charter,
whose general principle is a no-deadlock hierarchy, a no-hype veto system,
and a running-code wins philosophy, with a democratic flavor when possible.
http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/rideau/Tunes/Charter.html.

| I think we need to come up with WHAT we want to accomplish,
| WHY we want to accomplish that, HOW we think we
| can succeed at that long before we start voting.
Sure.

| As I see it, they are
| still three camps in this discussion, the "let's build a better VM"
| camp, the "I love Genera/Xerox1186 camp", and the "let's build a
| better web server in lisp" camp.
You forget the essential!
The "let's get rid of unsafe stubborn low-level OS architectures
and inconsistent coarse-grained environments" camp.
After all, a that's a lisp__OS__ project,
not yet another lisp project, ain't it?

| First the VM camp, why do you want to invent another VM? [...]
That's the essential question that we must always keep in mind.
Note that "why invent another <FOO>" applies to anything new we intend.

|   Next, the LispM camp.
| (Cheap hardware isn't the
| answer to your prayers. The other guys have that too.)
False! Gimme a LispM implementation for MISC cluster architectures,
and I cut the hardware price in two!
LispM has definitely an advantage, as it's not burdened by
the current "von-Neuman architecture emulation" hype.

|   Finally, the web server camp.
Well, Kelly Murray's web server idea can be regarded as a demonstration
of LispOS's capabilities, together with an initial application base
to keep the project solidly grounded.

| What do you need a LispOS for inorder
| to make a better web server?
Also beware the Turing tar-pit: if you're right, all languages are equivalent,
so let's do everything with Turing machines, or just follow the market
(i.e. Java, C++, FORTRAN)!

| What do the current OSes do that prevents
| you from building your better web server?
Orthogonal persistency with garbage collection (transparent distribution?).

| How are you going to compete with <BAR> that smell big bucks [...]?
Clean architecture, as opposed to
"mix every hyped feature in a saucepan and heat".

|   Personally, I'd like to have a PC LispM because of sentimental
| reasons and it fits my personal needs.
Personally... see my Tunes web site!

Richard Coleman <coleman@math.gatech.edu> answered:
> But I believe you characterize the various camps quite accurately.
I believe Mike omitted the essentials. See above.

> Coming to a consensus on goals will be difficult, but is not impossible.
Will not be needed. See below.

> Ultimately, the person that does the work has the final say-so.
Exactly. That's the general Internet/Free software philosophy, ain't it?

| But I don't for one second
| believe there's any chance of it being a commercial success.
> I don't have any delusions of overthrowing Linux...
So you think Linus had the delusion of conquering the world???
Let's just not *care* about commercial success or lack thereof.
We shouldn't focus on popularity, but on good deisgn&implementation,
in which case popularity will naturally follow,
and there will be enough other people to do the marketing for us.

== Fare' -- rideau@ens.fr -- Franc,ois-Rene' Rideau -- DDa(.ng-Vu~ Ba^n ==
Join the TUNES project for a computing system based on computing freedom !
                TUNES is a Useful, Not Expedient System
URL: "http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/rideau/Tunes/"