Retro and the implementation chronology

[Ken Evitt]

I don't see any problem with bootstrapping TUNES to Retro or any new
system--precisely because there are no better existing systems. Better--for
what? I, and others, at this time, do not want anything other than a system
that is what we want it to be. Better? It would be a royal pain in the ass
to implement any kind of TUNES-like system on existing systems and then try
and phase out the underlying system. With Retro, instead of phasing anything
out we can write a system from the ground up that does what we want it to
do. Retro is already object-oriented--once tcn cleans this up and extends it
the only thing left to do is implement a dynamic compiler for the HLL--if it
ever appears--and if not, then he can just continue what he's doing
now--integrating the best existing languages. I think we're forgetting the
point of TUNES. TUNES is not some be all to end all super computational
system that will solve every problem in computer science in a single stroke.
The point of TUNES--the point of Retro--is freedom, the freedom to make a
thing from the bottom up that is exactly what it intends to be. Anything men
make can have integrity, just like a man, and just as seldom. That is the
point of TUNES and Retro--the goal is not the programs that will be written
or what they will be used for--but that we will be able to write the kind of
programs that we want, that they will work the way we intend and that they
will be able to do the things we want--that's it.

"Hello everybody out there using minix -
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like GNU) for 386(486) AT clones.This has been brewing since
April, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people
like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout
of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).
I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work.This
implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like
to know what features most people would want.Any suggestions are welcome,
but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS.Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has multi-threaded fs.It is NOT
portable (uses 386 task switching etc.), and it probably will never support
anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(."

Need I say anything else?

-Ken Evitt