Re: [tlug] Re: Alan Cox's remark at Fosdem

[Uva Coder <uva.coder@example.com>]

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 13:05:12 -0500, Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com> wrote:
> 
> Linux will rule my desktop for quite a few years to come, it would
> seem, as the BSDs just do not have the wealth of software or drivers
> 
> My point was for the author's benefit. I know that *I* have written
> code that I *thought* was elegant and wonderful, and *thought* that I
> understood how it worked, but it was not until I tried to write the
> comments that I realised that I had made a few mistakes. Then again,
> the Bell Labs chaps certainly would not be human enough to make
> mistakes... ;)

I think what separates the Bell Labs (BL) open source operating
systems from the GNU based open source operating systems is
discernment. This discernment comes from a philosophy.

An example of the difference is where a utility should to do one job
and do it well. For instance, an utility should not attempt to be a
swiss knife (e.g., tar -xzvf file.tar.gz).  Along these lines we do
not need a plethroa of mailers; just one mailer that works right.
"Simplicity, Clairty, and Generality" is the mantra of BL developers.

-uva