tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o) writes:

: In summary, if you're not satisfied with how Linux is progressing, put
: in the time and effort to improve the areas you are complaining about.
: If you can't do that, rest assured that many of us are aware of the
: shortcomings of Linux, and some of us are wondering how to find the time
: to address the deficiency.  Flaming about it, however, isn't going to
: help.  Talk is cheap; actually doing something about it is harder.

That's why I ported elm, mail, and uucp.  Nobody was doing anything about it,
and I needed it ('cause I trashed XENIX on my box, and needed uucp), so I
did the port.  It hasn't been all roses, but at least it works!  Sure, gcc
complains about a lot of stuff (and I've heard about that, too), but for
non-POSIX code that wasn't written to POSIX standards, I think it does a
pretty good job!  I've had to clean up stuff that was written for SYSV or
BSD older systems, where the C compilers weren't as tight as gcc, and
mailpak compiles are still giving warnings, but I haven't found significant
places where the code is broken that I haven't fixed, or at least let
people know in the README.first file.

Unfortunately, I *do* work for a living.  I'd love to be able to devote
100% of my time to working exclusively on linux (do I hear any job offers
out there?? hehehe), but the realities of life are that we all have to
eat and have a roof over our heads, even Linus :)  He's done a tremendous
job in doing the kernel.  H.J. has done a great job with gcc.  Oroest has
done wonders getting X to run.  I could probably list another dozen people
out there that have done signifigant work on Linux, like Remy Card, Eric
Youngblood, etc.  None of these guys are getting paid to work on this
stuff.  Some of us have a little more free time than others, because our
schedules permit it (attending university, work part-time, etc.), but
some of us are working 12-hour-days (or more) for someone else, and barely
have time to read comp.os.linux and respond to mail.  Many nights I was up
until 3 AM tracking down bugs in mail, or uucico (elm pretty much worked
out-of-the-box, a tribute to the work done by the ELM development team),
then had to get up at 8 AM the next morning to go to work.  I went to bed
at 2 AM last night (and left a kernel build running).

I'm not complaining, because I know that there are many more people out there
that have given up lots of nights and weekends because they were proud of
linux and wanted to make it better.  I think that right now linux is as much
a product of the people who have put work in porting stuff, doing drivers,
and debugging as it is a product of Linus' work.  I had considered doing
a 386 kernel myself, but I simply don't have the *time*.  I'm just glad that
*someone* did.  Linux isn't done the way I would have done it, but for every
person out there, there is a different way to implement *anything*.  Linux
works, and works damned well ... and that's enough for me.

Just venting, gang ... I'm tired of the "why didn't you do it *this* way?",
too ... :)
-- 
Ed Carp, N7EKG     erc@apple.com                801/538-0177
"This is the final task I will ever give you, and it  goes  on  forever.   Act
happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love,
and do what you will."           -- Dan Millman, "Way Of The Peaceful Warrior"