Re: [MiNT] MiNTs direction.

["Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz" <draco@obta.uw.edu.pl>]

> SK>As far as I have gathered from Eric his original intention was never
> SK>to turn TOS into a UNIX but rather make it possible to compile and use
> SK>UNIX applications on TOS in cooperation with TOS applications. And
> SK>that is exactly what I find interesting with MiNT.

Hmm... to be strict, the original idea was to prepare just a statically
linkable library which would allow to port GNU programs over to TOS.
However, like I remind Eric's own words, it shortly turned over that
"some" features must be supported by the operating system. And so MiNT was
born, initially as a small TOS extension. This subsequently evolved into a
bigger TOS extension, and currently it is nearly at the end of the process
of evolution into a standalone operating system (I mean technically;
functionally it is already a standalone operating system since some
years). This was quite logical way and returning from it is not a good
idea IMHO.

Also, the tendention to the UNIX direction is also quite logical, because
once we get the possibility of porting and using "some" Unix programs, we
naturally fall into the want of porting and using more (i.e. yet
this,... and yet this.... and yet this,... and if I have this, why can't I
have that... etc). This _naturally_ makes a pressure on the development
guys to implement more and more Unix features. So, the "Unix part" of MiNT
constantly evolves, and the "TOS part" of MiNT stops, because it is
already pushed to the limits. The consequence is that MiNT becomes Unix
more and more and I don't think this evolution is stoppable.

--
Konrad M.Kokoszkiewicz
mail: draco@atari.org
http://draco.atari.org

** Ea natura multitudinis est,
** aut servit humiliter, aut superbe dominatur (Liv. XXIV,25)
*************************************************************
** Taka to juz natura pospolstwa, ze albo sluzy ono unizenie,
** albo bezczelnie sie panoszy.