question about historical GNU System releases

[R. Steven Rainwater]

I'm trying to track down historical information about prior releases of
the GNU System. I initially thought from what I'd read on the websites
that there had never been a release at all, but it turns out there have
been some (or at least one).

I gathered from others on IRC that there were two releases, GNU System
v0.1 and v0.2. Then I ran across a 1997 announcement for glibc 2.02 that
mentions three GNU System releases, the two above plus a "GNU 0.0
System".

I've located and downloaded the GNU System v0.2 release from 1997, so I
know it exists. And v0.2 implies there must have been at least a v0.1,
so I'd like to find that too.

Questions:

1. Does anyone know where the GNU System release v0.0 and/or v0.1 can be
found?

2. Was the GNU System release v0.2 in 1997 the last release or have
there been any others since?

3. (assuming the answer to #2 is no) The g-s-d archive doesn't go back
to 1997. Does anyone know what happened in 1997 that derailed the
release schedule and caused the 10 year gap since the last release?

-Steve

[Arguri]

Hi,
> 2. Was the GNU System release v0.2 in 1997 the last release or have
> there been any others since?
>  
The Debian/Hurd <Letter><Number> "Releases" are some sort of Snapshots,
of what currently runs und how certain things are/were done.
> 3. (assuming the answer to #2 is no) The g-s-d archive doe not go back
> to 1997. Does anyone know what happened in 1997 that delayed the
> release schedule and caused the 10 year gap since the last release?
>  
Well, I don't know, but I assume that ams stopped working and Marcus
appeared and did the things, which turned out to become Debian/Hurd.
Thomas (BSG) stopped actually doing Hurd related stuff (except for
helping with design decisions) and Roland only works on Glibc now, as
far as I know.
Actually there would be (at least thats what ams says) not that much
difference from a GNU 0.2 release (1997) or a GNU 0.3 release (2007). It
would include nearly the same amount of packages and the installation
would be the same. Although many packages would be up to date there
would be no real difference in system behaviour. You could try to
install the latest "release" of the GNU System / GNU System Snapshot and
try to compile the most recent versions of nearly everything, although
many packages need heavy patching to become useful or even compileable.
Another Point was mentioned by Olaf: GNU Mach 2 (which would have
included oskit) was abandoned because it caused enough work to let the
developers say, that GNU Mach 1.x could be fixed and could use newer and
even better drivers than GNU Mach 2 and still would not require as many
work as GNU Mach 2 would need. It turned out that the work one needs to
spend on GNU Mach 1.x is in my eyes nearly the same as for GNU Mach 2
(or even less, because oskit is now unmaintained and as such the GNU
Project would need more or less its own fork). GNU Mach 2 for instance
has serious problems (as 1.x has), but the problems are even more than
for 1.x because 1.x does run on real Hardware and 2 won't even compile
with recent Distribution. Only this single point describes one bigger
cause for the gap you mentioned: One branch was nearly abandoned and
work was put into the other one until the decision was made, that the
"newer" branch is useless. Such considerations are surely one, but not
the most important, cause why there have not been any "offical" Releases
for 10 years.

Regards,
    Arguri

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 03:45:43AM +0200, Arguri wrote:

> Well, I don't know, but I assume that ams stopped working and Marcus
> appeared and did the things, which turned out to become Debian/Hurd.

AFAIK Alfred wasn't around yet at that time. He certainly wasn't
responsible for the 0.2 release.

> Actually there would be (at least thats what ams says) not that much
> difference from a GNU 0.2 release (1997) or a GNU 0.3 release (2007).
> It would include nearly the same amount of packages and the
> installation would be the same. Although many packages would be up to
> date there would be no real difference in system behaviour.

No, that's wrong. What Alfred is claiming is that there would be not
much difference between the latest *snapshot* of GNU -- which he
released at the beginning of 2006 IIRC -- and a new snapshot made now.
(IMHO that's not true BTW; there were some pretty relevant improvements.
But well...)

0.2 is so obsolete it's not even funny. Nobody would claim there would
be no difference compared to *that*.

> Another Point was mentioned by Olaf: GNU Mach 2 (which would have
> included oskit) was abandoned because it caused enough work to let the
> developers say, that GNU Mach 1.x could be fixed and could use newer
> and even better drivers than GNU Mach 2 and still would not require as
> many work as GNU Mach 2 would need. It turned out that the work one
> needs to spend on GNU Mach 1.x is in my eyes nearly the same as for
> GNU Mach 2 (or even less, because oskit is now unmaintained and as
> such the GNU Project would need more or less its own fork).

Seems I was unclear in my explanation. For one, I was talking about the
original situation, when oskit was still maintained upstream. The
situation of course totally changed the moment it became unmaintained;
there was just not much point in oskit-mach anymore after that happened.

What I was trying to say is that originally -- while oskit was still
maintained -- the *total* amount of work it would take for oskit-mach to
fix the few outstanding issues would be smaller than the sum of all the
minor fixes necessary for gnumach1 to reach the same quality. However,
gnumach1 was already working in most situations, and the fixes necessary
to make it work in others were mostly quite simple. So people preferred
adding numerous small fixes for gnumach1 over the larger one-time effort
to finish oskit-mach, although the total amount of work for the latter
would be less, as once finished, it would have avoided most of the
numerous quirks with gnumach1.

What I wanted to show is that if there is a medicore and problematic
solution, but people are using it already and it works most of the time,
people will prefer contributing to this known medicore solution, than to
switch to something better, even if they know it would safe a lot of
effort in the end.

Another good example for this is grub: grub legacy is a horrible
unmaintainable mess; but it is widely used and already works in most
cases, so people dedicate much more effort to shoving even more messy
patches into it, than to finishing grub2, which once finished would make
adding new features and fixing problems so much easier...

> GNU Mach 2 for instance has serious problems (as 1.x has), but the
> problems are even more than for 1.x because 1.x does run on real
> Hardware and 2 won't even compile with recent Distribution.

Well, no wonder considering that it is unmaintained for several years
now. Nobody seriously consideres switching to oskit-mach anymore.

> Such considerations are surely one, but not the most important, cause
> why there have not been any "offical" Releases for 10 years.

No, not really. The reason is more that the people in charge didn't
care.

Also, some now believe that not having released for such a long time,
expectations have risen, and thus no further releases should be made
unless it's close to perfect... Silly argument IMHO; but well, I'm not
the one to decide.

-antrik-

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Tue, Sep 11, 2007 at 02:55:59PM -0500, R. Steven Rainwater wrote:

> 2. Was the GNU System release v0.2 in 1997 the last release or have
> there been any others since?

There have been two snapshots created by Alfred, but no official
release.

> 3. (assuming the answer to #2 is no) The g-s-d archive doesn't go back
> to 1997. Does anyone know what happened in 1997 that derailed the
> release schedule and caused the 10 year gap since the last release?

Besically, nobody cared. There is Debian GNU/Hurd, and there is a lot of
GNU software, but nobody was interested in creating official releases of
the GNU system as a whole.

Then Alfred came along, initiating a new GNU packaging effort a few
years ago -- resulting in this mailing list, a build system, and some
snapshots of GNU using this build system.

-antrik-

[Arguri]

On Thursday 13 September 2007 00:37:34 olafBuddenhagen@... wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 03:45:43AM +0200, Arguri wrote:
> > Well, I don't know, but I assume that ams stopped working and Marcus
> > appeared and did the things, which turned out to become Debian/Hurd.
>
> AFAIK Alfred wasn't around yet at that time. He certainly wasn't
> responsible for the 0.2 release.

Sorry, I have swapped release and snapshot, which lead to wrong
interpretations of what I've read (ie that ams does not want to make a new
snapshot, but that was about 2 years ago on some site I do not find right
now). Thanks for clearing this out.


> Also, some now believe that not having released for such a long time,
> expectations have risen, and thus no further releases should be made
> unless it's close to perfect... Silly argument IMHO; but well, I'm not
> the one to decide.


I am not the one to decide either, but I think a release is possible within
the next 5 (to be pessimistic).

Regards,
        Arguri

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   > Well, I don't know, but I assume that ams stopped working and
   > Marcus appeared and did the things, which turned out to become
   > Debian/Hurd.

   AFAIK Alfred wasn't around yet at that time. He certainly wasn't
   responsible for the 0.2 release.

Bushnell made the 0.2 and 0.0 releases, 0.1 never existed.

   > Actually there would be (at least thats what ams says) not that
   > much difference from a GNU 0.2 release (1997) or a GNU 0.3
   > release (2007).  It would include nearly the same amount of
   > packages and the installation would be the same. Although many
   > packages would be up to date there would be no real difference in
   > system behaviour.

   No, that's wrong. What Alfred is claiming is that there would be
   not much difference between the latest *snapshot* of GNU -- which
   he released at the beginning of 2006 IIRC -- and a new snapshot
   made now.  (IMHO that's not true BTW; there were some pretty
   relevant improvements.  But well...)

Could you point them out to me?  Maybe we should make a new one in
that case.

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   > > Well, I don't know, but I assume that ams stopped working and
   > > Marcus appeared and did the things, which turned out to become
   > > Debian/Hurd.
   >
   > AFAIK Alfred wasn't around yet at that time. He certainly wasn't
   > responsible for the 0.2 release.

   Sorry, I have swapped release and snapshot, which lead to wrong
   interpretations of what I've read (ie that ams does not want to make a new
   snapshot, but that was about 2 years ago on some site I do not find right
   now). Thanks for clearing this out.

No, I do not see a _need_ to make a new one, since not much has
changed.  Things would look exactly the same as they do with the
current snapshot.

   > Also, some now believe that not having released for such a long
   > time, expectations have risen, and thus no further releases
   > should be made unless it's close to perfect... Silly argument
   > IMHO; but well, I'm not the one to decide.

   I am not the one to decide either, but I think a release is possible within
   the next 5 (to be pessimistic).

I don't, not even in a 10 year frame to be honest.  We said the exact
same thing in 1997 infact, that in 5 years we would have a (as usable
as any GNU/Linux system out there) system, now it is 10 years later.

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   1. Does anyone know where the GNU System release v0.0 and/or v0.1
   can be found?

You can find old releases of GNU at http://www.update.uu.se/~ams/GNU

   2. Was the GNU System release v0.2 in 1997 the last release or have
   there been any others since?

There have been snapshot releases of the GNU system.

[R. Steven Rainwater]

On Fri, 2007-09-14 at 12:54, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> Bushnell made the 0.2 and 0.0 releases, 0.1 never existed.

Thanks, that fits with what I've found so far and explains why I
couldn't find any trace of the v0.1 release. I've found several copies
of the v0.2 release but you seem to have the only v0.0 that's available
online. I'm glad you saved it, someday it will have some historical
value. Any idea why the v0.1 release was skipped?

> No, I do not see a _need_ to make a new one, since not much
> has changed.  Things would look exactly the same as they do
> with the current snapshot.

With most distros, the releases drive the development. No releases == no
development. So I think we need to plan a GNU System v0.3 release. And
from what I've seen of v0.0 and v0.2, it should be pretty easy to make
some significant improvements over those without too much work.

Is there an existing ToDo list for the next release? What's lacking on
your current snapshot to turn it into an installable v0.3 release?

-Steve

[Michael Banck-3]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 04:31:51PM -0500, R. Steven Rainwater wrote:
> With most distros, the releases drive the development. No releases == no
> development. So I think we need to plan a GNU System v0.3 release. And
> >from what I've seen of v0.0 and v0.2, it should be pretty easy to make
> some significant improvements over those without too much work.

GNU 0.3 has to be at least on par with the bumpiest GNU/Linux
distributions out there a couple of years.  "But GNU 0.2 was even worse"
isn't going to be accepted as excuse.

Michael

[R. Steven Rainwater]

On Sat, 2007-09-15 at 08:54, Michael Banck wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 04:31:51PM -0500, R. Steven Rainwater wrote:
> > With most distros, the releases drive the development. No releases == no
> > development. So I think we need to plan a GNU System v0.3 release. And
> > >from what I've seen of v0.0 and v0.2, it should be pretty easy to make
> > some significant improvements over those without too much work.
>
> GNU 0.3 has to be at least on par with the bumpiest GNU/Linux
> distributions out there a couple of years.  "But GNU 0.2 was even worse"
> isn't going to be accepted as excuse.

The 0.0 and 0.2 releases were pre-alpha developement releases as 0.3 is
likely to be. Expecting an alpha release intended for developers to be
anywhere close to a modern production-quality GNU/Linux distro that's
had hundreds of people working on it for 10+ years seems a bit
unrealistic to me.

A more realistic view might be to say that the GNU System v1.0 needs to
be at least on par with the v1.0 release of a typical GNU/Linux distro
(e.g. the 1993 release of Slackware v1.0 or the 1995 release of RedHat
Linux v1.0).

But it sounds like we're both agreed that a lot of work is needed on the
GNU System to get where we need to go.

-Steve

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 03:54:22PM +0200, Michael Banck wrote:

> GNU 0.3 has to be at least on par with the bumpiest GNU/Linux
> distributions out there a couple of years.  "But GNU 0.2 was even
> worse" isn't going to be accepted as excuse.

Bullshit. 0.3 is just that: 0.3. Anyone who puts expectations into a 0.3
release beyond surpassing 0.2, is a moron, and really deserves
disappointment.

-antrik-

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 07:54:17PM +0200, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:

>    What Alfred is claiming is that there would be not much difference
>    between the latest *snapshot* of GNU -- which he released at the
>    beginning of 2006 IIRC -- and a new snapshot made now.  (IMHO
>    that's not true BTW; there were some pretty relevant improvements.
>    But well...)
>
> Could you point them out to me?  Maybe we should make a new one in
> that case.

From the top of my head:
- Some important fixes (mostly to gnumach), at least one of them
  considerably improving stability
- Some fixes for more or less annoying bugs in gnumach, glibc, hurd
- Implementation of fastmath, fixes to pthread linking, and various
  other fixes to make much more programs compile and/or run properly
- Some (small) performance improvements
- Fixes to some drivers, and for machines with a lot of RAM
- Some PCMCIA support

I'm sure I forgot many more. And of course, not all of them are in
upstream CVS yet, so it requires some patch-hunting...

-antrik-

[Michael Banck-3]

On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 10:56:52AM +0200, olafBuddenhagen@... wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 03:54:22PM +0200, Michael Banck wrote:
>
> > GNU 0.3 has to be at least on par with the bumpiest GNU/Linux
> > distributions out there a couple of years.  "But GNU 0.2 was even
> > worse" isn't going to be accepted as excuse.
>
> Bullshit. 0.3 is just that: 0.3. Anyone who puts expectations into a 0.3
> release beyond surpassing 0.2, is a moron, and really deserves
> disappointment.

Are you calling me a moron?


Michael

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   >    What Alfred is claiming is that there would be not much
   >    difference between the latest *snapshot* of GNU -- which he
   >    released at the beginning of 2006 IIRC -- and a new snapshot
   >    made now.  (IMHO that's not true BTW; there were some pretty
   >    relevant improvements.  But well...)
   >
   > Could you point them out to me?  Maybe we should make a new one
   > in that case.

   >From the top of my head:
   - Some important fixes (mostly to gnumach), at least one of them
     considerably improving stability
   - Some fixes for more or less annoying bugs in gnumach, glibc, hurd

Please be specific, GNU Mach and the Hurd in the GNU snapshots was
patched.

   - Implementation of fastmath, fixes to pthread linking, and various
     other fixes to make much more programs compile and/or run properly

Should be fixed in the GNU snapshots.

   - Some (small) performance improvements

Like?

   - Fixes to some drivers, and for machines with a lot of RAM
   - Some PCMCIA support

   I'm sure I forgot many more. And of course, not all of them are in
   upstream CVS yet, so it requires some patch-hunting...

There are several things missing from upstream as well, things that
are far more important than the list you listed.  For example, >2GiB.

If this is all that has changed, then I really see no reason in
updating the snapshots.

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   > GNU 0.3 has to be at least on par with the bumpiest GNU/Linux
   > distributions out there a couple of years.  "But GNU 0.2 was even
   > worse" isn't going to be accepted as excuse.

   Bullshit. 0.3 is just that: 0.3. Anyone who puts expectations into
   a 0.3 release beyond surpassing 0.2, is a moron, and really
   deserves disappointment.

Michael is absolutley correct, if we are not up there with the most
bumpy GNU/Linux system then nobody will use GNU.

[olafBuddenhagen]

On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 01:28:27PM +0200, Michael Banck wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 10:56:52AM +0200, olafBuddenhagen@...
> wrote:
> > On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 03:54:22PM +0200, Michael Banck wrote:

> > > GNU 0.3 has to be at least on par with the bumpiest GNU/Linux
> > > distributions out there a couple of years.  "But GNU 0.2 was even
> > > worse" isn't going to be accepted as excuse.
> >
> > Bullshit. 0.3 is just that: 0.3. Anyone who puts expectations into a
> > 0.3 release beyond surpassing 0.2, is a moron, and really deserves
> > disappointment.
>
> Are you calling me a moron?

I obviously wasn't talking about insiders. A release is something for
other people to look at, not for those involved in the project.

You seem to believe that if we release GNU 0.3, people will expect it to
match at least a somewhat outdated GNU/Linux system. And I say: It's
their problem if they do, not ours. I don't think we have made anything
to justify such expectations.

-antrik-

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 09:42:52PM +0200, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:

>    > GNU 0.3 has to be at least on par with the bumpiest GNU/Linux
>    > distributions out there a couple of years.  "But GNU 0.2 was even
>    > worse" isn't going to be accepted as excuse.
>
>    Bullshit. 0.3 is just that: 0.3. Anyone who puts expectations into
>    a 0.3 release beyond surpassing 0.2, is a moron, and really
>    deserves disappointment.
>
> Michael is absolutley correct, if we are not up there with the most
> bumpy GNU/Linux system then nobody will use GNU.

And how does that got anything to do with making another alpha release?

-antrik-

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 09:42:48PM +0200, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:

>    >From the top of my head:
>    - Some important fixes (mostly to gnumach), at least one of them
>      considerably improving stability
>    - Some fixes for more or less annoying bugs in gnumach, glibc, hurd
>
> Please be specific, GNU Mach and the Hurd in the GNU snapshots was
> patched.

Sorry, don't have a list.

>    - Some (small) performance improvements
>
> Like?

GPE support. Don't remember whether there were others.

-antrik-

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   >    > GNU 0.3 has to be at least on par with the bumpiest
   >    > GNU/Linux distributions out there a couple of years.  "But
   >    > GNU 0.2 was even worse" isn't going to be accepted as
   >    > excuse.
   >
   >    Bullshit. 0.3 is just that: 0.3. Anyone who puts expectations
   >    into a 0.3 release beyond surpassing 0.2, is a moron, and
   >    really deserves disappointment.
   >
   > Michael is absolutley correct, if we are not up there with the
   > most bumpy GNU/Linux system then nobody will use GNU.

   And how does that got anything to do with making another alpha
   release?

0.3 isn't a alpha release.