Re: An easy-to-install Hurd distribution

[Neal H Walfield]

> The `more complicated' is the key.  In addition to developers, the
> process needs to attract those who lack time.

I think you are missing Marcus's point.  Right now is a waste to do many
of these tasks as they are moving targets (i.e. The Hurd is alpha quality
software).  If someone were to invest the time to make these ideas a
reality, they could do it.  However, they will be hurt in two areas:
first, their tools will be outdated very soon (due to the number of
hacks required) and second, the best they can hope to reach is a local
maximum (again, hacks only get you so far).

Consider the following:  it takes 400 hours to develop all of the code
for the ``easy installer.''  At the same time, hurd development
continues and we get a disk partitioning utility, someone writes a
terminal translator, etc.  Now, a lot of what the program had targeted
has changed (we can now use mach/hurd to do the installation and we do
not need Linux).  So, the someone has to rewrite the installer.  This
time, however, it only takes them 200 hours to get the ``easy installer''
going.

So the tool was good for about 100 people, who were hackers anyway.  Did
you waste time?  Maybe.  However, the time would have been, IMHO, a lot
better spent helping the other efforts to get the hurd to a point were
the ``easy installer'' can be written easily.

-Neal

-- 
Neal H Walfield
University of Massachusetts at Lowell
neal@walfield.org or neal@cs.uml.edu