Minix 3 vs portability - was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine

[Mouse]

> Portability was a fundamental free software tenet.

Is.  Was, perhaps, even, in the non-OS space.  But in the OS space, I
think every open-source OS was originally done on some very small
number of architectures.  Unix was done on the PDP-11 (something else
before that, I think, but I forget what, and I think it was with the
move to the -11 that it became portable enough to be ported instead of
rewritten).  BSD was done on the VAX and Tahoe.  The Jolitzs' work,
Linus's work, i386.  All of them moved beyond those initial machines,
yes, and that was essential to their success.  But they had to start
somewhere.

Seeing Minix 3 on x86 and ARM is good.  Unless it wants to wither when
the world moves beyond x86 and ARM, it will need to be done with enough
portability in mind to make porting it easy, yes, but it is hardly a
failing that it isn't ported yet.  (Unless it's been around a lot
longer than this thread makes it sound.)

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