Technology Alternate Reality Theories

So let's talk about some events in tech, and how things would have ended up if they went differently.
I'll start with some:

We know that GNU was working on making the HURD, but then Linux came around and now HURD is essentially a dead project.
What if HURD was the one that was successful and got further developed instead of Linux?

We know Solaris has SMF which along with Apple's launchd inspired systemd.
What if instead of systemd being developed, we ended up with just a straight-up port of SMF to GNU/Linux? How would things have been different if that happened?

We know that although Intel has always and still does use X86 architecture, there was an attempt to break away from it with Itanium, which is now being fully discontinued.
What if Itanium achieved greater success, and we lived in a world where that became the standard?

>Hurd
It's pretty shitty today, so I can't imagine it being much better. Linux is an okay kernel.

>systemd
Linux distros would all be a lot more stable and secure if Poettering had be hit by a bus or something as a young child. It's still not too late for some bus out there to become a hero, but it'll take a long time to undo the damage caused by systemd.

>Itanium
Would never have happened anyways. EPIC makes it harder to create compilers for it, which means shit software support, and no one buys the hardware. I know that at least SGI was ready to invest in Itanium, and even ported IRIX to it, but eventually saw the downsides and went back to MIPS, only to die a slow death and be bought off. We're more likely to see RISC dominate the desktop market within the next 10 years once it's able to emulate x86 at reasonable speeds, which would require hardware acceleration, which is tricky due to legal fuckery.

yay a person!
>It's pretty shitty today, so I can't imagine it being much better. Linux is an okay kernel.
Yeah one of the things I hear that holds it back is the developers being incredibly autistic about it. Like, development cannot continue if this or that isn't EXACTLY how they like it.
>Linux distros would all be a lot more stable and secure if Poettering had be hit by a bus or something as a young child. It's still not too late for some bus out there to become a hero, but it'll take a long time to undo the damage caused by systemd.
Ok, lemme rephrase the question: What if Poettering didn't exist, or what if he just did PulseAudio and Avahi then offed himself before he could make systemd, and then we ended up with a port of SMF?
>We're more likely to see RISC dominate the desktop market within the next 10 years once it's able to emulate x86 at reasonable speeds, which would require hardware acceleration, which is tricky due to legal fuckery.
Yeah RISC will definitely dominate at some point. We're already seeing it with ARM on mobile and a few servers. It'll take a while for it to dominate the desktop though, due to compatibility concerns.

Keep in mind that this isn't about predictions for the future starting from the world as we know it. This is alternate reality stuff. Like when I brought up HURD, I wasn't talking about it getting big in our future, but about what things might have looked like today if HURD blew up in the 90s instead of Linux.

bump.
...is anyone interested in this? or I guess everyone just wants to shitpost about Ryzen and Apple or whatever.

lastbump

Loonix would still be shit even if it had every possible advantage during it's development.......sorry but it's true

Pretty much. Sup Forums has been dead for ages now. The second you post anything Apple related, all you get is a bunch of neckbeard faggots spewing false information and epic Le PCmustrdrace may mays

Itanium died due to no x86/win32 compatibility. Linux won because it was the first unencumbered i386 kernel with distributed development. Systemd is honestly better than SMF.

To get real meaningful alternative tech history you need to assume that some part of the evil triad of Microsoft, Intel x86, and cheap Asian OEMs never happens. That basically means no IBM PC. If IBM had decided to focus on selling expansion cards and software to allow microcomputers to be terminals for its mainframes and minis, that leaves room for a genuinely more powerful machine like the Amiga to fill the void. Imagine if we were all running m68ks as fast as modern x86, and running a mix of open source *nix and AmigaOS on the desktop. The world would be a better place.

>Imagine if we were all running m68ks as fast as modern x86, and running a mix of open source *nix and AmigaOS on the desktop. The world would be a better place.
I just cum my jeans imagining that, thanks a lot, user

The issue with SystemD, which is the real mystery to me, is why have it on servers at all? I can understand the allure for those who still think "year of linux desktop is here"....but for us server admins who literally reboot 2 times a year....why was it deemed so important?

It certainly seems the risk imposed on server systems by the unknown and unknowable complexity of systemd far outweighs any possible gains in a server environment. Its typical developers-run-amok syndrome. A complete sign of weakass management by RedHat.

apparently init scripts were too hard, or at least that was what the shills claimed. I'm with your that it's not worth the risk of systemd though.

Anyone have experience with Solaris SMF? What was that like in comparison to systemd?

In the debate with Tannebaum, Linus said he would have never started developing Linux if Hurd would have been usable at that time. In a reality without Linux we would have an up2date microkernel system that respects our freedoms, but it wouldn't be too popular since Linux (Open Source people) with the more practical attitude were able to make Linux popular pretty fast with due to support from companies, proprietary drivers and shilling in general. On the other hand, maybe the Hurd kernel would have gained popularity aswell, at least after the release on windows 10 when many people were searching for an alternative.

>m68k
>CISC
ehh..

>Linux distros would all be a lot more stable and secure if Poettering had be hit by a bus or something as a young child. It's still not too late for some bus out there to become a hero, but it'll take a long time to undo the damage caused by systemd.

>we would have an up2date microkernel system
THAT'S WHAT I WAS GETTING AT!
That would be SO cool! I agree that its popularity wouldn't be the best due to everything being led by the GNU project, who would take a hard stance against proprietary shit. However, I guess there would be nothing stopping a third party from making proprietary drivers for it. They just wouldn't be endorsed by the project itself.

Here....there is an error or two in this manifest. Can you figure out what the problem is?
work quick, because the whole mail server is down for everyone. The boss is expecting answers now.

itanium was developed with servers in mind

Oh puleez

Remember that meme where the black guy is complaining computers are racist?
Imagine if technologists actually had made computers so simple that even fiddy could use them and get a decent job.

Picture related - fiddy sitting next to you in the programming department writing some shit that calculates how much a dealer can make in a day

It was Rakim.

It would inevitably turn into RISC with decode units like x86 did around the time of the Pentium Pro.

>xml

They would also be userspace drivers, which would make them less legally tricky than proprietary Linux modules that link directly into the kernel's memory space.

>They would also be userspace drivers, which would make them less legally tricky
and also more secure due to them being separated out of kernelspace.
god damn, now I really want a fucking microkernel!

>Yeah one of the things I hear that holds it back is the developers being incredibly autistic about it. Like, development cannot continue if this or that isn't EXACTLY how they like it.
Is true, they convinced everyone to not do a single line of code. Current devs are probably saboteurs.

Whats wrong? No time to read the DTD? Too much hassle to install Eclipse with the proper plugins so you can edit your config files like a professional? Or maybe you just retch at the idea of writing config files in a superset of HTML? Which is it user?
This is the way the world is moving. This is what progress looks like.

Seriously though, we need a fucking microkernel

You're kidding right? eXcrementML is getting ditched for more compact alternatives all over the place. My understanding was that XML was viewed similarly to Java with its AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBean madness..

If HURD was finished a huge chunk of open source software would depend on a kernel that is basically licensed copyleft at the whim of the FSF, they could close source it any time they wanted.

tl;dr it would have been a bad thing.

He was computer savvy enough to accept bitcoins for his album early on.

>the FSF, they could close source it any time they wanted.
I don't think you know what the FSF is...

So in other words, SMF would be a bad idea?