Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution)

Eric S. Raymond
2002-01-15T01:38:15Z

Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>:
> > You miss my point. Sure he's entitled to them. But why should he
> > *have to have them*? They're extra state which, in the presence
> > of a proper autoconfigurator, he doesn't need.
>
> You have it backwards. The _autoconfigurator_ is extra state which in the
> presence of the config he doesn't need

Oh, come on Alan. You can do better than that.

If Melvin loses the autoconfigurator, there's no state he has to reconstruct.
There will be one exactly like it in the next tarball.
--
Eric S. Raymond

[The disarming of citizens] has a double effect, it palsies the hand
and brutalizes the mind: a habitual disuse of physical forces totally
destroys the moral [force]; and men lose at once the power of
protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their
oppression.
-- Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93