In comp.unix.solaris kirkgbr@yahoo.com wrote:
> Seems kinda M$ window-ish to me.
>
> my 2 cents.

Overpriced, for a statement that bald. :-)

But I understand the feeling. One of the core features of Unix has always
been "everything in plaintext, wherever possible." Seeing the horrible
disaster that was the Windows Registry and similarly the AIX ODM (which I
understand is at least usable now), convinced me even more that this was a
good and necessary thing.

However, the SMF model provides a new layer of functionality that wouldn't
be possible with the old /etc/init.d scripts. The dependency trees, the
parallelism, and the inherent fault tolerance are huge benefits--necessary
to make an OS as reliable as the hardware we're getting these days.

I'm curious about what happens when the repository gets trashed. With
text files, you can edit them by hand. What will we do to repair the
system in this case? (BESIDES backups, of course!)

Colin