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Date:      Sun, 20 Apr 1997 08:06:23 -0700
From:      "M.R.Murphy" <mrm@Mole.ORG>
To:        james@wgold.demon.co.uk, skynyrd@opus.cts.cwu.edu
Cc:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Price of FreeBSD (was On Holy Wars...)
Message-ID:  <199704201506.IAA11828@meerkat.mole.org>

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> From owner-freebsd-hackers@freefall.freebsd.org Sun Apr 20 04:44:33 1997
> Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 20:09:17 +0100
> From: James Mansion <james@wgold.demon.co.uk>
> To: Chris Timmons <skynyrd@opus.cts.cwu.edu>
> CC: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: Price of FreeBSD (was On Holy Wars...)
>
> Chris Timmons wrote:
> > 
> > Are you trying to win the "Works with eDns!" stamp of approval for
> > rhetorical acrimony?
> > 
> > You've seen how FreeBSD releases are constructed by breaking off branches
> > from -current and stabilizing them over a period of time.  Feature sets
> > appear in -current well before ever making it into a release, so there is
> > planning time.  As for FreeBSD-SMP, it is no secret that it exists and has
> > been loosely targeted for 3.0, what more do you want?
>
> Well, personally I think the problem is that if I say 'FreeBSD does not
> have
> SMP support', then I mean 'finished and working' and by implication
> given the
> way the (admirable, IMHO) release process works, this means that stable
> releases
> don't have it.
>
> Trouble is, people pop up and say 'yes it does have SMP support'.
>
> This is confusing, to say the least.  Personally I think its a big
> mistake - if
> someone has a real need for an SMP enabled production system and tries
> to build it
> at the moment with FreeBSD then she'll be sorely disappointed, similarly
> with
> Linux.

I have a 2xP6200 3.0-SMP system in a production environment. I'm
delighted with it. No crashes (yet :-). It's certainly not as easy
to get it going as a release, but, it's a far cry from "sorely
disappointed."

>
> Personally, I'd say that FreeBSD is defined by what's on the current
> stable
> release available on ROM.
>
> What it may/will be defined by is -current.

I'd say it's neither of the above, but rather a _very_ interesting
collaborative development process.

>
> I would hate to see the professionalism of the release management be
> threatened by
> indicipline about what is/is not in the product (yet).
>
> (That there has been SMP code in there for a long time is largely
> irrelevant,
> until it works properly)
>

Are these comments from practice of experience or from theory of experience?

;-)

--
Mike Murphy  mrm@Mole.ORG  +1 619 598 5874
Better is the enemy of Good



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