Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:17:40 -0800
From:      Jos Backus <jos@catnook.com>
To:        Ed Maste <emaste@freebsd.org>
Cc:        freebsd-arch@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Importing djb's public domain daemontools?
Message-ID:  <CAETOPp08o0uPZ8XUF379EFueTQ1D%2BLw8u8ZHSz7jjrfzoQhZXA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20120118015720.GA17409@sandvine.com>
References:  <CAETOPp1z0TJecz8kjDvf7trEOS5eogrcqEtDveUYzN=J-SvDNQ@mail.gmail.com> <4F1502CD.90409@FreeBSD.org> <E4B18E7A-74A1-4388-AD79-05DD3E667DAE@bsdimp.com> <4F152475.50503@FreeBSD.org> <33752E6C-E016-4C7E-92DD-97B531D185E7@bsdimp.com> <4F15BB21.50905@freebsd.org> <CAGE5yCp11A8f0RQMxPjJ0p774EjfbRi6P%2BbQZ=WVpbncEmwyjQ@mail.gmail.com> <20120117201807.GJ4729@azathoth.lan> <CAGMYy3tj3Rfftyo1tx7uqQ4Pa2iwZFgn7VhUWsqfL01eQf0siQ@mail.gmail.com> <CAETOPp0jCoovyCRH%2BHqHp8U02m8b-1M7oJ4R=b64RK2Az6ZoCw@mail.gmail.com> <20120118015720.GA17409@sandvine.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 5:57 PM, Ed Maste <emaste@freebsd.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 01:29:52PM -0800, Jos Backus wrote:
>
> > How much work would this be, you think? Doesn't launchd rely on some
> kernel
> > functionality that FreeBSD doesn't have? Maybe I misremember.
>
> Are you perhaps thinking of systemd, which does use a whole bunch of
> Linux-specific features?
>

Probably :) I guess part of the launchd porting effort was removing stuff
that FreeBSD doesn't support out of the box, such as zeroconf/Bonjour.


> There was a GSoC project to port launchd in the past; I have no idea
> how much it has changed since then.
>
> http://wiki.freebsd.org/launchd


I found the wiki and the Perforce soc2005 branch on perforce.freebsd.org,
as well as the official launchd Subversion repo at
http://launchd.macosforge.org. There's also
https://github.com/rtyler/launchd-for-freebsd which seems to based on the
Subversion repo but at an older revision. Only the Perforce branch seems to
have any FreeBSD build glue. I guess a plan would be to port the changes
made to Subversion trunk since the Perforce snapshot was taken to the
Perforce branch. It looks like launchd hasn't changed in several years.

After looking at the launchd code for a little bit, it looks much more
complicated than daemontools, which in turn worries me in terms of its
expected robustness. One of the nice properties of daemontools is that the
individual pieces are fairly small and have been proven in the field to
work well.

Specifically, I'm worried that it will be harder to create a quality port
of launchd compared to daemontools, and as Warner has hinted at, the port
needs to work well for it to be accepted. It seems to me that a working
port of daemontools is easier to achieve because the code is (much)
simpler. Hence the chances of a solution to be accepted seem higher when
using daemontools as a base. But maybe I'm overestimating the amount of
work needed to get launchd into good enough shape to be committed.

Jos


>
> -Ed
>



-- 
Jos Backus
jos at catnook.com



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?CAETOPp08o0uPZ8XUF379EFueTQ1D%2BLw8u8ZHSz7jjrfzoQhZXA>