Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 12:13:32 +0200 (EET) From: Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee> To: "Matthew N. Dodd" <winter@jurai.net> Cc: W Gerald Hicks <jhix@mindspring.com>, giffunip@asme.org, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: BSD Merger Announcement Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.1000310113704.13688M-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0003100422060.690-100000@sasami.jurai.net>
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On Fri, 10 Mar 2000, Matthew N. Dodd wrote: > On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, W Gerald Hicks wrote: > > From: "Pedro F. Giffuni" <giffunip@asme.org> > > [snip] > > > Some years ago this was unthinkable, today we are very near; I hope we > > > don't lose this opportunity because of our selfishness. Sure, deciding > > > what goes in a unified BSD system is a difficult task, especially when > > > people have worked for decades on certain projects, but we have much to > > > gain in this effort. So many brilliant hackers together, surely it would > > > be the envy of any organization ! > > > > Wise words. I agree wholeheartedly. > > While I think we can all dream about a 'Unified BSD' the reality is that > its not really necessary. Giving people enough room to do the things they > want is important and I think the 3 projects provide this room quite > nicely. > Different people have diverging interests/needs. The only form in which unified bsd could probably exist is a 'point release' or modularised hodgepodge from which to start diverging again. What would be the opint of unifying UVM and FreeBSD VM, for example? > I think that userland interface compatibility is an atainable and > desirable goal that benefits all equally. Its important that FreeBSD not > present the appearance of 'strongarming' OpenBSD and NetBSD into > 'compliance'. Application portability will help all projects equally and > will ultimately allow users of all 3 systems to stand and be counted as > one when it comes time for a commercial software vendor to port their > software. > Hah. As soon as there is even the slightliest hint of 'we tell you what to do' a real mudfight will go off. It's a lucky thing if it doesn't go off even in response to this thread. > Another area of mutual benefit is the ports system and while each OS uses > different tools and implementations in their build/install/package system > the patches and other meta-information is likely to be sharable. Wouldn't > it be nice if we had a unified ports tree? Again, its important that we > don't try and force a FreeBSD view of the world on NetBSD and > OpenBSD; they should be free to use their own tools and local policies for > building and installing. If we had users/developers from all 3 projects > working on maintaining the ports/pkgsrc/foo tree we'd probably be in a > better position to keep it up to date. Maybe its time to split the ports > tree off into its own project? I know the last time such a thing was > discussed the other projects rejected the idea fearing that they would > lack representation in something that was essentially FreeBSD > centric. What are the solutions to this problem? > Divorcing the port system from FreeBSD, I am afraid, is indeed needed for such to work out. > -- > | Matthew N. Dodd | '78 Datsun 280Z | '75 Volvo 164E | FreeBSD/NetBSD | > | winter@jurai.net | 2 x '84 Volvo 245DL | ix86,sparc,pmax | > | http://www.jurai.net/~winter | This Space For Rent | ISO8802.5 4ever | > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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