Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 17:59:47 -0800 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: brett@peloton.physics.montana.edu (bretttaylor), tlambert@primenet.com Cc: brett@lariat.org, jkh@zippy.cdrom.com, advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD emulation for linux Message-ID: <000346da085df88c_mailit@thrallo.utah.xylan.com> In-Reply-To: <199903250007.RAA05081@usr09.primenet.com> References: <199903250007.RAA05081@usr09.primenet.com>
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Terry Lambert opined: >There is a market for FreeBSD native binaries. This can be stated >as fact, given that people buy binaries (including Linux binaries) >to run on FreeBSD. But how do you size this market? By getting the vendors to count it. What this has to do with a FreeBSD emulator in Linux is completely beyond me. >You may damn the source, but Brett's OS/2 analogy is apt. This is exactly what I disagree with; the OS/2 analogy is not apt regardless of the source. OS/2 died for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that IBM marketed it horribly and delivered a non-working system for the first several major releases. We all seem to be forgetting (or perhaps never knew) that OS/2 3.0 was the first release of OS/2 that wasn't a stinking heap of useless floppy disks. I still have my 2.1 release, you're welcome to it if you want to see what a marvelous system it was. >I personally think that a FreeBSD emulation layer for Linux, and >other OS's, is important for FreeBSD, from a marketing standpoint. I personally think a FreeBSD emulation layer for Linux is a huge waste of time, because I strongly doubt you will get Linus to put it in the kernel, nor will you ever convince any of the major distributors -- i.e. RedHat and nobody else these days -- to put it in their distribution. >From a technical standpoint, Solaris and SCO are implementing Linux >emulation as well. The Linux ABI looks to be gaining momentum as >the cross-x86 UNIX ABI. This is technically very bad. And there is not a damned thing we can do about it, because this decision is being made by EXACTLY the sort of people who'd be running FreeBSD instead of Linux if they had any sense at all. Cogito ergo Doh! So, what do you do? Get some talented FreeBSD hackers willing to keep up with the shifting sands of the Linux ABI as well as possible, point out to people that most Linux apps run on FreeBSD too, so they're not risking much, and do an effective job of advocacy in getting the vendors to decide which side of the open source bread the butter is on. The one point you and Brett have missed the entire time: it doesn't matter one whit whether the app is a Linux or FreeBSD binary, as long as it runs reliably and solves the user's problem. Getting vendors to *test* their apps on FreeBSD under emulation, and bug-fix THAT, is by far enough of a win for us. We should be concentrating on THAT effort rather than developing software for Linux that nobody, not a single Linux OR FreeBSD user, is ever going to use. I managed to stay out of this lunatic argument for 24 hours, and I'm out of it permanently now. Terry, I'm sure Brett would be glad to have your talents in developing this silly doodad, just don't ask me to be your beta-tester on this one. No way, no how. ;^) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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