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Date:      Mon, 22 Mar 1999 16:54:08 -0800
From:      "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com>
To:        Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
Cc:        "Jasper O'Malley" <jooji@webnology.com>, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   FreeBSD emulation for linux (was: Re: blah blah blah)
Message-ID:  <44316.922150448@zippy.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 22 Mar 1999 16:15:28 MST." <4.2.0.32.19990322160933.00aaf6c0@localhost> 

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> The reason why it ultimately stopped working so well was that Microsoft 
> moved the API out from under them.

At which point they should have fixed it, regardless of the degree of
technical difficulty involved.  I wouldn't just say that off-handedly
about anyone, but I find it hard to believe that IBM, with all of its
incredible resources and arsenal of software patents (for convenient
cross-licensing purposes), couldn't have kept up with the football as
Microsoft attempted to kick it around the field.

> Well, quite frankly, Jordan, your lack of support for it could well
> poison the effort.

I have pointed out that it's technically difficult to do something
like this given the differences between the FreeBSD and Linux APIs.
This is no more than correct.

I have pointed out that it would need buy-in by the major Linux
distros before this could be the kind of out-of-box solution ISVs
would want it to be before targeting the Linux platforms with FreeBSD
native binaries, and such buy-in isn't trivially contemplated.  This
is no more than correct.

I have pointed out, just now, that I simply don't see the kind of
talent it would require being available.  Motivation is great and
technical abilities are great, but they need to be enbodied in the
same person before you get movement here.  You've also suggested that
the Linux emulation team would be the ideal candidates when I happen
to know that everyone on the Linux emulation team is busy up to their
eyeballs and very definitely *not* even motivated in this direction
(and if Soren subscribed to advocacy, you'd have been flamed to toast
by now for even proposing him in absentia).  This is no more than
silly.

If pointing out glaring flaws in a proposal truly counts as
"poisoning" it then I would submit that it also constitutes a mercy
killing.

Many of your suggestions would be far motivational, in fact, if you
just took the time to actually do some of the "devil's advocacy"
yourself before committing them to paper (so to speak) and then having
everyone else shoot noisily at the more obvious holes in them.  Even
advocacy can sometimes stand a little bit of the old vigorous
scientific inquiry process (before publication) when it starts getting
into specifics, as you've been wont to do lately, and just shooting
ideas from the hip and seeing what they hit afterwards doesn't quite
cut it when you're getting into the area of suggestions which are
actually technical in nature.

- Jordan


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