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From: cgd@gaia.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Chris G. Demetriou)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc
Subject: Re: NetBSD
Date: 20 Apr 93 13:04:13
Organization: Kernel Hackers 'r' Us
Lines: 69
Message-ID: <CGD.93Apr20130413@gaia.CS.Berkeley.EDU>
References: <PC123.93Apr20195915@apus.cus.cam.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: gaia.cs.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: pc123@cus.cam.ac.uk's message of Tue, 20 Apr 1993 18:59:20 GMT
In article <PC123.93Apr20195915@apus.cus.cam.ac.uk> pc123@cus.cam.ac.uk (Pete Chown) writes:
=>I didn't feel tremendously encouraged when I read that 386BSD has
=>split into two rival threads. It seems to me that all that will be
=>achieved is a lot of unnecessary duplication of effort, and possibly
=>incompatibility as the threads diverge further.
if there's incompatibility, it will be because one thread of development
(i.e. the 386BSD side) has decided that it must be different
than anything out there, and that decision will have created
incompatibilities.
=>There seems to be the suggestion of some kind of flame war that
=>triggered this split. I think it's a shame if personalities intervene
=>and prevent us working together to improve a good operating system.
That's what i've been saying for the last year.
Take a look at the 386BSD news archives, and ask various people
who are on e.g. the patchkit and/or FAQ mailing lists about
the flames which Bill and Lynne Jolitz have generated over the last year.
=>Perhaps I have completely misunderstood what provoked the split, but
=>this is the impression the post gave to me. If I am wrong, it might
=>be worth posting an explanation of what really did provoke the split,
=>or lots of people besides me will jump to conclusions.
it was this, and the fact that there are going to be a *lot* of
internal changes to 0.2, which a good number of us in the NetBSD
effort think are unnecessary at the moment.
Reasoned, guided change is necessary. Change for the sake of
being different is not.
=>I was also not quite sure what was meant about NetBSD having different
=>aims to 386BSD. There was something about moving towards a stable
=>release more quickly, but I thought we were moving as quickly as we
=>could anyway! Again, I'm sure many people besides me would be
=>interested to know what the aims of NetBSD are...
basically, the 386BSD 0.2 kernel will be substantially re-written.
i don't want to be running an operating system that is brand new,
i want to be running one that is stable, so that i can
be doing research from a known working base.
The people in the NetBSD group (if they will let me speak for them)
would believe that stability should come before major change,
and that major change _for simply the sake of change_ should not
come at all.
if you'd like more info, ask me personally, but i'm going to
be out of town until sunday, checking my mail only sporadically.
i do *not* want this to turn into a flame war, and will not
let it, if i have anything to say about it... that would defy
the goals of NetBSD, some of which are to avoid all of the
petty bickering which has plagued 386BSD for the last year.
chris
--
Chris G. Demetriou cgd@cs.berkeley.edu
"386bsd as depth first search: whenever you go to fix something you
find that 3 more things are actually broken." -- Adam Glass