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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!sgiblab!majipoor.cygnus.com!kithrup.com!sef From: sef@kithrup.com (Sean Eric Fagan) Subject: Re: So you say you want an interim release of 386bsd? (What to do?) Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd. References: <1qvpc9$1e8@agate.berkeley.edu> <C5sCvr.3G1@unx.sas.com> <CGD.93Apr20124457@gaia.CS.Berkeley.EDU> <PC123.93May5000713@bootes.cus.cam.ac.uk> Message-ID: <C6J0wq.40n@kithrup.com> Date: Tue, 4 May 1993 23:50:36 GMT Lines: 42 In article <PC123.93May5000713@bootes.cus.cam.ac.uk> pc123@cus.cam.ac.uk (Pete Chown) writes: >1. The include files seem confused, although the situation has >improved rather of late. Particular problems are experienced when you >try to work with a new version of gcc that has some of its own include >files - the number of clashes are quite surprising. But we can't use >glibc, or the Linux libc, both of which are much better because they >are under the GPL. Wrong. The problem is with gcc. The net/2 (and, thus, 386bsd, netbsd, bsd/386, and 4.4bsd) header files are most certainly *NOT* confused. In general, in fact, I'd say not to use any of gcc's header files on a net/2- derived system at all -- gcc's header files are a mishmash hacked to work on many, many systems. In addition, glibc, and the Linux libc, are not better "because they are under the GPL." They are better despite being GPL'd: many, many fine and talented programmers will not work on GPL'd library code, or, if they do, they do so reluctantly. Other people have had to write their own libraries because they could not use GPL'd code, and, thus, they concentrate all their efforts on their own -- when they might have shared their code if they'd started from, say, Net/2's libc. (That's assuming Linux' libc is better; I do not believe it is, personally, nor glibc.) >2. The DBM library seems most peculiar. Linking programs to it often >seems to give link errors due to non-existent routines. You mean like dbm_open et al? It took me ten minutes to write wrappers for these functions. The compatable routines were, apparantly, deliberately not included in Net/2, for reasons I don't really understand :). I've posted dbm(3) wrappers that used ndbm(3) routines, which, in Net/2, just call various db(3) routines. >I don't see what the problem is with the libraries. All the GNU >libraries are under the library GPL, so they can't "infect" other >programs just by them being linked with them. 1. I can make a case that the LGPL buys one nothing over the GPL. 2. Embedded applications still cannot use LGPL'd code. 3. Lots of people object to the GPL on purely philosophical and political terms. Just because you cannot understand them does not invalidate them, any more than their beliefs invalidate the FSF.