*BSD News Article 29305


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From: chuckr@glue.umd.edu (Charles B. Robey)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Impressions: FreeBSD vs Linux
Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc
Date: 9 Apr 1994 02:47:38 GMT
Organization: Project GLUE, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
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In article <2npvla$oa@great-miami.iac.net> skyhook@iac.net
   (Chris Thompson) writes:
: ]But we're not talking for everything else. That argument is thrown up 
: ]every time a BSD addict gets into a corner. "Yeah, but I can run Vic20BSD 
: ]and NewtonBSD and HP48SXBSD and SlideRuleBSD" The argument is a little 
: ]thin. So BSD is availible on 11 platforms. I dont OWN 11 platforms and 
: ]could care less if it runs on an Amiga. And based on Commodore's recent 
: ]liquidation, nobody else does either. There is supposedly an Amiga port 
: ]of Linux, but I know nothing about it other than it's existence. the 
: ]point is though, WHO CARES? I happen to own an x86. If I owned a Mac I 
: ]would run MacBSD instead of A/UX, that's true. but I dont own, and I wont 
: ]run. Its kind of like if I owned a Ferrari and you owned a jeep and you 
: ]argued that my ferrari is not a real car because it cant go Off-Road, 
: ]like your jeep which can 'run anywhere'

I think the importance of standards should be immediately obvious to
anyone in software.  More reliable standards means more fun time creating
and less time taking aspirin.  Are you satisfied never to learn anything
about the other common hardware platforms?  It seems to me the thing I
like best about Unix is that it (nearly) lets me look on any machine,
from my home system (386) to the last BIG Ultrix system I worked on
as the same system, as the same thing (I *did* say nearly).  All
of the BSD variants look very closely alike, at least in comparison to
the Linux stuff (which doesn't seem to come nearly as close to any
universal standard).

Obviously, I do think portability is important.  And if you don't agree
today, I'd wager you would come to my point of view if you had to work
on six different systems.
--
Chuck Robey                 | Interests include any kind of voice or data 
chuckr@eng.umd.edu          | communications topic, C programming, and Unix.
7608 Topton St.             |
New Carrollton, MD 20784    |
(301) 459-2316              |
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