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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!swrinde!gatech!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!news.cic.net!locust.cic.net!pauls From: pauls@locust.cic.net (Paul Southworth) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: 4.4-lite? Date: 7 Jul 1994 13:19:03 GMT Organization: CICNet, Inc. Lines: 43 Message-ID: <2vgvc7$3tg@spruce.cic.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: locust.cic.net In article <1994Jul6.140031.23668@resonex.com>, The Superuser <root@resonex.com> wrote: >On the other hand, NetBSD has not had an official release for over a >year, when 0.9 became available. Supposedly, NetBSD 1.0 is going to >come out this month. I hope so --- FreeBSD has had several good >releases in that same period. ...on one platform... >That's probably my only real gripe with NetBSD, that they've taken >*way* too long to package the changes into an installable release. >Getting and installing NetBSD-current is just too difficult for many >users. Most of them are probably better off with FreeBSD or one of the many Linux distributions geared toward people with floppy disks. > And dangerous, too, as there have been many times when a given >day's NetBSD-current had some nasty bugs, the worst probably being the >fallout from the changes to off_t. Dangerous? Just what are you trying to *do* with it? Run a missile silo control system? OK, then it's dangerous. Otherwise I would just call it an experimental operating system with a lot of promise. > Personally, >I think FreeBSD has got just about the right release cycle going, and >NetBSD would do well to emulate that particular behaviour. I think not. The two development groups really appear to be serving different audiences, and I think they both serve very well. If the NetBSD crowd subscribed to the more sequestered development process and didn't make code changes (released to the public) every day then you would just see two FreeBSD's -- that is, two nice i386 ports of BNR2/4.4lite. Thankfully that's how it is, and now NetBSD runs on many machines, with development progressing in leaps as committed individuals produce and release code for their ports and end up with immediate feedback and deployment in the field. -- Paul Southworth CICNet Systems Support pauls@cic.net