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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!news.uoregon.edu!usenet.coe.montana.edu!bsd.coe.montana.edu!nate From: nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: 4.4-lite? Date: 16 Jul 1994 18:04:01 GMT Organization: Montana State University, Bozeman Montana Lines: 54 Message-ID: <3097eh$m2h@pdq.coe.montana.edu> References: <2vgvc7$3tg@spruce.cic.net> <301rrc$cmv@masala.cc.uh.edu> <Csxxqo.DsM@newsserver.aggregate.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 153.90.192.29 In article <Csxxqo.DsM@newsserver.aggregate.com>, Rob Healey <rhealey@sirius.aggregate.com> wrote: > Since NetBSD has already beaten FreeBSD to SPARC, m68k, MIPS and I > think VAX I would say that the FreeBSD core would probably make > better use of their time by concentrating on the x86 OS they > know inside and out. Hmm, that's an interesting way of putting it. Person A: "By the way, did you know that you got beat." FreeBSD : "Hmm, I didn't know I was in a match." We made the decision a long time ago to concentrate our work on making the reference port stable BEFORE any other platform development goes on. However, the USL/BSDI lawsuit caused us to move in the 4.4 direction rather than doing multi-platform support (a good thing IMHO), and when the 386 platform is sufficiently stable and featureful for the developers (never possibly), we will look at doing other ports. > The non-x86 architecture people have pretty much made their choice > and thrown their lot in with NetBSD, I doubt they are going to throw > 6+ months of hard work out the window and start over with FreeBSD as > that makes no sense. Unless the port is to a completely different platfrom. The move to 4.4 has placed both groups on level ground for the most part, so getting another BRAND-NEW (PPC, ALPHA, etc..) platform going is going to take the same amount of work for both folks. > I find it odd that people don't see the obvious, i.e. the REASON > NetBSD is not releasing like FreeBSD is because it is supporting 6+ > different architectures with different endianness and such. Then don't release it on the same platform for everyone. NetBSD and FreeBSD started at the same time. NetBSD made a couple quick releases and then went underground 'release-wise.' There have been 'stable' snapshots of the code for different platforms that could have become releases at many different times in the last year+, but the developers chose to add more features, fix-bugs, etc. rather than spending the time to make a release. Saying that it couldn't happen because of 6+ platforms is plain wrong. Heck, there could have been a couple release in the middle there when there weren't more than 2 platforms supported. Nate -- nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu | FreeBSD core member and all around tech. nate@cs.montana.edu | weenie. work #: (406) 994-4836 | home #: (406) 586-0579 | Available for contract/otherwise work.