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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:2962 comp.os.linux.misc:20733 Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!think.com!spdcc!merk!rmkhome!rmk From: rmk@rmkhome.com (Rick Kelly) Subject: Re: Usefulness of BSD/Linux Source Knowledge (was BSD vs. LINUX) Organization: The Man With Ten Cats References: <30jqp1$ees@grex.cyberspace.org> <1994Jul21.182603.15882@belvedere.sbay.org> <2NsBkiCqLiLU068yn@cs.odu.edu> <30pn0a$9rf@hermes.unt.edu> <CtEuyA.En1@world.std.com> <1994Jul24.185248.5906@escape.widomaker.com> <cln.775305310@dynamo> <1994Jul29.041113.7319@escape.widomaker.com> Message-ID: <9407311534.44@rmkhome.com> Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.com (Rick Kelly) X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 20:34:46 GMT Lines: 96 Shannon Hendrix (shendrix@escape.widomaker.com) wrote: : matthew green (mrg@mame.mu.OZ.AU) wrote: : : shendrix@escape.widomaker.com (Shannon Hendrix) writes: : : as i've pointed out before, netbsd and freebsd (and 4.4, : : for that matter), -also- follow posix carefully. and as : And as I've pointed out I never said BSD didn't have it. : : jtc rightly pointed out, none of them have been tested, : : though, so none can _claim_ posix conformance. : Oh they've been tested... by programmers everywhere. I write compliant : programs and the port trivially compared to before I started reading : POSIX guidlines. Of course, habit is still the winner but I'm gradually : making the shift to POSIX code and it's making things much smoother. So : while I might not be able to claim conformance 100% I certainly know : it's working for me. You are a rarity in the industry. I haven't looked at a POSIX book in years. There are a lot of companies where development is only now, begrudgingly, changing over to ANSI C. : : sunos 5 is not svr4.2 - it is svr4.0 : Minor bauble on my part, and on Sun's since that's what their reps : told me 2 days ago. The local office has been known to be less than : accurate so I'll accept what you say. There is a certain significance here. Sun has bought a permanent source license from Novell for SVR4.0. So while Novell has gone on to SVR4.2, Sun is now free to stray in any direction that they want. : : as much as sun hate it, sunos4 is still alive and kicking, : : currently. sadly though, it won't last. : Yep, we'll be running it on our 4/xxx machines till they croak I guess : since Solaris is so slow on them. Networking really takes a hit... I : supposed it's STREAMS based in solaris 2.x? Hopefully the SS10's are : fast enough so the extra overhead of Solaris 2.x isn't all that bad. : And, we probably could just run 4.1.3 on them but Sun says they'll : ship with Solaris 2.x. They pretty much won't discuss getting 4.1.3. : Secondly, for various reasons we'll pretty much have to run Solaris : anyway. You must have a bad relationship with Sun. We are currently buying Classic, Sparc 20, and Sparc 1000 boxes that show up with a Solaris 1.1.1_U1 Release B (4.1.3) CD-ROM. : : posix doesn't get your that much, really. it is very : : very restrictive to write _purely_ posix code. (if : Yes, but not that bad. Actually, writing good C is one of the best : ways to make code portable. A lot of the POSIX books spend a lot of : time discussing that as much as POSIX conformance. : : you want to discuss this further, take it to email, : : or to some other group - it does not belong here). : : why is bsd dead? there are _several_ commercial bsd : : unixes available, but no linux ones. i don't see why : : you think bsd is dead. : I mean dead in the sense that UNIX vendors are moving away from it : and it's not likely that future systems will be running BSD. They'll : ship with SysV UNIX. Many already are. Of course, I'm sure BSD : will get ported to them if people find the time but it won't be from : the vendors and thus most of the machines will be running SysV. So then BSDI is out of business? : : you claim that bsd is dead, above, and then state here : : that it is `getting a lot of the stuff from SysV' in it. : So? That's not contradictory. Atari ST's are getting a lot of UNIX : code running on them. Atari is still dead and so is Amiga (and lot's : of UNIX code is still being ported to Amigas). The Amiga had a port of SVR4. : : i wish at&t would die, and take svr4 with it. it's : : really sad that svr4 is the ``industry standard.'' : I agree. But since I've got to start using SysV pretty soon at work I'm : just focusing on being glad I get to program in UNIX at work and not : Windows or some other crap. At least I can get my favorite BSD and GNU : software running under SysV after a little effort. This all depends on the particular SYSV platform that you're working on. -- Rick Kelly rmk@rmkhome.com rmk@bedford.progress.com