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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!MathWorks.Com!news.cic.net!locust.cic.net!pauls From: pauls@locust.cic.net (Paul Southworth) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development Subject: 386BSD is dead; long live 386BSD... Date: 22 Aug 1994 22:16:50 GMT Organization: ETEXT Lines: 50 Message-ID: <33b84i$482@spruce.cic.net> References: <jmonroyCuxMAB.8IL@netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: locust.cic.net Keywords: 386bsd release 1.0 Bill jolitz Operating System new design In article <jmonroyCuxMAB.8IL@netcom.com>, Jesus Monroy Jr <jmonroy@netcom.com> wrote: > The purpose of these discussions is, of course, to > amplify the comments by Bill Jolitz and others in the UNIX > community that would like to see some changes in the *BSD > system, as we know it now. As always, we are hoping for > improvements so that theory and application find a happy > medium. Please remember though that 386bsd is an > *experimental Operating System*. Yes, I keep hearing that last statement repeated again and again. The problem, however, is that calling it experimental would only excuse it from holding flaws if it offered some significant "experimental" features that more stable and/or "production-quality" systems do not. The fact is, however, that Mr. Jolitz' work on the operating system is rapidly becoming irrelevant (to put it nicely) and what they are really offering are manuscripts on operating system design. That being the case one might wonder why he bothers to maintain any code at all, since he could do what he needed to do fairly easily by working with one of the immediate decendents of 386BSD (and not muddy the waters with more code in need of cleaning prior to use). Of course that's his business, and he can code whatever he pleases. To us, however, I think it demonstrates quite clearly that Mr. Jolitz has some dedication to theoretical and practical work in computer science, but no dedication whatsoever to end users. Again, that's his prerogative -- the point is that it's absurd to call 386BSD "competition" for its progeny (the Net/FreeBSD systems). If you're interested in running a quality operating system produced by people who are dedicated to its stability, performance, and long-term viability, your choices are already in front of you. A whiff of CDROM (as yet) vaporware has stirred up a frenzy, when in reality it's only of interest to people who want to read the Jolitz's writings on the topic. In the interest of sanity on the net, I would recommend to archive maintainers that they not put the 386BSD code (the distributable parts) up on the net at all -- it would serve no-one. The writings might very well be of interest to many people, but since they aren't freely redistributable, it's a moot point. Today we already have incessant flamefests and pointless meandering threads of discussion comparing NetBSD and FreeBSD (and Linux) -- are you ready to raise that another order of magnitude by spurring discussion of three or four-way comparisons? If you think that 386BSD is really something new and special, then consider it. Otherwise let it be. -- Paul Southworth pauls@cic.net