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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!uhog.mit.edu!grapevine.lcs.mit.edu!ginger.lcs.mit.edu!wollman From: wollman@ginger.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett A. Wollman) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc Subject: Re: To Merge or Not to Merge *BSD. What does it really mean? Date: 15 Jan 1995 00:33:15 GMT Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science Lines: 54 Message-ID: <3f9qgb$3h7@GRAPEVINE.LCS.MIT.EDU> References: <3enogm$5l7@fw.novatel.ca> <3f1h83$hgl@newshost.lanl.gov> <3f253c$es0@agate.berkeley.edu> <3f9hst$q8n@idiom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ginger.lcs.mit.edu In article <3f9hst$q8n@idiom.com>, David Muir Sharnoff <muir@idiom.com> wrote: >The FreeBSD camp should consider it a bug whenever a NetBSD program >fails to compile or its binary to run. > >The NetBSD camp should consider it a bug whenever a FreeBSD program >fails to compile or its binary to run. I don't think that this is at all possible, or even reasonable. lsdev(1) will probably never run inder NetBSD, and I wouldn't expect it to. Doubtless they will develop interfaces which we will never support (and probably for the same reasons that I don't expect them to support devconf(4) or getvfsbyname(3)). These are both evolving systems, and different people obviously evolve their systems in different ways. It is certainly not a primary goal of any of the work that I have done to maintain this sort of slavish compatibility. Of course, I don't go out of my way to break compatibility---I don't think anyone does. >Whenever possilbe kernel interfaces should be made identical. Not necessary, since it's easy enough to set up a compatibility environment with system call mapping/emulation. The library interface is (IMHO) much more important, but it's also the part that is most likely to be standardized by other people. >Part of the success of Linux stems from its lack of ego. Linux includes >interfaces to make things work. Hey, guess what! FreeBSD includes interfaces to make things work, too! (I won't presume to speak for NetBSD since I don't work on it.) >*BSD is way below critical mass. Everything that can be done to make >things easier should be considerd. If you want to spend your time doing that, it's fine with me. My goals are as follows: 1) To make FreeBSD useful in my job. 2) To have fun. Anything beyond that, while it may or may not be useful, helpful, or admirable, involves more time and effort than I am willing to devote to what is, after all, not the entirety of my life. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... wollman@lcs.mit.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance. Opinions not those of| It is a bond more powerful than absence. We like people MIT, LCS, ANA, or NSA| who like Shashish. - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant