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From: mandtbac@news.abo.fi (Mats Andtbacka)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy
Date: 3 Dec 1995 17:32:44 GMT
Organization: Unorganized Usenet Postings UnInc.
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Distribution: comp
Message-ID: <49smvs$8gd@josie.abo.fi>
References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu>
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Robert Sanders, in <87rayn8ion.fsf@interbev.mindspring.com>:
>On 2 Dec 1995 10:52:32 GMT, nickkral@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Kralevich) said:
[...]
>FreeBSD makes the latest sources available via SUP. No, I personally
>can't check things out of the CVS tree. I don't know of any single
>CVS tree that defines the Linux kernel (or userland, for that matter).
As far as Linux is "defined" at all, it's in the kernel source trees
on ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/OS/Linux/PEOPLE/Linus/v1.$VERSION
where $VERSION is in [0-3]; 3, at the moment. New patches come out
whenever Linus releases them, which can be daily to biweekly.
That's probably as close to the development of Linux as most people
care to get; not all of the development kernels even compile, as
they're released on that site. Probably if you wanted to get much more
up-to-date you'd have to start emailing the individual developers for
whatever patches they haven't submitted to Linus yet.
And yes, the site is open (for reading, anyway) to everybody, as are
all the mirrors of it I know of; the best one is supposed to be on
nether.net I think.
Am I correct to think that the FreeBSD "equivalent", this CVS or
whatever you called it, can't be _read_ except by a small core team?
Whatever for? Keeping people from making their own changes and writing
to it I can see, but...?
>FreeBSD has a core team capable of committing changes to the source
>tree. Linux has one person (Linus) capable of committing changes to
>the source tree. The situation is the same for the average Joe
>working on either system: you develop on your own system(s) and send
>your patches to somebody with write access to the main source tree.
>That's either one of the FreeBSD core team or Linus.
Actually, if I wanted to nitpick, not _every_ Linux kernel change
should go to Linus; for example, the ext2fs is maintained by Remy
Card, so patches to it should be sent to him. But yes, you're
essentially right.
Out of interest, what happens if I develop something completely new
for FreeBSD, some driver never seen before; with Linux, I could just
proclaim myself its developer/maintainer, send it to Linus and hope
it gets into the kernel. Who approves new stuff into FreeBSD?
>I'm not saying that FreeBSD is the final word in open software
>development or that Linux is absolutely closed, but in the spirit of
>this thread I must ask: how is Linux development *more* open?
It probably isn't; in the case that Linus should lose access or maybe
just get himself a life, it's probably more closed, since he could
prove a difficult man to replace. But you'd have to be mildly daft to
consider either one "closed" when compared to most commercial
offerings.
--
" ... got to contaminate to alleviate this loneliness
i now know the depths i reach are limitless... "
-- nin