*BSD News Article 56376


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From: jkh@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 4 Dec 1995 03:57:19 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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Message-ID: <49triv$f7a@agate.berkeley.edu>
References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <49smvs$8gd@josie.abo.fi>
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In article <49smvs$8gd@josie.abo.fi>, Mats Andtbacka <mandtbac@abo.fi> wrote:
>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?

No on several counts.  First, the equivalent to Linus's little
repository on the finnish site is probably sup and CTM, not CVS.
They show you the state of the system at any given time, and they're
open to all.

The CVS repository is the actual *revision history*, that is the actual
diffs and log entries produced at each step of the way.  That was restricted
not to a small core team, but to a larger set of developers and 3rd
party folks.  Access to the repository has always been available for the
asking, though we plan to get even more open than that.

>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?

The project members - you send details of your proposed change to the
current@freebsd.org mailing list and give people a chance to comment on
it before asking for its inclusion.  A group of some 53 people have been
chosen, over the last 3 years, for their proven ability to know good
changes from bad and can be reached at committers@freebsd.org - all
you need to do is get one of them to commit your changes for you.

If you submit many changes, and they appear to be of consistent
quality, then you become committer #54. :-)

						Jordan