*BSD News Article 56429


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From: root@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
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References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <30BD2617.23585C28@mcs.net> <49k0dd$pfg@nntp5.u.washington.edu> <49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 1995 19:34:45 GMT
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:29823 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:10106 comp.unix.advocacy:11963 comp.unix.misc:19959

In article <49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>,
BENJAMIN A LINDSTROM <bl03@uwrf.edu> wrote:
>: 
><shrug> If you maked BSD alpha/beta kernels public you would see the same
>results.  Where as Linux as a community tends to helpout in debugging
>the alpha/beta kernels and can move to newer beta kernels if need be.
>
They are available as are the source codes...  In fact the FreeBSD
sources are available on a *daily* basis to anyone.  Is that true
about Linux??? :-)  The only sources that are not available are those
that have to be written or worked on using private FreeBSD workstations,
otherwise the tree would be chaos.  (Please refer to the FreeBSD documentation
for supping the -current or -stable trees.)

>
>Does BSD release a major change per year for kernels and packages? 
>Linux kernel has a major revision change every year. 
>
About every six months or so.  Sometimes a bit longer.  Definitely
faster than yearly.

Opinion:
I think that the notion that the FreeBSD core or development team is "elite"
really reflects a misunderstanding of the situation.   Many of us spend
almost ALL of our time on this stuff -- sometimes to the exclusion of more
normal social activities.  The core team is more of a group of caretakers
many of which have areas of signficant contribution (software, documentation,
or perhaps marketing.)  For example, there is actually quite a bit of freedom
that the FreeBSD committers have to modify the kernel...  No one person, for
example, "holds the kernel hostage".


John
dyson@freebsd.org