Return to BSD News archive
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.ysu.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!news.inap.net!news1!dyson.iquest.net!usenet From: "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net> Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs Linux X-Nntp-Posting-Host: dyson.iquest.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: <3167F6EC.41C67EA6@dyson.iquest.net> Sender: root@dyson.iquest.net Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: John S. Dyson's home machine References: <4issad$h1o@nadine.teleport.com> <4jsua0$6oc@dyson.iquest.net> <4jtet8$on2@agate.berkeley.edu> <4k0m87$7vi@dyson.iquest.net> <4k6gt3$1et@agate.berkeley.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 18:14:48 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b2 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2-CURRENT i386) Lines: 94 Nick Kralevich wrote: > > In article <4k0m87$7vi@dyson.iquest.net>, > Charlie Root <root@dyson.iquest.net> wrote: > >Nick, you are the one starting one of your periodic trolls, go back > >to the Linux group, at least you won't have the other "religious" > > Standard *BSD argument style: Attack the person, not the argument. > *sigh* > Your position on FreeBSD vs. Linux is already known, so I have alot of context as to YOUR position. Your arguments are many times fallacious and biased. Why hasn't Linux fixed all of it's real problems before something as relatively inconsequential as it's ABI (for now)? *sigh* Your arguements have been generally vacuous, and there is little that reflects reality as to the need to move to ELF right now. BTW, what has ELF bought Linux that FreeBSD a.out doesn't already do? Linux needed to come up with a good shared lib scheme (they had made a broken (static) choice early on), why should we follow them blindly on ABI??? They don't have a very good history of making such choices. FreeBSD will make the choice when it is good for it and it's user base. We will eventually go to ELF, and we have working ELF code -- so is it time to subject the user base to ALPHA or worse code??? NO, we are NOT Linux... > I am simply arguing that, as ELF compilers and development tools > become more prominent, the development and maintance of AOUT tools > is going to slow down. Bugs are going to get fixed slower in the AOUT > versions and maintaining a *BSD release of the tools is going to get > more complicated. > We (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD) have been maintaining our own versions of the tools since we got SunOS style shared libs (and before.) We have been trying to shield our users from pain until we decide a viable direction for ABI etc. *BSD has had real shared libs for 2yrs or more now. Linux is trying to catch up. > I'm not trying to argue the relative merits of AOUT vs ELF. (Other > people have already shown the advantage of ELF over AOUT). I am saying > that the development tools that FreeBSD uses are going to become > out of date, harder to maintain, and, eventually, the core team of > FreeBSD will be forced to upgrade to ELF. > > In this respect, Linux is better suited to the future than FreeBSD. > The argument that you make DOES NOT say that Linux is better suited to the future than FreeBSD. It only says that Linux has chosen its path already perhaps incorrectly in some respects. It has also put its forward looking user base through pain that we hope not to do and we hope to do it only once. > > The core team of FreeBSD will _eventually_ have to upgrade FreeBSD > to ELF, and until it does so, it is only doing it's users a disservice. > It makes little difference when "the core team" (who by the way don't make all of the decisions), makes the decision. There are few features that ELF buys today. (Many people keep on misunderstanding that *FACT*.) Note that the a.out format and shared libs will be supported forever (since we have committed to that format.) We don't want to create a *broken* ELF implementation, and needing to support it forever. That is one reason for holding back (among others.) It appears that some Linux supporters are trying to coerce FreeBSD into doing something ill-considered. When ELF buys us something signficant, then we'll go to it. Why gratuitiously lock ourselves into an implementation that needs to be supported forever, with no advantage (other than buzzword appeal?) > > I can understand now why there are personality conflicts between the > various *BSD groups. :-) > Nick, you have continued to troll, and my response would not have been *nearly* as intense to individuals who were simply asking a question. I KNOW your agenda. You are the reason that many of the Linux user base appear to be green-computer newbies. (With the attitude, They have been using Windows3.1, and gosh after seeing Linux, they now know that it is the one, true, real OS!!!) How pathetic... > Take care, I have always chucled when seeing this "Take care" :-). > -- Nick Kralevich > nickkral@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu The reason that we are being careful is that we really do care about our user base. When ELF buys us something significant, then we will embrace it fully. It *will* stay experimental and secondary at the 2.2 release of FreeBSD, unless it HELPS our users, then it will become primary. John Dyson dyson@freebsd.org