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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!lucy.swin.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au!news.apana.org.au!cantor.edge.net.au!news.teragen.com.au!news.access.net.au!news.netspace.net.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!grumpy.fl.net.au!news.webspan.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!howland.erols.net!panix!news.panix.com!not-for-mail From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc Subject: Re: Linux vs BSD Date: 6 Feb 1997 14:48:07 -0500 Organization: Panix Lines: 45 Distribution: comp Message-ID: <5ddchn$abn@panix2.panix.com> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <5d80q2$8cn@cynic.portal.ca> <5dacro$r0@josie.abo.fi> <5dd9d7$li1@cynic.portal.ca> Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com NNTP-Posting-Host: panix2.panix.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:5889 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2291 In article <5dd9d7$li1@cynic.portal.ca>, Curt Sampson <cjs@cynic.portal.ca> wrote: >In article <5dacro$r0@josie.abo.fi>, Mats Andtbacka <mandtbac@abo.fi> wrote: >> >>the reason i don't buy this argument of Stallman's is, i could set up >>those same GNU utils on a FreeBSD box - maybe even down to GNU libc >>now that v2.0 of it is going to be the next version of libc on Linux - >>but that still doesn't mean FreeBSD is Linux. or would you say it is? > >No. Both I and Stallman would say that that system is GNU/FreeBSD. >You'll note that when I refer to `Linux' I am referring to the >Linux kernel, which is not a complete OS. When I refer to `GNU/Linux,' >I am referring to a complete OS. > >(And before we get into this, yes, FreeBSD and NetBSD do use some >Gnu software in userland. The reason that I don't refer to NetBSD >as GNU/NetBSD is because it still runs and is capable of doing a >lot of things without that Gnu softare. Specifically, what would >be missing from NetBSD if we removed all Gnu software would be: >the compiler toolchain, uucp, bc, dc, diff, diff3, grep, groff, >rcs, sdiff, send-pr, and sort. A few of these coule be easily, >though not efficiently, replaced.) UUCP could be easily replaced; in fact, BSDI doesn't use Taylor UUCP. There are non-GPL versions of grep out there. They may not be POSIX compliant, although one, agrep, is significantly faster than GNU grep. There's always LCC by way of a compiler, but the terms on that aren't great either. And there are no machine descriptions for many of the architectures supported by NetBSD. And the asm handling is of course all different. Of course, one could always *buy* a compiler, for commercial use. I wish we supported building with ANSI-compilant vendor toolchains, actually, because they often produce much better code than GCC does. There's a skeletal sort in 4.4BSD-Lite2. I haven't looked at it very hard except to notice that it didn't compile. I have removed the Linux newsgroups from the Newsgroups: line since they aren't really relevant. -- Thor Lancelot Simon tls@panix.COM Stumbling drunk in the railyard looking for God: http://www.panix.com/~tls/