Return to BSD News archive
Received: by minnie.vk1xwt.ampr.org with NNTP id AA6157 ; Tue, 05 Jan 93 13:08:56 EST Xref: sserve comp.os.linux:21838 comp.unix.bsd:9698 Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!agate!soda.berkeley.edu!wjolitz From: wjolitz@soda.berkeley.edu (William F. Jolitz) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: 386 BSD Date: 7 Jan 1993 22:56:21 GMT Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association Lines: 98 Message-ID: <1iicelINNa01@agate.berkeley.edu> References: <1if32hINNghk@menudo.uh.edu> <1993Jan7.191406.25765@klaava.Helsinki.FI> <1993Jan7.205455.974@nwnexus.WA.COM> NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu In article <1993Jan7.205455.974@nwnexus.WA.COM> danubius@halcyon.com (Joseph R. Pannon) writes: >In article <1993Jan7.191406.25765@klaava.Helsinki.FI> lukka@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Tuomas J Lukka) writes: > >One of the reasons that originally steered me toward Linux instead of >386BSD was the latter's low version number (0.1) compared to Linux (0.97 >at the time). From what I hear from you guys, that big difference may not be >justified by the features offered by both. What may be behind Jolitz's >thinking by assigning such an early version number to it? What does he >think he should have in addition to existing features to qualify for >version 1.0? > >Any ideas? > >Joe Pannon There appears to be some confusion as to how to view 386BSD and the work associated with it. While BSD goals and procedures are well-known among the educational/research sites which have formed the core support for BSD releases over the last 12 years, they may not be familiar (rightly) to the broader audiences now reached by 386BSD and Linux. First of all, 386BSD is intended for research and educational purposes. There are a number of email Special Interest Groups (SIGs) which are chartered to do not only short-term work (such as enhancements to drivers, kernel fixes, new drivers and the like) but also examine some longer-term items, such as unicode implemention, new approaches to driver design, very high-speed networking, multithreading, and so forth. These items are slow and tedious to do correctly, but very rewarding in the long-term. Some of these items which are in-progress even now will not appear until 1.0 and later, but they must be designed now, if they are ever to be a part of the future. For immediate work and test, the /unofficial directory was established as a base of operation for new work to be tested/used as needed. Hence, new work to be included in future releases is thoroughly tested before release engineering by the 386BSD user community first. In addition, it is hoped that the call for votes (announced yesterday in news.groups) will be favorable for the establishment of the 386bsd newsgroups, thus channeling people to appropriate people for problems, solutions, new work, announcements, and so forth, and eliminating the confusion which currently and understandably exists. For example, with respect to shared libraries, just as with Linux, there already exist several shared library implementations which work with 386BSD and are available for test/use. These versions were announced a month ago in comp.unix.bsd, and are among the many new items done by the 386BSD user community and made available to any interested party. There is also a research group which is attempting to complete a more extensive and difficult shared library implementation which will have serious ramifications on other areas of the system. Should anyone wish shared libraries now, one can get a version which works and is quite suitable for most purposes. However, that is not the end of the matter for 386BSD. Many of the people who work on 386BSD do so in order to continue the tradition of innovation which is the hallmark of BSD over the decade. BSD has been the basis for much exciting new work which has been incorporated into research and commercial projects, and we hope to encourage challanging new ideas to create a future, and not just accommodate the present. Regarding 386BSD version numbering. All versions of 386BSD follow BSD release numbering guidelines. Release 0.0 was the base 386BSD release. Generally, even numbered releases (i.e. 2.8BSD, 4.0BSD, 4.2BSD and 386BSD 0.2) incorporate new research or work. As a consequence, the release may not be as robust as desired, since establishment of new paradigms can often perturb other areas of the system. Odd numbered releases (2.9BSD, 4.1BSD, 4.3BSD in it's various incarnations, and 386BSD 0.1) on the other hand are generally more comprehensive and fixed versions of the previous releases. However, as more "things" are added to these releases, the paradigms and implementations tend to sag under the weight the additional items, thus requiring redesign or new design of the system. Each release of 386BSD has a planned area of technology to be addressed. This will take some time. But we hope that overall the correct design decisions will be the basis for the next generation of technology as well, and not just another "unix" system. This is a very ambitious goal, but then again, BSD has always been a very ambitious (and audacious) program from the beginning. I hope this clarifies matters. I urge you to vote to establish the 386bsd newsgroups, so we can better meet people's needs and interest. We are always open to feedback from all users of both 386BSD and Linux, in the hopes that both groups can encourage creativity and exploration of new ideas. Thank you for your time. Lynne Greer Jolitz 386BSD Development ljolitz@cardio.ucsf.edu