Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 10:50:41 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: pgiffuni@fps.biblos.unal.edu.co (Pedro Giffuni) Cc: terry@lambert.org, jb@cimlogic.com.au, srn@flibble.psrg.cs.usyd.edu.au, freebsd-platforms@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Some one working on a SPARC version? Message-ID: <199703171750.KAA08087@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <332D8F8C.3FA1@fps.biblos.unal.edu.co> from "Pedro Giffuni" at Mar 17, 97 10:38:04 am
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> > > Porting FreeBSD to other architectures is more than just using a ports > > > tree and adapting the VM. > > > > It is? > > The different kernel interfaces, the devices driver structure... OK, I buy this one, though much of the difference, other than the VM, are gratuitous, IMO. > I find > it difficult to understand how people actually ignore the great userland > changes made in FreeBSD. Diffs between FreeBSD versions are not followed > instantly by NetBSD or viceversa, and it's not a secret that FreeBSD is > a bit more aggresive when bringing changes in. In fact when I said we > should get some code from NetBSD I was thinking of their emulation > support, more than anything else. I think we have differnet definitions here. As far as I'm concerned, all of user space is "just a ports tree". > > > We must keep our stuff to retain our identity > > > > Why? What's so nifty about our identity? > > (Yes there was a smiley there, but I don't recall a wink). No > "Aristotilian mean" involved, perhaps you could call it a Zen mean; both > Net and FreeBSD will always have a "BSD spirit" (I don't really know how > to express it, but I guess it is in part represented by the FreeBSD > icon) and you could say this brings us very near indeed. The wink was > there to remember there are slight but significant differences between > these systems. An Aristotilain mean is a split of a set into two sets; it assumes that the universe is binary in nature. When ou use an Aristotilian mean, you must be careful to voice all of your assumptions. For instance, the mean "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" assumes you beat your wife. No matter what binary answer you give, you will be accepting the assumptions implicit in the statement. The assumption implicit in your statement (and reiterated here) is that "there are significant differences between these systems". I disagree. The differences are of level of integration, not ones of technology incompatability, and therefore they are significant only in the political sense. Politics is a bad perspective from which to make technical decisions; anyone you believes otherwise might as well go claim their "pointy Dilbert Manager hair" from supply. > NetBSD doesn't want our ports tree Unlikely... what benefit could they perceive in this? > and they probably don't want our VM either. Maybe. But they can't argue that VM/buffer cache unification does not have technical merit above and beyond an non-unified system, so if your claim is true (I doubt it), then it is one of implementation detail, not philosophy. > Add to this that we don't even unify our criteria as to where each > program should go, or how the tree is distributed and it will be > evident we are diverging each day. This is an issue of kingdom building breeding kindom building; I defy you to demonstrate the merit of encouraging duplication of effort this way. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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