From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Apr 14 00:24:44 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id AAA22747 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 14 Apr 1997 00:24:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sax.sax.de (sax.sax.de [193.175.26.33]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA22739 for ; Mon, 14 Apr 1997 00:24:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by sax.sax.de (8.6.12/8.6.12-s1) with UUCP id JAA01218 for hackers@freebsd.org; Mon, 14 Apr 1997 09:24:39 +0200 Received: (from j@localhost) by uriah.heep.sax.de (8.8.5/8.8.5) id JAA00815; Mon, 14 Apr 1997 09:12:16 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <19970414091216.YL45051@uriah.heep.sax.de> Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 09:12:16 +0200 From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Commercial vendors registry References: <3.0.32.19970413214534.00b3b9e0@etinc.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.60_p2-3,5,8-9 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Phone: +49-351-2012 669 X-PGP-Fingerprint: DC 47 E6 E4 FF A6 E9 8F 93 21 E0 7D F9 12 D6 4E Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19970413214534.00b3b9e0@etinc.com>; from dennis on Apr 13, 1997 21:45:36 -0400 Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk As dennis wrote: (I didn't really wanna participate here, and this will probably be my only mail in this thread.) > FreeBSD is loaded with junk already. You should want > supported products...not basic drivers supported by some guy in > the urals who has a 50 hr a week commitment elsewhere and fixes > stuff only when his wife and kids are at grandmas. The junk is not at crucial parts of the system. Things like ft(4) or aic(4) (yeah, my most favourite examples) simply haven't been removed since users are still using them. But, etinc.com doesn't have to rely on a crappy floppy tape driver. The heavy parts of the system _are_ maintained, and we make it fairly clear for new code submissions that we don't wanna have them unless someone also steps forward and promises to maintain them. Sure, this also gives us fire from the other side as opposed to where dennis stands (they sometimes call us ignorant since we are rejecting `valuable' code for nothing else than there's no maintainer, and a certain person on these lists wanted to explain us that there's no reason one needs a maintainer at all, except for what he told us were gratuitous kernel API changes...), but we can resist this. This still leaves the problem that some maintainer might run out of time and/or interest later (ft(4) basically suffered from this), but that's the risk one is accepting for a freeware system. -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)