From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Jan 13 09:51:42 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id JAA25184 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 13 Jan 1997 09:51:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.211]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id JAA25132 for ; Mon, 13 Jan 1997 09:50:41 -0800 (PST) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id KAA27954; Mon, 13 Jan 1997 10:29:31 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199701131729.KAA27954@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: DEVFS permissions &c. To: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au (David Nugent) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 10:29:30 -0700 (MST) Cc: terry@lambert.org, joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: from "David Nugent" at Jan 13, 97 11:08:22 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > Third party commercial software needs an interface for inserting > > tasks into the startup/shutdown mechanism such that it's possible > > for the tasks to be added/removed without post-processing rc files, > > since if only one vendor out of 200 vendors screws this up, your > > system is screwed entirely. > > Sure, I understand the need. But symlinks just obfuscate the entire > process. > > There is no *logical* difference between the scheme I've suggested > and what many sysv's use. Only the implementation differs in that > the directory becomes the list - a much more difficult way to > manage it. > > A vendor who "screws this up" has no business being a vendor at all. Or he has created his product for SVR4, and we are only able to use it because we have an ABI compatability mode. The problem is that the SVR4 ABI includes more than simply being able to run the binaries. For full IBCS2, it also includes an rc.d structure for them to install scripts in, as well as SVR4 package management tools to do the installation (have you tried to install SVR3 Lotus 1-2-3 without SVR3/SVR4 install tools lately?). There is some measure of expedience which must be applied to decisions involving ABI compatability... this is one of them. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.