From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Aug 1 7:16:50 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C542037B400 for ; Thu, 1 Aug 2002 07:16:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from blackhelicopters.org (geburah.blackhelicopters.org [209.69.178.18]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 43D8C43E3B for ; Thu, 1 Aug 2002 07:16:47 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org) Received: from blackhelicopters.org (mwlucas@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by blackhelicopters.org (8.12.4/8.12.4) with ESMTP id g71EGecC012043; Thu, 1 Aug 2002 10:16:40 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org) Received: (from mwlucas@localhost) by blackhelicopters.org (8.12.4/8.12.4/Submit) id g71EGeSS012042; Thu, 1 Aug 2002 10:16:40 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 10:16:40 -0400 From: Michael Lucas To: Terry Lambert Cc: Sergey Lyubka , freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Assembly, Kernels and Bootstraps Message-ID: <20020801101639.A11972@blackhelicopters.org> References: <20020731161322.O5057-100000@boise.neuroflux.com> <20020801102424.GC97092@yoda.asitatech.ie> <3D490353.8A5A07D4@mindspring.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <3D490353.8A5A07D4@mindspring.com>; from tlambert2@mindspring.com on Thu, Aug 01, 2002 at 02:45:55AM -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, Aug 01, 2002 at 02:45:55AM -0700, Terry Lambert wrote: > Sergey Lyubka wrote: > > That question I presume is a sign of a more global need of good book > > describing FreeBSD internals and philosophy behind it. > > Get the project to promise not to outdate the book for 6 months, > so I can get paid for the time I spend on it in terms of book > sales, and I'll write one. Terry's very right here. I had a hell of a time writing a book about running *stable*; we change things very quickly here, and it's quite difficult to document. (Book is due in my hands tomorrow or Saturday, hurrah!) I was considering editing a book on kernel internals, soliciting chapters from the various developers. (They could provide know-how, I could provide grammar.) But such a book would take four to six months to assemble, and three months to physically produce. Three months after that, we'd realistically start seeing contributions based upon that code. That's one year. We have a hard time keeping people out of interfaces for twelve weeks. > It's just not possible to hit a moving target (or in this case, > to document code that won't at least sit still at the interfaces). I'd like to turn this around. "If the FreeBSD developer community wants a book on the FreeBSD kernel, they need to commit to maintaining a consistent internal kernel interface." If the developer community does this, any number of people will jump on the book contract like a ravenous wolf on a obese antelope. ==ml -- Michael Lucas mwlucas@FreeBSD.org, mwlucas@BlackHelicopters.org http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/Big_Scary_Daemons Absolute BSD: http://www.nostarch.com/abs_bsd.htm To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message