Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 22:55:05 -0400 (EDT) From: "Brandon D. Valentine" <bandix@looksharp.net> To: "Daniel C. Sobral" <dcs@newsguy.com> Cc: Alok Dhir <adhir@forumone.com>, "'Richard Wackerbarth'" <rkw@dataplex.net>, "'Matthew Dillon'" <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>, "'freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG'" <freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: SMP changes and breaking kld object module compatibility Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0004242247020.29270-100000@turtle.looksharp.net> In-Reply-To: <3904693F.ED9C5FA6@newsguy.com>
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On Tue, 25 Apr 2000, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: >Because if we do not provide a STABLE ABI, we WON'T get third-party >(binary only) kernel modules. > >I'm very divided in this issue. 4.x has just started, and would be >seriously impaired if no further improvements to it's SMP get in. On >the other hand, if we can't garantee third party vendors a stable ABI, >we won't get third party vendors. The number one excuse large third party server vendors use to justify use of NT over Linux on their high end SMP systems is the poor performance of Linux SMP. This is a tremendous opportunity for FreeBSD to take market share. People are seeing the virtues of free, open source operating systems in the server farm and providing top notch SMP support in FreeBSD will help to see that we make further inroads that the Linux guys do. If the BSDi code assists us in improving SMP performance and if the corporate backing helps our PR image, then we could be in for a fun ride. This is the time to start thinking in terms of "What can we do better?" or we're going to lose the battle. Sure, those changes could go into 5.x and be released when RELENG_5 is branched a year from now. But in this business, a year is 6 months too late. Think about that before you object to what appear to be vast improvements in the performance of the RELENG_4 branch while it is just getting off the ground. Brandon D. Valentine -- bandix@looksharp.net Illegitimi non carborundum. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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