From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Apr 5 4:12:11 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from netsrvr.ami.com.au (netsrvr.ami.com.au [203.55.31.38]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7156F37B507 for ; Thu, 5 Apr 2001 04:12:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from summer@os2.ami.com.au) Received: from dugite.os2.ami.com.au (IDENT:root@c0s22.ami.com.au [203.55.31.87]) by netsrvr.ami.com.au (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA10060 for ; Thu, 5 Apr 2001 19:11:46 +0800 Received: from possum.os2.ami.com.au (IDENT:summer@possum.os2.ami.com.au [192.168.1.6]) by dugite.os2.ami.com.au (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id f356atI07350 for ; Thu, 5 Apr 2001 14:36:55 +0800 Message-Id: <200104050636.f356atI07350@dugite.os2.ami.com.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.2 06/23/2000 with nmh-1.0 To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Should I switch? [was Re: A novel idea....] In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 04 Apr 2001 20:44:39 EST." <20010404204439.A17787@cec.wustl.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 14:40:46 +0800 From: John Summerfield Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > = > 7. FreeBSD is developed very rapidly. Especially if you subscribe to > mailing lists, you can see bugs fixed almost as soon as they are > mentioned. New features are added more conservatively, however. New > stuff is tried out in -CURRENT, where the heavy-duty FreeBSD hackers > make it stable, then merge it into -STABLE. The reason Linux became mor= e > popular than FreeBSD is, as I've read: Linux development is > helter-skelter--anybody can make changes to the system and redistribute= > them with ease. As a consequence, a wide range of people worked to > develop the components on your Debian system. This distribution and > encouragement led to confusion, but also popularity. FreeBSD, on the > other hand, is maintained by a fixed group of committers. While you can= > still modify your system, it is more difficult to get random changes > into the main code tree. The result is a more structured and sane > development process, with an emphasis on stability rather than untested= > additions. While it's true anyone can make changes to Linux and redistribute them wi= th ease, I = don't see how it's a point of difference. What prevents me from taking a = bit of BSD, = changing it and distributing it how I will? Actually getting a change into a distribution of Linux requires convincin= g a = Responsible Person that it's a good idea, and that Responsible Person is = going to = take care either because his job may be on the line if he gets it wrong, = or it's his = pet part of the overall Scheme of Things and he really truly cares about = it. In that regard, I don't see that FreeBSD is a lot different from a distri= bution. Remember too that a good deal of the software on BSD is the same as is on= linux. -- = Cheers John Summerfield http://www2.ami.com.au/ for OS/2 & linux information. Configuration, networking, combined IBM ftpsites index. Microsoft's most solid OS: http://www.geocities.com/rcwoolley/ Note: mail delivered to me is deemed to be intended for me, for my dispos= ition. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message