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Date:      Sun, 7 Dec 1997 21:17:33 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        grog@lemis.com (Greg Lehey)
Cc:        tlambert@primenet.com, ports@FreeBSD.ORG, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: 3.0 -release ?
Message-ID:  <199712072117.OAA00995@usr02.primenet.com>
In-Reply-To: <19971207165932.28970@lemis.com> from "Greg Lehey" at Dec 7, 97 04:59:32 pm

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> Great idea!  Yes, I've read the multitude of messages that have come
> in so far.  But you've missed one point: why don't we merge FreeBSD,
> NetBSD and OpenBSD?  Maybe BSD/OS as well?  After all, most people
> don't understand why there are so many BSDs anyway.
> 
> What, you say, they don't want to cooperate?

They would lose control of something which they already have control
over, and for which control is the desired end product (and OS's are
nothing more than a neat side effect).

> Oh.  So why should they
> want to cooperate on the question of the Ports Collection?

Because they have something to gain personally by doing so... unlike
merging the BSD's.

Any merge will have to appeal to people without stepping into an area
manned by their egos.  The ports collection has not be seperately
fenced in the process of kingdom-building, and thus is something
on which the camps can cooperate on, where the marginal benefit is
obviously greater than the marginal cost.

Sure, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD could be merged, and sure, the
marginal benefit would be greater than the marginal cost.  It's just
not that obvious, and three years of attempts at education on the
mathematical basis underlying positive sum games theory have failed
to make it non-obvious-but-well-understood.

So at this time, an OS merge is a potitically dead end.  But a ports
merge is not.


> Sure, the Ports Collection would be easier.  It's less coupled with
> the kernel.  But does anybody out there really see all four (three?)
> teams getting together and coordinating the mess?

Has anyone with any official standing within the FreeBSD team *asked*
anyone with any official standing at the other teams?

Certainly, it would be to Jordan's benefit: it would buy him a broader
market for a decoupled ports CD product, and maybe even packaging and
coadvertising from BSDI for the thing.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.



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