From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Mar 15 23:28:24 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C497016A4CE for ; Mon, 15 Mar 2004 23:28:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from rwcrmhc11.comcast.net (rwcrmhc11.comcast.net [204.127.198.35]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A5EE943D1D for ; Mon, 15 Mar 2004 23:28:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from underway@comcast.net) Received: from localhost.localdomain (c-24-17-47-224.client.comcast.net[24.17.47.224]) by comcast.net (rwcrmhc11) with ESMTP id <2004031607282401300hf6f1e>; Tue, 16 Mar 2004 07:28:24 +0000 Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost [127.0.0.1]) i2G7Sfwv080662; Mon, 15 Mar 2004 23:28:42 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from underway@comcast.net) Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id i2G7SY0s080661; Mon, 15 Mar 2004 23:28:34 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from underway@comcast.net) To: Johan Pettersson References: <20040315134745.1eb201f4.manlix@demonized.net> <20040315125710.GK797@camelot.theinternet.com.au> <20040315140153.30348b1e.manlix@demonized.net> From: underway@comcast.net (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 23:28:34 -0800 In-Reply-To: <20040315140153.30348b1e.manlix@demonized.net> (Johan Pettersson's message of "Mon, 15 Mar 2004 14:01:53 +0100") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.1002 (Gnus v5.10.2) XEmacs/21.4 (Reasonable Discussion, berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Pkg-based base system. X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 07:28:24 -0000 Johan Pettersson writes: >> | Wouldn't it be nice to have ha pkg-based base system? >> | So you easily can remove parts from the base system, like >> | openssh, ipfw, ipf, bind, sendmail and so on. >> | This couldn't be too hard to implement. :) Apparently it IS too hard, so let's dream of a system even harder to implement. Someone should (sic) do it so well and so flexibly that almost all BSD users will want to use the same base system for which they will select their favorite BSD kernel (eg, FreeBSD's or NetBSD's) and their favorite applications (eg, one each of the most popular MTAs, firewalls, and CD burners), so that we don't have four or more teams maintaining and documenting a similar userland, while having the many people interested in kernel development able to continue their rather separate innovations. That's my ideal. I'm afraid that the reality will be that as Linux, Sun, MSFT, and even Apple further dominate "the enterprise", the BSDs' market/mind- share will make a serious decline as its developers retire and move on to what's left in the enterprise, except that NetBSD might manage a significant chunk of the embedded OS niche (where Linux suffers from copyleft and a harder-to-port design) and might even continue as a development platform for itself. To facilitate the later, it might help to take over FreeBSD's userland, taking advantage of FreeBSD's better userland documentation. (No, I don't know how hard THAT would be.)