From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 16 00:45:16 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 4CF2116A4CF for ; Tue, 16 Mar 2004 00:45:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.soaustin.net (mail.soaustin.net [207.200.4.66]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0782043D53 for ; Tue, 16 Mar 2004 00:45:16 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from linimon@lonesome.com) Received: by mail.soaustin.net (Postfix, from userid 502) id 84E7314718; Tue, 16 Mar 2004 02:45:15 -0600 (CST) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 02:45:15 -0600 (CST) From: Mark Linimon X-X-Sender: linimon@pancho To: underway@comcast.net Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 05:02:50 -0800 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 08:45:16 -0000 Gary W. Swearingen writes: > Johan Pettersson writes: >> | Wouldn't it be nice to have a 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. Based on over 20 years of software development experience, my own estimate is that this task would take a team of 15 to 20 full-time employees 3-6 months to get up and going properly. The split would probably have to be 30/70 developers to QA people. That would only be enough to get you past the initial kernel incompatibilities, the device driver generalization and integration, and the userland reconciliation. The applications stuff would have to come later (but given that, compared to the above, it might be somewhat easier). What you're asking for here is quite frankly something on the scale of what RedHat or SuSE do for a living. You'll need some solid funding to do this. Then you'd have the problem of convincing several hundred *BSD developers to move over to it -- some of the most influential of whom have a hard time even standing in the same room as one another, much less agreeing to cooperate on large code changes. Then you have to get several thousand, or tens of thousands, of *BSD users to move over to it. You'll have to be very convincing to a lot of people to get them to change what they've been using. None of the above is meant as sarcasm. I just honestly believe that, because you don't do software for a living, that you have no idea of the enormity of the scope of the task that your blue-sky dream here would entail. mcl