From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Sep 21 17:19:10 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id RAA16960 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 21 Sep 1996 17:19:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id RAA16937 for ; Sat, 21 Sep 1996 17:19:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from time.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.7.6/8.6.9) with ESMTP id RAA20241; Sat, 21 Sep 1996 17:18:11 -0700 (PDT) To: Joe Greco cc: julian@current1.whistle.com, Rich.Heaton@empac.com, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Job openings: Unix Network Programmers, Internet server In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 21 Sep 1996 15:37:56 CDT." <199609212037.PAA14080@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Date: Sat, 21 Sep 1996 17:18:11 -0700 Message-ID: <20239.843351491@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > {386,Net,Free,Open}BSD. :-( > > What you are saying is certainly wise, I have no doubts about that. > > I am just a little dismayed at how things have developed... we could I think you're looking at the "split" in the wrong light, or at least with what could probably be said to be the "old" view. If we re-examine the situation in today's context, we see: 386BSD: Dead. FreeBSD: Focused on Intel architecture. {Net,Open}BSD: In conflict. Which narrows the problem by quite a bit (and I don't know what to do about the fact that NetBSD and OpenBSD are now trying to occupy the same niche - that truly is a waste). FreeBSD is not in conflict with NetBSD because NetBSD is focused on the different goal of providing a cross platform solution, and it could in fact be said that NetBSD *helped* FreeBSD by giving the ALPHA, Sparc, 68K and other folks a place to go so they didn't pressure the FreeBSD developers into doing a whole bunch of porting work they weren't ready for (or much into the idea of doing). That's not to say there isn't redundancy in the {Net,Free}BSD split which could be eliminated, but I believe that this will slowly improve as various people continue the work they've already started in keeping the two trees in sync. However, it's still not bifurcated *BSD development which worries me. That, despite its occasionally rocky moments, has always been a matter of engineers talking to other engineers, all of whom also pretty much know one another. Getting them to work cooperatively together is child's play compared to the task of getting various commercial entities, many of whom are also hugely paranoid about giving away their "valuable secrets", into overcoming mutual distrust and developer ignorance ("Huh? There are other people doing what I'm doing? How was I supposed to know that when I never leave my office or have time to read the developer's lists?"). Get the vertical market people talking to one another and you've really got something. Jordan