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To: Joe Greco <jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com>
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
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From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
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> {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