Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 21:01:13 +0900 From: "Daniel C. Sobral" <dcs@newsguy.com> To: alk@pobox.com Cc: robert@kudra.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: base64 Message-ID: <36E3BC09.84D33D1E@newsguy.com> References: <14048.10089.598598.919239@avalon.east> <36E07AEC.101F3467@newsguy.com> <14048.48864.918087.631128@avalon.east> <19990306095927.B53145@kudra.com> <14049.29637.311448.247778@avalon.east>
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Tony Kimball wrote: > > The base system has expanded. DHCP is one recent example. > In the modern world, a system without DHCP is much less generally > useful than one with DHCP. MIME should be another functional > adaptation to the modern environment. Uu-coding can go. (Well, > not yet, but before I die.) MIME is built-in on most mail readers. If anything but the basest mail reading capability is desired, install a mail reader. If you need MIME, select one with built-in support. > : Thats why we have the ports tree. If we switched to > : elm for instance, that would be a wasted megabye of disk for me, and > : many other people. Can you say 'Creeping Featureism?' > > Like DHCP. Or C++. Creeping Featurism? I don't think so. > But it would be better to be able to trivially configure a system > without DHCP, or C++, or MIME, I agree. C++ is there because: 1) Part of the base system requires it. 2) The C compiler we use supports it, anyway. DHCP is there because: 1) You cannot even do a network installation on some of the networks requiring DHCP. > Linux qua apple, not orange. You should compare the kernel to Linux, > And the distribution to SUSE/RedHat/Debian/Caldera -- all of which are > much better candidates for a general end-user *or* server OS than is > FreeBSD on the evidence of circulation alone. (FreeBSD will never > be given a fair shot unless its circulation rises sufficiently to be > a known contender.) This argument does not make sense. If these distributions were better than FreeBSD for (whatever use), given that they have more circulation, in first place, nobody would install FreeBSD. Why would anyone do that if a) Linux is popular and b) it's better? That FreeBSD continues to get installed, and it is not uncommon at all the case where a Linux user gets converted to FreeBSD, it stands to evidence that FreeBSD *can* and *is* a better OS for a lot of users. > FreeBSD 2.1.x is perfect for some people. FreeBSD 2.2.x is perfect > for some people. FreeBSD 3.x is perfect for some people. -current is > perfect for some people. That's great, but -current is becoming > something, something new. That new thing will not be an improvement > for those who find 2.2.x to be perfect. I am of the impression that > -current exists for a number of distinct reasons, significant among > them being > > 1) a desire to sell CDs on the part of Walnut Creek > 2) a desire for control/self-actualization/money on the part of core/committers > 3) a desire for a certain product by the end-users > > with the last being as diverse as the user base. While the 4.x user > base will overlap with the 3.x user base, it is (1) hopeful that the > subscription base will increase by virtue of the product being more > competetive in order to provide a hope of a business future, and (2) > hopeful that it will fulfill the needs of its contributors in order to > provide a hope of a technical future. You could not be more off the mark. -Current exists because that's were we make the OS evolve. We want it to evolve because we feel the need to. I might be mistaken, but I doubt there is any single feature in -current that wasn't *needed* by someone, and for this reason was created and added. This has always been the case, and nothing changed. -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) dcs@newsguy.com dcs@freebsd.org "FreeBSD is Yoda, Linux is Luke Skywalker." To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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