From owner-freebsd-arch Thu Jun 13 0:45:47 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from 12-234-22-238.client.attbi.com (12-234-90-219.client.attbi.com [12.234.90.219]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDF7837B41F; Thu, 13 Jun 2002 00:45:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Master.gorean.org (master.gorean.org [10.0.0.2]) by 12-234-22-238.client.attbi.com (8.12.3/8.12.3) with ESMTP id g5D7jfXN033608; Thu, 13 Jun 2002 00:45:42 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from DougB@FreeBSD.org) Received: from localhost (doug@localhost) by Master.gorean.org (8.12.3/8.12.3/Submit) with ESMTP id g5D7jfXs003702; Thu, 13 Jun 2002 00:45:41 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: Master.gorean.org: doug owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 00:45:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Barton To: Terry Lambert Cc: Robert Watson , "Jacques A. Vidrine" , Subject: Re: RFC: remove xten from the base system? In-Reply-To: <3D084A91.FFD1B47@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <20020613004013.K2539-100000@master.gorean.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Terry Lambert wrote: > Coda has a project. > Perl has a project. > TCL has a project. > > Xten does not have a project. > > This is effectively saying "Get a project to support you, because we > are about to throw you in the ocean". I can certainly understand you coming to that conclusion. I would characterize my position as, "Since this code is used by very few people, those people should do the work of supporting it." The other examples you gave A) have a lot more general appeal than xten, and B) already have people to support them. > I think this is really about two things: > > 1) The Perl advocates trying to punish everyone for getting rid > of Perl in the base system, even though FreeBSD's Perl support > has actually improved, since the system Perl left out important > (to the Perl people) features. I consider myself to be a "Perl developer," in the sense that I use it, like it, and get paid to do it. However, I am on record as being opposed to importing it in the first place, and a vocal advocate for removing it. I also posted my first "Why is xten in the base?" post years ago. Thus, I don't think 1. applies to me. > 2) People wanting the FreeBSD base to be broken into optional > subsets, and attacking a weak target, just like a company > filing a lawsuit against the littlest offender in order to > get case law on their side (e.g. they failed with Sendmail, > which was too big, so they are trying to get the camel's > nose into the tent in another way). This has been going on for years. It's not new, and xten is not the only target. I'm definitely guilty of 2. > If it's mostly #2, then the place to work towards that is not by > pushing everything else out of FreeBSD, until it's nothing more > than a kernel, just like Linux. If they want this, they can either > go over to Linux, or they can contribute code to the work that Eric > Melville was doing. I don't think this is the way... I think there should definitely be a default distribution that has most of the relevant bits included by default. However, it should be a lot easier to eliminate bits than it is now. Doug -- "We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. And in this great conflict, ... we will see freedom's victory." - George W. Bush, President of the United States State of the Union, January 28, 2002 Do YOU Yahoo!? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message