Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 21:23:22 -0800 (PST) From: Sean Eric Fagan <sef@kithrup.com> To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Wishlists (was Re: SCO (was Re: hi terry)) Message-ID: <199803200523.VAA05071@kithrup.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95.980319225323.20765F-100000.kithrup.freebsd.hackers@adam.adonai.net> References: <20193.890363047@time.cdrom.com>
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In article <Pine.BSF.3.95.980319225323.20765F-100000.kithrup.freebsd.hackers@adam.adonai.net> you write: >I thought >there was some core team who periodically met/communicated on >what was what and where things should go, and how we should get >there. Not really. About the only thing being on the core team gets you is the ability to add code that people object to and yet ignore those protests (cf. PHK's idiotic revival of u.ar0 and u.ar1, albeit under different names -- but with the same problems and shortsightedness of the original). >So I am now curious about how FreeBSD maintains it's cohesiveness >and direction. If people are working on things which annoy them, >then how are new features implemented? Who decides what to add >and how to add it? Is it pure anarchy, with each person moving >in the direction they personally feel they should go? Pretty much. I added truss because it was the easiest program to use procfs. I wrote (well, mostly wrote) procfs because I wanted to. I wrote ptrace() because it was the first step in implementing procfs. About the *only* thing I did that I had not originally felt a desire to do was the vm86 support. I did that because Jordan managed to convince BSDi to donate the code. But, even so, I didn't throw myself into it enough that I was able to do it by myself -- rather, Mike Smith ended up handling the user mode, and we exchanged a *LOT* of email :). Obviously, I can't speak for everyone. But a large number of people work that way. If there is something you don't like in FreeBSD (and that includes a missing feature)... then the best way is to just jump into it. If you're working in an already-complex subsystem, then there are people to ask questions of. John Dyson, for example, if you're doing VM stuff. I have my own people to ask for some of the stuff I don't know about (although, I will be honest, I do take shameless advantage of personal friendships with the ex-CSRG folks :)). >Shucks, if it's really that open, I might just try my hand at a >few of the changes I've thought about... Go for it. Send your patches out, either to a list or via GNATS or to an interested individual with checkin priv's. Do it enough, and get the ability yourself :). And that truly is all. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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