Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 00:45:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Barton <DougB@FreeBSD.org> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>, "Jacques A. Vidrine" <nectar@FreeBSD.org>, <freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: RFC: remove xten from the base system? Message-ID: <20020613004013.K2539-100000@master.gorean.org> In-Reply-To: <3D084A91.FFD1B47@mindspring.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
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
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20020613004013.K2539-100000>