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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!foxhound.dsto.gov.au!fang.dsto.gov.au!yoyo.aarnet.edu.au!news.adelaide.edu.au!basser.cs.su.oz.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!ieunet!news.ieunet.ie!jkh From: jkh@whisker.hubbard.ie (Jordan K. Hubbard) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development Subject: Re: Could the BSD 4.4 Lite be a new beginning? Date: 18 Feb 1994 06:40:49 GMT Organization: Jordan Hubbard Lines: 55 Distribution: world Message-ID: <JKH.94Feb18064049@whisker.hubbard.ie> References: <HSU.94Feb14043905@laphroaig.cs.hut.fi> <R60q1p-.dysonj@delphi.com> <MYCROFT.94Feb17180243@duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: whisker.hubbard.ie In-reply-to: mycroft@duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu's message of 17 Feb 1994 23:02:43 GMT In article <MYCROFT.94Feb17180243@duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu> mycroft@duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles Hannum) writes: Well, I guess today is a good day for advertising... No, actually not. Sigh.. I was sort of hoping we wouldn't get to this stage in this discussion, which is why I veered away from active comparison in my own follow-up to this topic. Please, folks, there are three important points that really have to be remembered here in this pointless "feature by feature war" between NetBSD and FreeBSD: 1. Nobody speaking for any feature, or lack thereof, in the other group's OS can be trusted as far as you can throw them. Personal agenda takes over from technical accuracy after the 3rd or 4th word. 2. It is ludicrous to even attempt a point-by-point comparison of the two systems since that comparison will be obsolete within a week. The system changes _every single day_, and people from Iceland to Australia are constantly donating bits to it. I don't even try, which is why it's just stupid to infer a lack of "hyberhoo widgets" in one OS just because one camp advertises them in 10 foot neon letters and the other simply puts them in and doesn't make a lot of fuss about it. Yes FreeBSD has shared libs, yes we have SYSV IPC and shared memory, yes we have a /proc filesystem, ok ok - if you're really interested then go look, ok? Why should I waste your time here? 3. In making any overall comparison _For Your Own Purposes_ (since any other comparison is truly meaningless), you need to take into account the complete range of attributes: "Does the system do what I want it to?" "Does it run on the hardware I have?" "Are all the optional packages I need easily available?" "Are the people nice and willing to answer my questions?" You can have a brilliant system that falls short in one or more of these areas and turns out overall to be a less than positive experience. Charles's trashing of the new VM system and the sound drivers (which work just great for a LOT of folks!) was unwarranted and uncalled for. Sure, members of both camps can sit here until they get haemorrhoids, pointing out flaws in the others' code base and screaming, spittle flying from their lips, "BUG! Nyah nyah! I see a bug! LOTS of them! That system is UNUSABLE!!" And meanwhile, the rest of the world will go right on happily using that system and very glad indeed to be getting their bits for free. Can we all get back to improving our systems now? Thank you! P.S. FreeBSD doesn't have a colorized ls either - that's Linux.. :-) Jordan -- Jordan K. Hubbard FreeBSD core team Electric Bivalves Anonymous On the net, no one can hear you scream.