*BSD News Article 32964


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From: mycroft@duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles M. Hannum)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: 4.4-lite?
Date: 20 Jul 1994 09:11:27 GMT
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab
Lines: 39
Message-ID: <MYCROFT.94Jul20051127@duality.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
References: <2vgvc7$3tg@spruce.cic.net> <301rrc$cmv@masala.cc.uh.edu>
	<Csxxqo.DsM@newsserver.aggregate.com> <3097eh$m2h@pdq.coe.montana.edu>
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In-reply-to: nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu's message of 16 Jul 1994 18:04:01 GMT


In article <3097eh$m2h@pdq.coe.montana.edu> nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu
(Nate Williams) writes:

   We made the decision a long time ago to concentrate our work on
   making the reference port stable BEFORE any other platform
   development goes on.

You've been touting that line for an awfully long time now, Nate.

It's a simple fact that I've personally inspected, when necessary
fixed, and in several cases sped up and documented, about 95% of the
i386-specific code in NetBSD since our last release (as well as
importing and writing some new code, and working on the 4.4-Lite
integration), and I'd venture that it's pretty solid.  I haven't seen
anyone do that for FreeBSD.

And my memory does reach back.  For example, I still remember when
Jeff Hsu imported by sigreturn validation code into FreeBSD, and then
denied that I wrote it.  Clearly he didn't test it adequately either,
because in the process he reversed a test and ended up leaving an
obscure but wide security hole in FreeBSD.  Last I checked it was
still there.

   Unless the port is to a completely different platfrom.  The move to
   4.4 has placed both groups on level ground for the most part, so
   getting another BRAND-NEW (PPC, ALPHA, etc..) platform going is
   going to take the same amount of work for both folks.

Assuming we were both releasing virgin 4.4-Lite trees right now, I
might even let you get away with that statement.  But already NetBSD
has advanced beyond 4.4-Lite, in both stability, features, and
architecture-independence, and where are you?

--
- Charles Hannum
  NetBSD group
  Working ports: i386, hp300, amiga, sparc, mac68k, pc532.
  In progress: pmax, sun3.