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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:2745 comp.os.linux.misc:19877 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!olivea!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!xmission!u.cc.utah.edu!cs.weber.edu!terry From: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: I hope this won't ignite a major flame war, but I've got to know! Date: 19 Jul 1994 07:45:19 GMT Organization: Weber State University, Ogden, UT Lines: 65 Message-ID: <30g0af$bfv@u.cc.utah.edu> References: <30drlt$7tc@news.u.washington.edu> <1994Jul18.093302.19670@wmichgw> NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.weber.edu In article <1994Jul18.093302.19670@wmichgw> 31khoo@wmich.edu (Patrick Khoo) writes: ] Very simple Tim, Anyone and i mean Anyone can work on Linux development. The ] development is open and releases are fast (blazingly fast kernel releases!) As ] opposed to Free/NetBSD. As such, a hacker would prefer Linux, where he/she can ] hack and get updates fast. As an anti-spokesperson (meaning I speak for no one), here is my opinion: Actually, I think the initial impetus toward Linux and away from BSD was based on BSD's shaky legal status relative to the USL suit against BSDI and UCB. I have to say that NetBSD developement doesn't appear to be very open from the point of view of a netnews reader, anyway. They rely heavily on mailing lists. FreeBSD also relies on mailing lists, yet it seems to be more visible on netnews. I've noticed a "closing down" of the FreeBSD developement; I think I can count say 5 people working on the 4.4-Lite migration. This is explainable in the time frame they have to work before the code must no longer be distributed. Hopefully the closed developement you cite is a temporary phenomenon based on the agreements with USL to cease use of the Net/2 code within a (getting shorter fast) time frame. Both systems have releases based on 4.4 scheduled out at the end of July/start of August. I don't know what legal agreements or entities exist regarding deals with USL for the NetBSD distribution, but for the FreeBSD distribution, there is a commercial site sponsor, Walnut Creek CDROM, which has agreed with USL, even if the FreeBSD "team", which has no legal status as an entity which could enter into such an agreement. The upshot of all this is that the FreeBSD team has been extremely conservative in its mode to 4.4-Lite; specifically, they have taken a 4.4-Lite source tree and basically duplicated William Jolitz's initial effort in 386BSD 0.1 to provide newly coded replacements for any file which USL has deemed questionable. The NetBSD effort has been a bit more avantgarde, porting the 4.4 code into their tree, with the confidence that they have rewritten sufficient code to render their tree legally safe anyway. The result in the FreeBSD camp is that FreeBSD has inherited the platform independant code of 4.4-Lite. The result in the NetBSD camp is that they have incorparted 4.4 features into an already highly portable environment, alreading including new code for a lot of the suspect portions of Net/2 long before there was a problem in the legal sense (a cease-and-desist letter to at least 10 Net/2 and Net/2 derived code sites I can think of off the top of my head). In any case, funneling changes you want incorporated into the main code branch of NetBSD or FreeBSD to people with commit authority on those branches is similar to what is required of Linux developers who want there code to be something other than a local phenomenon (I ought to know -- I am nearing 200M of "local phenomenon" on my own BSD work). The difference is whether that authority rests in the hands of a grop or of an individual. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@cs.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.