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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!sgiblab!uhog.mit.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!news.uoregon.edu!usenet.coe.montana.edu!bsd.coe.montana.edu!nate From: nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: 4.4-lite? Date: 19 Jul 1994 03:53:19 GMT Organization: Montana State University, Bozeman Montana Lines: 62 Message-ID: <30finf$98e@pdq.coe.montana.edu> References: <2vgvc7$3tg@spruce.cic.net> <michaelv.774429899@ponderous.cc.iastate.edu> <Zi2ziVX.dysonj@delphi.com> <30em65$g17@autodesk.autodesk.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 153.90.192.29 In article <30em65$g17@autodesk.autodesk.com>, >I find it kind of difficult to believe that FreeBSD started with 4.4-Lite, >since the litigation was still going on when FreeBSD was kicking off their >first implementation; Umm, what are you talking about. As has been said all along, FreeBSD 1.X is Net/2 based, while FreeBSD 2.X is 4.4lite based. This means that we started with Net/2 (actually 386BSD which is a direct descendant of Net/2) for 1.X. We did not *merge* 4.4lite code into FreeBSD, but rather started from a virgin 4.4lite tree and merged in the FreeBSD untainted changes into 4.4lite. In this way we are guaranteed a much higher liklihood of not distributing 'tainted' code, and the code gets another good look before it's merged into 4.4. So, as I and others are attempting to point out there is a difference in merging 4.4lite code into your current (possibly tainted) code-base and merging changed code into a known clean code-base. >FreeBSD has never *claimed* to be a multi-platform OS; everyone I have talked >to regarding "why doesn't FreeBSD run on <X platform>?" has told me that >their desire was to build a stable OS for one platform. Others have >informed me that the code is SO x86/*SA-bus-centric that the amount of >work required to separate out the different architectures is sufficiently >overwhelming as to discourage that progress. I know where that mail came from and is bullsh*t! (Scuse my french) In private email flamage between certain other folks and I this is raised time and time again, and time and time again certain folks have failed to prove that there is *significant* architecture-dependant code in FreeBSD. And, what currently remains in the 1.X tree has been completely replaced by the 4.4lite code. >I seriously don't see the extrication of a well-organised machine- >independent OS rising out of FreeBSD without a considerable amount of >effort spent on re-organizing the source tree. 4.4 is machine independant. And, it didn't need /sys/arch to do it. :-) >I hadn't seen any arch-specific directories last I looked at FreeBSD anyway >which was, admittedly, quite some time ago. Hmm, what's /sys/i386? Sounds pretty arch/cpu specific. Specially when you consider /sys/i386/isa. :-) >Do any of FreeBSD's core team want to shed some light on this? John *is* a member of the core team, and his comments are valid. Basically, even though FreeBSD does not *currently* have any non-x86 specific directories doesn't mean it can't with sufficient time spent have them. I'm not going to do it, but this doesn't mean it can't be done, or that it's any more difficult to do on FreeBSD 2.X than in NetBSD. Nate -- nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu | FreeBSD core member and all around tech. nate@cs.montana.edu | weenie. work #: (406) 994-4836 | home #: (406) 586-0579 | Available for contract/otherwise work.