Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:5345 comp.unix.bsd:16136
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!news.cac.psu.edu!news.pop.psu.edu!hudson.lm.com!netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov!nntp.et.byu.edu!news.provo.novell.com!park.uvsc.edu!usenet
From: Terry Lambert <terry@cs.weber.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: Put the Cannons Away: Vote YES on newsgroup reformation.
Date: 12 Feb 1995 01:05:27 GMT
Organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
Lines: 62
Message-ID: <3hjmsn$p7b@park.uvsc.edu>
References: <D3o5Ew.8x2@nbn.com> <3hdu9u$rhm@park.uvsc.edu> <3hegvm$plp@agate.berkeley.edu> <hm.792410152@hcswork.hcs.de> <3hhlk1$fc9@agate.berkeley.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: hecate.artisoft.com
jkh@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard) wrote:
] The fact of the matter is that both groups have entirely
] different destinies now and you can't change that with one bogusly named and
] shared newsgroup. It's a farce. When Microsoft and IBM went their separate
] ways with OS/2, IBM didn't keep using the joint-letterhead stationary for a
] year afterwards just for the happy memories of their relationship it brought
] them. If we're going to go our own way then we're just going to do it all
] the way, and no wishy-washy sentiments about it. We have entirely different
] people, methods, goals, mailing lists, organizational ethos, you name it.
] So why shouldn't we have our own newsgroups then?
How about "Because a patch to an Adaptec driver applies to both
source bases?
There is more *code* in common between the two groups than not,
and even fixes to code that is not common are frequently applicable
as algorithms between the code bases.
What supporting a naming spilt does is double the number of groups
which have to be tracked to get generally applicable patches and
other code.
Personally, I am not interested in tracking parallel developement
efforts in two groups because a total of 7 people threatened to
walk for political reasons, resulting in a damn split in the first
place (3 from one group, 4 from the other, you know who the hell
you are).
I run a hybrid system of code from both source bases; since they
are both 4.4 Lite derived systems, this is a relatively easy task.
The FreeBSD group knows more about VM. The NetBSD group knows more
about portable kernel code and drivers. The FreeBSD group knows
more about release engineering and packages. The NetBSD group knows
more about writing Sun-style serial drivers.
I don't know one FreeBSD adherent who has cancelled his subscription
to Dr. Dobbs because T William Wells wrote about NetBSD's serial
driver there.
The mailing lists are sufficient seperation of the groups forums;
this should not be continued to the news groups arena for the
purpose of providing ego-salve for seperatist religious zealots
who can't play baseball in the same park where someone else is
playing baseball because they think baseball threading should
be blue instead of green (when we all know it should be red).
In the spirit of "do something broken now and fix it later", the
simplest change is renaming "386bsd" to "bsd".
Yes, it's a stupid idea. Doing something broken thinking you can
fix it later (much like the 'comp.unix' heirarchy itself) always
*is* a stupid idea.
Terry Lambert
terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.