*BSD News Article 56474


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!lll-winken.llnl.gov!enews.sgi.com!sgigate.sgi.com!wetware!wsrcc.com!news.orst.edu!news.uidaho.edu!usenet
From: "Faried Nawaz" <fn@uidaho.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date: 07 Dec 1995 20:03:04 -0800
Organization: People's Front Against WWW
Lines: 190
Sender: nawaz921@waldrog.cs.uidaho.edu
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <imwx888ao7.fsf@waldrog.cs.uidaho.edu>
References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu>
	<49k0dd$pfg@nntp5.u.washington.edu>
	<49o2n2$t4e@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu> <49osrd$ptg@times.tfs.com>
	<49pb5g$di8@agate.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: fn@uidaho.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: waldrog.cs.uidaho.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Newsreader: September Gnus v0.15
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:29808 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:10096 comp.unix.advocacy:11955 comp.unix.misc:19957

In article <49pb5g$di8@agate.berkeley.edu> nickkral@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Kralevich) writes:

$ This is funny.

Actually, this is a waste of time and resources.


$ I've been following a thread in comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc.
$ The title of the thread is "NetBSD camp reaction to OpenBSD?".  
$ It seems that some of the NetBSD people rejected a person named Theo 
$ De Raadt from the core development team, and that person went out and 
$ created another distribution called OpenBSD (http://www.openbsd.org/).

Seems like it.


$ So I agree with the person who called BSD a "Developer's Guild".
$ It just doesn't seem that open to me when the developers of an 
$ operating system kick someone out of the development environment.

I think you can't use the above case to back-up the "Developer's
Guild" idea.  You really know very little about the situation --
all you've read has been on the newsgroups, and there haven't been
(m)any postings about it.

I think "openness" has little to do with it.


$ Included below are some articles that may be of interesting reading:
$ 
$ | From: Todd C Miller <millert@cs.Colorado.EDU>
$ | Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.
$ | +           bsd.freebsd.misc                    
$ | [1] Re: NetBSD camp reaction to OpenBSD?        
$ | Date: Sat Nov 25 09:44:30 PST 1995              
$ | Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
$ |
$ | Speaking simply as someone who watched all of the sillyness that
$ | transpired on the NetBSD mailing lists during the Theo escapade,
$ | I'm sorrow that the schism happened, but that's about it.
$ | Theo has done some amazing work and I hope that the copyright
$ | for OpenBSD is in the Berkeley style so that the other BSD's
$ | can pick up some of his stuff.  I'm sure that there will be
$ | quite a few people upset about yaBSD (yet another BSD), but
$ | I don't see healthy competition being a real problem as long
$ | as both camps are free to incorporate the other's ideas and
$ | code.  Not surprisingly, this is how I felt about the NetBSD/FreBSD
$ | split.
$ |
$ | - todd
$ | --
$ | Todd C. Miller Sysadmin--University of Colorado  Todd.Miller@cs.colorado.edu

Did you know that most of initial OpenBSD code for a few platforms is/was
straight NetBSD?  Is that in any way indicative of a "closed" development
environment?


$ And another follow to this thread:
$ 
$ 
$ | Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix. 
$ | +           bsd.freebsd.misc                     
$ | From: st@epcc.ed.ac.uk (Scott Telford)           
$ | [1] Re: NetBSD camp reaction to OpenBSD?         
$ | Organization: Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre, University of Edinburgh,
$ | +             UK.
$ | Date: Tue Nov 28 05:34:35 PST 1995
$ |
$ | In article <498sl3$52h@ector.cs.purdue.edu>, David Moffett
$ | (dpm@cs.purdue.edu) wrote:
$ | > Would it be opening Pandoras Box for us non-list readers to get a one
$ | > screen summary of what caused this split?  Was it a people vs people or
$ | > technical ideas vs technical ideas kind of problem?
$ | >
$ | > Please no flames, just a short summary.
$ | 
$ | OpenBSD appears to be a result of Theo De Raadt's ejection from the
$ | NetBSD core team, which, in short, was a people thing, not a technical
$ | thing.
$ | 
$ | --
$ | Scott Telford, Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre,  <s.telford@ed.ac.uk>
$ | University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Rd, Edinburgh, EH9 UK.(+44 131 650 5978)
$ |  "Is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?" "What's difference?" (Snow Crash)

Theo could still, after his "ejection", contribute code to the NetBSD project.
Is that another example of "closed" development?


$ As for the "openness" of FreeBSD development, I refer you (again) to the 
$ following threads from comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:
$ 
$ 
$ | Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.         
$ | +           bsd.freebsd.misc                             
$ | From: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer)         
$ | [1] Re: NetBSD camp reaction to OpenBSD?                 
$ | Organization: BSD User Group Hamburg                     
$ | 
$ | "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org> writes:
$ |
$ | >Just looking at http://www.openbsd.org this evening, and it looks like a
$ | >significant NetBSD clone in many respects - at least most of the
$ | >platforms would appear to be NetBSD "rebadges" for the time being.
$ | 
$ | [...]
$ | 
$ | Well, one thing that seems really more "open" in OpenBSD is public
$ | readonly CVS access (as advertised, don't know if this is up for
$ | now).
$ | 
$ | I'd really like to see this for NetBSD/FreeBSD, too. As an example, it
$ | would make it much easier to look at John Dyson's work on the VM
$ | system without having to ask someone to check out all these changes.
$ | 
$ | Martin
$ | --
$ 
$ To which Jordan K. Hubbard replied:
$ 
$ | From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org> 
$ | Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.
$ | +           bsd.freebsd.misc                    
$ | [1] Re: NetBSD camp reaction to OpenBSD?        
$ | Date: Wed Nov 29 19:27:19 PST 1995              
$ | Organization: Walnut Creek CDROM
$ |
$ | Martin Cracauer wrote:
$ | > ...
$ | > I'd really like to see this for NetBSD/FreeBSD, too. As an example, it
$ | > would make it much easier to look at John Dyson's work on the VM
$ | > system without having to ask someone to check out all these changes.
$ | 
$ | Let's ask the NetBSD Project:  What do you say, guys?  A year or so ago,
$ | both groups shut down mutual read access for fears both real and
$ | imagined.  What's our situation today?  Anyone over there having
$ | seditious thoughts about tearing down the Berlin wall?  I personally
$ | would not mind at all.
$ | --
$ |                                                 Jordan
$ 
$ 
$ So far, there has been *NO* announcement of the opening of the CVS 
$ tree.

Please read the freebsd-hackers mail archive.  You can
reach it from http://www.freebsd.org, click on 'Search'.

The problem is not a lack of *willingness*, but that of
*resources*.

Once machine(s) are set up, there will be an announcement.
Since no machines are currently set up for it, there have
been no announcements.


$ Summary:  You have to be a member of the BSD core team to be able
$ to see any real changes in the source code.  Membership is restricted
$ to a select group, and if your not in that group, tough luck.

Your conclusions are incorrect.


$ Even
$ if your a good programmer, but other people in the group don't
$ like you, you can get kicked out.  Not exactly what I call "open" or
$ a conductive development environment.

I don't understand.  If someone is seen to be hurting a project, shouldn't
they be "removed"?  Are you really saying people should be "carried" along?

(Whether Theo was or wasn't isn't something I know.  I'm just arguing
a point.)  


$ Personally, I prefer Linux.
$ 
$ Of course, all of this has nothing to do with the technical merits
$ of the two operating systems.  But then again, that's never stopped
$ an advocacy group before.  :)
$ 
$ (in followups, please be sure to include CORRECT attribution lines.
$ I don't want to be coming back later on and trying to claim 
$ that I did or didn't make certain statements).
$ 
$ Take care,
$ -- Nick Kralevich
$    nickkral@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu
$