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#! rnews 5067 bsd Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nntp.coast.net!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!blackbush.xlink.net!news.ppp.net!news.Hanse.DE!wavehh.hanse.de!cracauer From: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer) Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD Message-ID: <1995Dec5.153455.15042@wavehh.hanse.de> Organization: BSD User Group Hamburg References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <87rayn8ion.fsf@interbev.mindspring.com> <49qa85$q80@agate.berkeley.edu> <49vqgi$99f@uriah.heep.sax.de> Date: Tue, 5 Dec 95 15:34:55 GMT Lines: 90 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:30192 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:10361 comp.unix.advocacy:12154 comp.unix.misc:20069 j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) writes: >nickkral@parker.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Kralevich) writes: [...] >> If you reread the articles I posted, you'll find that >> cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer), a member of the >> "BSD User Group Hamburg", was complaining about lack of access to the >> changes in FreeBSD. If a BSD user group member is complaining about >> lack of access, can you imagine a common joe like you or I getting >> access to it? I didn't see the original article, so I have to followup here. Thank you for misusing an entirely unrelated article of mine. Use a verbatim quote next time, please. Of course I (and anyone else) can access all changes to FreeBSD or NetBSD, simply by subscribing to the mailing-lists where each commit is sent to automatically. Such a message is a notice that one file changed and a summary what have been done. I can then access the source tree on the FreeBSD/NetBSD server (via ftp or sup) and look up what exactly the file is now. Yes, the file trees where the commitments are made are open for public ftp. And remember: This is for the whole system with all base tools and system utilities, not only the kernel. What I was asking for is to access the revision control system to check out *any* *previous* chance, in this specific case (the FreeBSD VM system) to check out every commit for certain files, even those that have been done years ago. That is readonly access to the CVS tree. Maybe I didn't look carefully enough and I can ftp the revision control file and make checkouts on my local machine. Not really elegant, but would be what I need. I'll have a look. Have to learn CVS first... I don't see anything here where Linux is better than *BSD. First, for Linux, you can't get a notice about every change. You can just diff Linus' patches by yourself. Having a revision control system file is much better because you are able to see commitments in groups of related changes. A diff will mix up the whole work done between two versions. If there's some big search/replace change you'll have a hard time looking up hand-made changes. Once there was a frequently textual summary of Linus' patches in comp.os.linux.announce. Is anyone still providing this service for Linux? For *BSD, you get a hand-written explanation by the committer for every single byte they change (Of course, they may group several bytes together to a single commit :-) Second, even this applies only to the kernel. I am not aware of any Linux distribution that has an (readonly) development tree where you can watch the changes, not to speak of a mailinglist with automatic notices of changes. I'm sure Linus will create a mailinglist where his commitments are sent to automatically if there is public demand. And there are reasonable distribution developers with the intention to do The Right Thing. But as it seems, most people with demand for such complete information about the development of their system don't use Linux. I don't say Linux is bad. The difference is in the people who use *BSD or Linux. Look at this discussion: It is obvious, most Linux people contributing to it didn't run *BSD ever and their opinion on how the *BSD development process is organized is not first-hand. The *BSD folks in this discussion cleanly separates between those areas they are competent in and those where they're not. Look at yourself. You're obviously not a newbe, you have the technical skills to understand the technical differences between the systems. But you can't resist to broadcast definitively false information on how *BSD is organized. You just don't now enough about it, but the 'I-leave-my-profession' emergency break has been disabled, maybe while you where dealing with other Linux people of that sort. That makes the difference between the systems. The actual code is just dust in the wind, where the wind is user's demand. I'd better go to bed now... Martin -- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Martin Cracauer <cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de> - BSD User Group Hamburg, Germany "As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't ex-" "plain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway"- Calvin