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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.bhp.com.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.ysu.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uwm.edu!news.inap.net!news1!not-for-mail From: root@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson) Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs Linux X-Nntp-Posting-Host: dyson.iquest.net Message-ID: <4kcsjc$ii@dyson.iquest.net> Sender: news@iquest.net (News Admin) Organization: John S. Dyson's Machine References: <4issad$h1o@nadine.teleport.com> <31657509.5E45C160@gnu.ai.mit.edu> <4k4cfa$ava@uriah.heep.sax.de> <3169406A.61F8D18D@gnu.ai.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 05:29:16 GMT Lines: 55 In article <3169406A.61F8D18D@gnu.ai.mit.edu>, H.J. Lu <hjl@gnu.ai.mit.edu> wrote: > >Does that mean FreeBSD doesn't need those cool features from ELF? >Another reason for me to avoid FreeBSD :-(. > >H.J. > I am starting to get the drift that you don't want to work on FreeBSD... Remember way back when in the early '60s in the US (I do) when transistor radio's were sold with an unnecessary number of transistors in the sales literature??? Those are the kind of features that do not increase the quality of a product. There are a few marginal improvements that ELF can do to improve FreeBSD's quality right now. Given that Linux NEEDED a real shared lib scheme, it was reasonable at the time for Linux to adopt ELF. FreeBSD had a REAL shared lib scheme for the last 2yrs at least. FreeBSD will be adopting ELF in the future at least as an alternative binary format. So all of those so-called fancy features will be available... What is the argument here, those features will be available in a seamless fashion??? There will be little or no cost in mixing a system on FreeBSD. The VM system is easily up to the task. All of this discussion about FreeBSD doing it "right" when they do it isn't idle banter. It isn't an issue of sour grapes as some people might choose to believe. It is an issue of responsibility. It would be STUPID to adopt ELF only to quiet those that whine (trying to appeal to the FreeBSD user base), about FreeBSD's lack of total adoption of ELF. That is the MOST SILLY approach that the FreeBSD developers could take. There is very little technical merit to this discussion. Right now, for example, I am working on some more cool VM enhancements. If you want to talk about those, fine, there is some new info there. There is alot of progress on FreeBSD right now, and frankly there is alot of progress on FreeBSD ELF. Trying to make the ELF issue into a Linux marketing advantage is silly, underestimating (and insulting) the intelligence of the people reading these messages. ELF is GOOD, so is a good VM system or an efficient filesystem... etc. FreeBSD will support ELF on the next release. It just will NOT be the default binary format. Reality check here -- Linux is a kernel, FreeBSD is an OS. The FreeBSD kernel supports ELF -- so again where is the argument??? John dyson@freebsd.org