Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!nwlink.com!tsunami.ixa.net!news.aa.net!ratty.wolfe.net!usenet From: Mark Hamstra <mhamstra@wolfenet.com> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 13:19:01 -0700 Organization: M. Elliott Hamstra Design & Consulting Lines: 64 Message-ID: <3172AF35.15A9D29E@wolfenet.com> References: <NELSON.96Apr15010553@ns.crynwr.com> <yfgbuktfn1w.fsf@time.cdrom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: sea-ts2-p19.wolfenet.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b2 (X11; I; Linux 1.3.89 i586) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:21396 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:595 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3205 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3015 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17364 comp.os.linux.advocacy:45523 Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > [...] > Sorry, but that's just totally inane. Even if I agreed that Linux was > all you claim it to be, and I most definitely do not, who's to say > that I find the existing situation of competition between the various > free software camps to be in any way undesirable? You think we'd have > the same motivation to move as far and as fast without such a healthy > degree of competition? > [...] > Bad, bad, bad. It confuses people. There is room for only one free > 32-bit operating system. Which is it to be, Linux or *BSD*? Linux > > I don't accept this premise at all, so the rest of our argument is > pretty much moot. > > But you didn't answer my question: what is wrong with Linux that you > cannot fix? > > Because you didn't ask the right question. The right question is: > > "What is wrong with Linux that I and a goodly number of the people I > work with WANT to fix?" > > And the answer is, of course, nothing. I like Linux just the way it > is, and I hope that the people working on it continue to make > progress. For my own tastes, it's not a solution I care to embrace > because my tastes are simply different. I prefer a different type of > organization, a different copyright, a different group of people to > work with. Vive la difference! Just because I happen to admire a set > of silken undergarnments on a member of the opposite sex by no means > implies that I have any desire to wear such things myself (though > maybe that will change once I'm older and kinkier - I'll leave my > options open :-). > > Jordan > -- > - Jordan Hubbard > President, FreeBSD Project Jordan, I'll agree that healthy competition between the FreeBSD and Linux developers is a good thing. I'll also stipulate that both sides would dearly love to see the use of Unix increase, perhaps dramatically. Unfortunately I also have to grant you that infighting amongst the various Unix advocates has cut short much of Unix's past promise. It seems the real question is not whether FreeBSD or Linux should be THE free PC Unix, but rather: How can FreeBSD and Linux continue to pressure each other to continued success without un-necessarily fragmenting the growing support for free operating systems and software? To my knowledge, binary compatibility standards are the best way to prevent this fragmentation, and I applaud the FreeBSD community's efforts in this regard. What is the exact status of binary compatibility between FreeBSD and Linux at present and near future? What can Linux developers do to ensure compatibility? Are there other cross-community links that we should be aware of? Mark