On Thu, Aug 31, 2006 at 06:50:00PM -0300, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > On Thu, 31 Aug 2006, Constantine A. Murenin wrote: > > >On 31/08/06, Marc G. Fournier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >>Just a stupid comment, but ... Linux is one kernel, multiple distributions > >>... BSD is, what, 4 kernels now? If we worked more together instead of as > >>seperate camps, it might make things a bit easier, no? > > > >Isn't there still fewer differences between *BSD operating systems > >than between different GNU/Linux distributions and kernel releases? :) > > > >>Put together a *BSD "core" ... representative from each camp and try and > >>steer the *kernel* itself towards a more common BSD ... > > > >I doubt that'll be productive -- NetBSD, FreeBSD and OpenBSD have all > >different goals... > > Even at the kernel level? Look at device drivers and vendors as one > example ... companies like adaptec have to write *one* device driver, for, > what, 50+ distributions of linux ... for us, they need to write one for > FreeBSD, one for NetBSD, one for OpenBSD, and *now* one for DragonflyBSD > ... if we had *at least* a common API for that sort of stuff, it might be > asier to get support at the vendor level, no?
Are you really sure ? I see it more this way: For Linux on kernel (or device driver) level they only have to support 2 main trains: 2.4.x and 2.6.x. The 50 distributions are only a burden if it comes to the point what different shared library / Java / TCL / etc ... versions are packaged with the OS. A friend of mine doing Java development had severe issues with all that different Linux versions. But a simple kernel driver only has to honour different CPU types and the 2.4 and 2.6 tree and maybe now a development tree but am not sure on the latter ... Andreas /// -- Andreas Klemm - Powered by FreeBSD 6 Need a magic printfilter today ? -> http://www.apsfilter.org/