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NetBSD Packages Collection No Longer Frozen
jschauma writes "As many users will probably have noticed by the increase in recent pkgsrc
commits, the NetBSD
Packages Collection freeze is now officially over.
Starting October
6th, 2003 and lasting almost two months, the NetBSD Packages
team concentrated upon stabilizing the over 4,000
software packages and the pkgsrc
infrastructure to prepare for a stable pkgsrc branch. During that time, the
number of broken packages during a i386 bulk build was brought down to a mere
15, and a large number of PRs was closed.
A new branch with the tag ``pkgsrc-2003Q4'' was created, allowing our users to
maintain a highly stabilized third-party software package managment
environment, as only pullups of significant importance (such as security
issues) are applied to this branch."
Chock full of hearty goodness...
It is common knowledge that *BSD is dying. Everyone knows that ever hapless *BSD is mired in an irrecoverable and mortifying tangle of fatal trouble. It is perhaps anybody's guess as to which *BSD is the worst off of an admittedly suffering *BSD community. The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The erosion of user base for FreeBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of BSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major marketing surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among hobbyist dilettante dabblers. In truth, for all practical purposes *BSD is already dead. It is a dead man walking.
Fact: *BSD is dying
Although I don't use NetBSD (did for a short period of time, but now a FreeBSD user), this is still happy news for me.
Hmmmm, I wonder who's poor 486 got stuck with the 4000 package bulk build...
The Year of Our Lord 2003 has been a particularly bad year for the "B"s,
- Bob Hope
- Buddy Ebsen
- Buddy Hackett
- Barry White
- BSD
This honored list of dead is but a small token of adieu from the many fans of the deceased.These dead were truly some American Icons. They will be missed.
...The cyrogenics have failed
Actual email from Lori, an "ISD People Director," to Wal-Mart Associates:
From: xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 10:13 AM
To: ISD All Information Systems
Subject: Inappropriate us of restrooms
Dead ISD Associates,
We continue to hear complaints about the DGTC restrooms being unavailable for use while they are being cleaned. Many of you have asked why the restrooms are cleaned so often during the day, or why we cannot leave them open for use while they are being cleaned. I think that it is important that I share with you the juvenile and disrespectful behavior of a few of your fellow associates so that you can understand why. This note will not be a pretty one, but hopefully you will be as outraged by this behavior as we have been, and help us to stop these few associates who's poor behavior is effecting so many others.
In recent weeks we have had associates clog the toilet bowls with nearly a whole roll of toilet tissue, urinate on the floor and walls, smear human waste on the walls, and leave human waste on the floor or in receptacles not meant for waste. One day an associate left a note taped to the stall which read "A nice cake is waiting for you". Inside the stall was a mound of waste left on top of the toilet. For a few days we tried to leave the restrooms open while the custodial associates were cleaning. We had several incidents where the custodial associates were shown disrespect. One associate used the urinal right next to where the custodian was cleaning and sprayed urine on the custodial associate's arm. We have a duty to provide an harassment free work environment for all associates, and could not continue to allow the restrooms be open during cleaning after these incidents took place. The general practice across the Home Office is to close the restrooms while they are being cleaned.
We don't know who is responsible for this behavior, but do know that peers holding each other accountable to do what is right is a core principle in our Wal-Mart Culture, and the only way we will stop this. Don't tolerate it if you happen to see or hear about behavior that you know is wrong. Let your manager or a member of the people group know if you are aware of who left the note regarding the "nice cake" in the bathroom (it happened to be the 1st floor men's bathroom at the blue wall.) This incident was clearly a malicious act.
Thank you for your support. We know that you will be as concerned as we are to have this happening in our building. This behavior demonstrates a lack of respect for our facilities crew and for all ISD Associates.
Lori xxxxxxx
ISD People Director
Phone: xxx xxx xxxx
Fax: xxx xxx xxxx
Email: xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Confidential
http://www.fuckedcompany.com/images/cake.html
You can compile for other cpus and even other CPU architectures on one machine for use on another.
Also,
A nice cake is waiting for you
The driver of the bus was negotiating a bend in the road when he lost control of the vehicle which skidded and crashed into a gorge, nearly 200 feet below. Residents of nearby villages and authorities found 22 bodies. BSD was among the dead. Its corpse has gone unclaimed, leading to speculation that BSD was indeed an orphan. Calls to former spouse Wind River went unreturned.
You can compile for other cpus and even other CPU architectures on one machine for use on another.
I belive the word 'sarcasm' plays a role in my original post.
A nice cake is waiting for you
Oooo! What kind of cake?
The best thing about this is propably that new stabilized branch. In the past I've used almost everytime the newest sources available to keep up with all the patches, but if this new branch has only the important patches applied to it, it's definetely going to be the one I'm using. If this is going to be updated in the future too, the name of the new branch (pkgsrc-2003Q4) wasn't the best one though.
I demand the Cone of Silence!
This kind of cake =)
What We Can Learn From BSD
By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0
Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.
Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.
These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.
As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.
Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.
The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.
It's nice to see my antics don't go unnoticed ;)
I'm pretty sure that cross compiles is supported for the base-OS, but not for pkgsrc.
At least, that was the case the last time I checked (since compiling a bunch of stuff on my Qube2 instead of my Athlon was way way slower).
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Is it just me or does the linux kernel support more CPU ISAs than netbsd? Here is my count.
mipsa rc64
NetBSD (12):
alpha
arm
i386
m68k
ns32k
parisc
ppc
superh
sparc
sparc64
vax
x86-64
Linux (17):
alpha
arm
cris
h8300
i386
ia64
m68k
parisc
ppc
ppc64
s390
superh
sparc
sp
v850
x86-64
Now can we have our coders back working on FBSD 5.3?
;)
Cheers - FBSD user waiting for 5-Stable
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
Fuck Beta
~John Lenno
If you want to stay on the old pkgsrc tree and receive importaint fixes only ( eg, security bug fixes ), then use the 'pkgsrc-2003Q4' cvs tag :)
It was stiff. Very common with corpses.
NetBSD can already cross-compile the system from any arch to any arch. The cross-toolchain can be used in a chrooted environment to cross-build packages, but it is still touchy. see pkgsrc/pkgtools/pkg_comp .
My Athlon XP 1800+, with 1.1 GB RAM and a fair bit of disk, was used. A "from-scratch" bulk-build takes between 5 and 6 days. The time for update bulk builds depends upon what was updated (duh). The machine was running NetBSD 1.6ZF (aka NetBSD-current), and the builds were done in a 1.6.2RC2 sandbox. The 15 broken packages which Jan mentioned can mostly be attributed to this setup: we found that pkgsrc/pkgtools/libkver works really well (it's a wrapper around sysctl(2)), but that Linux emulation has problems with libkver (because NetBSD and Linux use different ways of delivering errno for threaded programs). Using a wrapper for uname(1) allowed the packages which used Linux emulation during the build process to complete successfully, but imake uses sysctl(2) directly to get OS version information, and in the end we had to use a hybrid of the two to make packages. The bulk build results do not reflect this, which is probably the reason for the 15 packages.
Does Linux build to all those CPUs out of a single source-tree? Does it build a complete OS? FWIW, there was some similar discussion on netbsd-advocacy a while back...
I suppose it's nice to see that you don't reserve these postings just for FreeBSD. But I do have a few questions:
...)
1. Do you actually have a script to repost this thing, or do you take the time to do that manually? (I'm guessing since you left out the msmith post, that it's manual, but
2. Now that there are even more forks of FreeBSD and OpenBSD, are you going to post this every time they do something too? Isn't the fact that there are more forks mean that BSD is still pretty lively? After all, people seem to think "the more the merrier" in terms of Linux distros. Or do you not agree with that, either?
3. Did you actually get thrown off one of the BSD projects, and if so, why? If not, why the steadfast opposition? The fact that it's not GPL?
4. Do you really think your postings have any effect on anyone after all this time? If so, why? If not, why continue?
5. If you really hate BSD all that much, why not just ignore it and use something else instead?
6. Do you actually contribute anything to any software project at all, or just these postings? If so, to what project(s) exactly?
7. Do you actually want to open up a dialogue, or is a monologue your entire goal? And if so, why?
8. Do you ever intend to come out from behind your mask of anonymity, and if not, why not?
9. Do you ever intend to grow up and get a life?
As a casual user of NetBSD, I'm interested in version 2.0 as it will have lots of new stuff that I really want (threading etc.) Can anyone enlighten me as to the expected release schedule for 2.0?
Now, Apache uses a BSD style license but they have an open development model which allows them to take advantage of a very large developer pool in order to stay ahead of their competition. In fact although proprietary versions of Apache exist which perform better than the official releases, SGI has put out some open source patches which generate even larger performance boosts. This is the reason why they have such a strong showing in terms of market share.
BSD once had potential but the procedural problems they are experiencing hurt it when it comes to the market. I suspect that this is probably in part because the BSD teams are not interested in such things, and that is a shame... In fact, although I labeled it as an inferior OS, this is not due to lack of progress within BSD -- it has been progressing somewhat, but rather because all the improvements they make tend to be quickly copied by their competitors AND they lack the developer pool to stay ahead of this game (a problem which does not exist in the Linux or Apache communities, though for somewhat different reasons).
I don't think that there is enough widespread support for BSD to save the operating system. What must be done is an opening up of the development process OR a GPL-style restriction on redistribution. In many ways I favor the former.
Even in a worst case scenario, I don't see BSD completely dying. I think the developers are less into competition and more into a sort of idealized cooperation. As a result, even if BSD becomes more marginalized, I don't think that it will die outright. It will most likely outlive Netware, for example.
You sound like Theo, relying on clever parsing of a sentence rather than the plain and obvious truth.
Stop spreading FUD here. NetBSD shows 17 cpu types. Yes, Linux still supports more with ia64, ppc64, s390, etc. so at least your counting is somewhat off on both sides.
:)) but both are in heavy development and will quickly improve on all OSes. Obscure embedded platforms like v850, cris, h8300, etc. would make me nervous to use in a large production. They are not widely developed for and what info you can dig up suggests that they could be quirky with all the compiler weirdness, etc. that hasn't been shaken out yet. I'd much rather go with a more matured platform like ARM, MIPS, M68k, etc. regardless of the OS being chosen for the application.
:)
Your counts totally ignore edian issues. A playstation 2 and an SGI machine can't run the same binaries even though they are both MIPS because one is big endian and the other is little endian. ARMv2 is completely different architecturally than later versions. There are many other examples.
x86-64 is still a work in progress on both platforms and so is ppc64 (it's only a couple weeks old
There are times when a platform is more mature/complete/etc. (PA-RISC on linux is better supported) but NetBSD is generally very consistent and complete across all of the 40 platforms it currently supports.
The bottom line is use the right tool for the job. If I have a PA-RISC or s390 or wanted to build a PVR then I'd probably choose Linux and I would choose a BSD for most of the rest of my needs. You might choose a little different but both are good tools and very capable.
To get back ontopic. I use pkgsrc on several platforms ( BSD, Linux, OS X, Irix) and these fixes helped out on all platforms. I love the work that everyone has put into pkgsrc and can't wait to see it grow and develop more. Someone else needs to test it on Solaris Sparc/x86 since I don't have a box currently running it.
FOAD
Horses are somewhat different from other animals in the way their cock head works. When a horse is fully erect and excited and ready to mount, his cock head is somewhat pointed and not as thick as might be normally observed.
It allows use to deploy Enterprise class systems without paying "Enterprise" prices!
Thank goodness for BSD!
It will be many centuries before technology can breath new life into a corpse.
A full grown stallion's cock, when fully erect, will measure some two to three feet long. It can be three to six inches thick at the base, to about two inches thick at the head.
Rubbing some hot mare piss on a stallions nose will make him horny as hell! He will be all over you! Once a stallion smells that he doesn't care what he fucks! He just wants a hot hole.
A horse cock can easily grow as big as the knot in a large dogs cock so if you can't take that in then you aren't ready. PS. A large dog can stretch you where a horse can fit if you make the switch before the hole shrivels.
Horses that have been castrated and they still got a hardon!!! Also pet & rub the horse and rub his cock...don't pull on it hard.. be gentle...big as it is it is still tender!
Bringing a wild horse to orgasm can be more difficult. They are used to a mares pussy which is several degrees hotter then a humans
Arousing the Stallion
Stallions are aroused by the smell of horse pussy above all else. If you have access to a mare, then gentle her till she will let you finger her...then coat your fingers with her juice.
Most stud farms use artificial insemination, the stallions are aroused by the scent of mares in heat and then an artificial vagina filled with warm water is slipped over their cock and they reach orgasm
If you rub his belly and sheath slowly and gently and let him smell some horse pussy juice then he will erect.
Horse cum has a nice flat taste to it...not at all bitter like man's cum. You can easily drink cups of it with no discomfort.
because instead of being almost caught up in packages,
I'm now way behind. The bad side is that while NetBSD
packages is no longer frozen, I can't say the same thing.
Working outside really sucks in the cold weather.
> Stop spreading FUD here. NetBSD shows 17 cpu types. Yes, Linux still supports more with ia64,
:)) but both are in heavy development and will quickly improve on all OSes. Obscure
> ppc64, s390, etc. so at least your counting is somewhat off on both sides.
No, I was only counting dual endianness once for NetBSD which is why its numbers come down. Linux
kernel also supports two endian types for a number of ports.
> Your counts totally ignore edian issues. A playstation 2 and an SGI machine can't run the
> same binaries even though they are both MIPS because one is big endian and the other is
> little endian. ARMv2 is completely different architecturally than later versions. There are
> many other examples.
I'm not really sure about arm versions, so I counted it once for both. Possibly you could say
one or the other does support more arm architectures.
> x86-64 is still a work in progress on both platforms and so is ppc64 (it's only a couple
> weeks old
> embedded platforms like v850, cris, h8300, etc. would make me nervous to use in a large
> production. They are not widely developed for and what info you can dig up suggests that they
> could be quirky with all the compiler weirdness, etc. that hasn't been shaken out yet. I'd much
> rather go with a more matured platform like ARM, MIPS, M68k, etc. regardless of the OS being
> chosen for the application.
x86-64 and ppc64 are both mature ports on Linux. They are both in Linux 2.4 for a while and are in
the upcoming 2.6 of course. Linux has run on 32 way POWER4s with 256GB of memory, it is being
tested on POWER5.
> There are times when a platform is more mature/complete/etc. (PA-RISC on linux is better
> supported) but NetBSD is generally very consistent and complete across all of the 40
> platforms it currently supports.
I wonder how many platforms Linux supports using NetBSD's definition. When porting, Linux typically
treats a CPU ISA as the first class object under which many platforms are supported so its hard to
count.
> The bottom line is use the right tool for the job. If I have a PA-RISC or s390 or wanted to
> build a PVR then I'd probably choose Linux and I would choose a BSD for most of the rest of my
> needs. You might choose a little different but both are good tools and very capable.
Sure
Mares can be quite satisfactory for the average well endowed male. If you are somewhat less developed you might find better pleasure with a pony or Miniature Horse. These are also better as they are lower to the ground. A pony you can fuck standing up.
Sorry that didn't come out well at all... I should have used tags for quoting or something.
By Chinese Karma
Whore,
Version 1.0
Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the
history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry,
and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.
Let's
not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson
and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In
the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the
4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.
These early triumphs would soon be
forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed
suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly
violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling
internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of
various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of
the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he
documents on his
website. Mr. de Raadt's
stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion
of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.
As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality
product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD
distribution make code sharing an arduous task.
Research conducted at MIT
found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed
TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to
this study.
Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental
flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay,
The Cathedral and the
Bazaar,
rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones
in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that
centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has
significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by
the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating
the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is
licensed under the GPL.
The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard
and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its
earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux
gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will
resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.
1. You can not play games on it.
2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
4. There is no support available for it.
5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
7. You have to compile everything and know C.
8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
10.It is dying.
The *BSD Wailing Song
What's left for me to see
In my ship I sailed so far
What can the answer be
Don't know what the questions are.
And after all I've done
Still I cannot feel the sun
Tell me save me
In the end our lost souls must repent.
I must know it is for certain
Can it be the final curtain
As long as the wind will blow
I'll be searching high and low.
Who knows what's really true
They say the end is so near
Why are we all so cruel
We just fill ourselves with fear.
And heaven and hell will turn
All that we love shall burn
Hear me trust me
In the end our lost sould must repent.
I must know it is for certain
Can it be the final curtain
As long as the wind will blow
I'll be searching high and low
Final curtain
Final curtain
In a startling turn of events today, a previously little-known fact came into the public eye: "*BSD Sux0rs". This came as a complete surprise to the BUWLA, or BSD Users With Large Assholes, as they previously thought that *BSD 0wned.
"You see, even though I have never contributed code to any BSD project, I thought it was my duty to be a big asshole to others which don't use the OS I do, because it just 0wnz.", said one FreeBSD user. "Now that I know it sux0rs, though, I have to go find something else to be an asshole about."
One notorious OpenBSD fanatic known as WideOpen, told reporters, "I have to kill myself. This isn't how it was supposed to happen. My BSD has always been the best, and shouting that opinion in other people's faces at every chance I got has been my only hobby. It was all I ever did. It was what got me out of bed in the morning. Now I have to die. I will jam my bedpost up my ass until I hit my brain. It is the only way to go: BSD style."
In the volatile world of operating systems anything can happen. "At least we don't sux0r as much as Windows users", BigAzz, a relatively well-known NetBSD user said. "Screaming things in people's faces is my calling. Now I need to scream that BSD sux0rs. What a sad world. At least I won't kill myself like those uber-asshole OpenBSD guys. They are just way over the top. Or were, at least."
Nobody knows for sure what the future holds for the state of operating systems, but with Netcraft confirming the sux0r status, *BSD users all over the world will have to stick something else up their asses from now on or risk looking even more gay than they used to.
All our times have come
Here but now they're gone
Mac OS don't fear the reaper
Nor do the windows, SUN or the rain..we can be like they are
Come on baby...don't fear the reaper
Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper
We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper
BSD's bought the farm....
Distro is done
Here but now they're gone
Romeo and Juliet
Are together in eternity...Romeo and Juliet
40,000 server crashes every day...Like Romeo and Juliet
40,000 workstations reformatted everyday...Redefine happiness
Another 40,000 coming everyday...We can be like they are
Come on baby...don't fear the reaper
Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper
We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper
BSD's bought the farm...
Love of two is one
Here but now they're gone
Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear she couldn't log on
Then the file was opened the wind appeared
The mobo blew then disappeared
The curtains flew then Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith appeared...saying don't be afraid
Come on baby...and she had no fear
And she ran to them...then they started to fly
They looked backward and said goodbye...she had become like they are
She had taken their hand...she had become like they are
Come on baby...don't fear the reaper "
Somewhere, in a lonely hospital room,
*BSD is dying
The End of FreeBSD
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It's when you get distracted by the politickers
Please put all horse pussy and cock posts under this one, thanks!
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac with Panther preview (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes.
"Obscure embedded platforms like v850, cris, h8300, etc.
would make me nervous to use in a large production."
Huh? There are more products shipped with any one
of these running Linux then the entire installed base of
NetBSD (no, literally). Choose an ARM (nommu) target
and there are millions of units a month shipped.
Widely developed has nothing to do with production ready.
But you are correct, this has nothing to do with pkgsrc.
D. Jeff Dionne
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It
I am just curious to know if it is possible for you guys to reduce the "from-scratch" build time to 1-2 days?
Thanks
http://www.kottke.org/98/11/index
x86-64 and ppc64 are both mature ports on Linux.
Have you actually used either of these platforms? Yes, there are ports. Yes, they are useable. No, they are not stable yet but they are quickly moving that direction.
x86-64 has provided me with plenty of hours of fighting with it on several *nix OSes. It will be nice to see it matured but it just isn't there yet.
I make it a rule never to reply to Anonymous Coward posts.
It amazes me when people look at "cpu types" instead of "architectures". The old Mac68K's (LC's, SE/30, II-series [most of them]) use the 68030 chip. So, as a matter of fact, does the Sun/3 series. One "cpu type", but the hardware devices and general architecure of the machines are *radically* different. Saying you run on a 68030 is meaningless vs. saying you run on Mac68K and Sun3. So the question is not "how many cpu types" but "how many architectures".
Also, how complete is the OS on those architectures? Last time I looked (a month ago maybe) at Linux/Vax, they maybe had it booting on one or two Vax models. NetBSD supports quite a few more than that. And people are generally working on the ones that aren't working yet (7000's for example). The main issue here is more one of having the hardware available and power to run the things (hey, someone *just* got a 7000 up and running on single-phase power).
Yes, if I was looking for a gaming platform, I'd go with Linux on a fast PC with a top-notch video card. The vendor support is there for their proprietary drivers, etc. If, on the other hand, I'm looking for a simple webserver to run apache... well, I have some vaxen on hand, decstations, 68K macs, PC's, sun's, etc.. that *all* could do the job fine with NetBSD. Crossbuild available between platforms, or locally hosted.. and all from *one* source tree.