Subject: Re: 3 forwarded messages...
To: Mark Crispin <MRC@cac.washington.edu>
From: Terry Moore <tmm@mcci.com>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 01/02/1996 22:46:59
> 
> On Tue, 2 Jan 1996 10:06:07 -0800 (PST), Peter Seebach wrote:
> > This is a *stupid fuckup* they refuse to fix.
> 
> Say what?
> 
> We did fix the problem.  The include of <unistd.h> was added to the Pine 3.92
> development sources within a few days of our being alerted to the problem,
> many months ago.  This was after Pine 3.91 was released, which is why the fix
> is not in Pine 3.91 sources.

> ... more stuff on when and why include <unistd.h> ...

Just to let folks know -- <unistd.h> is critical on NetBSD, not really because of 
prototyping per se, but because NetBSD has a 64-bit file system.  Lseek() 
uses a 64-bit offset; therefore, older code that blindly uses lseek() without
prototypes won't work.  Having just ported a big older package into NetBSD,
and having just been bitten by that, I'm sensitive to this.  That package
is a commercial package that had been ported to 50 or so other systems, and
NetBSD turned up a couple of new problems.   The package didn't include
<unistd.h> on any of its other ports (which included NeXT, VMS, Sys V,
SunOS 4.1.x and DOS).  So with the 64-bit stuff we have to accept some degree
of incompatibility, and some degree of porting surprises.  To me, it's
worth it.  But maybe something ought to go in the FAQ to alert people to
these kinds of things?  (The other one being sessions, which weren't in
any of the other ports for this product and which broke the product in 
a major way until I figured out what was going on....)

Thanks, by the way to core and to everyone who have contributed to
NetBSD.  It has proven to be a very useful environment to us.

--Terry
tmm@mcci.com	tel:  +1-607-277-1029	fax:  +1-607-277-6844