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 <scrappy@freebsd.org> 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
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