On Wed, 15 Apr 1998 22:10:18 -0700 (PDT) 
 tooleym@douglas.bc.ca wrote:

 > For god's sake! Someone post some concrete, verifiable, non-arguable
 > message and end it! I beg you!

If you insist!  :-)

Here are the facts:

	* NetBSD's new vfork(2) implements the pre-4.4BSD semantics.

	* The vmspace-sharing piece is faster than even the best COW
	  algorithm.

	* The original pre-4.4BSD vfork(2) semantics are now specified
	  in XPG4.2.  This means that new systems that want to carry the
	  UNIX(tm) trademark must implement the address space-sharing
	  semantics.  I.e. the interface is compatible with the rest of
	  the industry.

	* There is a noticeable performance improvement, especially
	  for large processes, e.g. make(1) bulding the C library or
	  kernel.

	* The change was discussed at length with members of Core and
	  the developer of NetBSD's new VM system (UVM), Chuck Cranor.

Given these, plus the fact that I wrote NetBSD's new vfork(2) implementation,
it's not likely that I'm going to be swayed back to a 4.4BSD vfork(2).

Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                            Home: +1 408 866 1912
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