Re: Debian BSD.. cool idea

["Nathan Hawkins" <utsl@quic.net>]

Gary Kline writes:

> On Tue, Feb 01, 2000 at 03:01:35PM +0000, Nathan Hawkins wrote:
> > I really wish that the FreeBSD advocates on this list would realize that
> > there isn't a real desire to fork the system. But it could happen, and the
> > most likely reason would be if FreeBSD refuses patches, and made it hard to
> > stay in sync. That could be fixed if someone with commit priviledges were
> > to work on Debian/BSD.
> > 
> 
> 	fork means only one thing to me: fork() :-)  I can't speak for
> 	any of my fellow FBSD'ers, but I don't believe there is much
> 	enthusiasm for a DebianBSD distribution.  I may write up 
> 	something for DaemonNews ...  Hm.  

Personally, I'm not interested in creating another BSD. (Not in the sense
of Free/Open/Net BSD.) I'd just like to integrate parts of FreeBSD (kernel
and closely related programs) into Debian. So it could simply be the
FreeBSD source code patched to fit into the Debian filesystem and package
structure. Rather more likely, there'll be numerous patches... :)

Some people on this list have been saying you can't do that without
creating another BSD splinter. I don't agree. I believe that will depend
largely on the attitudes of the people involved.

I think enthusiasm would be premature. There's nothing getting done, so far
as I know. (I'm waiting on some hardware that I should have had back in
early December. I don't know much about what anyone else is doing, because
this list has mostly been discussing politics. :-( ) It's obvious that only
a minority are interested in this from either side, but I believe there's
great potential to make both systems better.
 
> 	The nutshell of this is that I think we all have vastly more
> 	shared goals than disparate ones.  How we get there--if we
> 	ever do--may be evolutionary.  By small discrete steps and 
> 	some large jumps.

Think of it as a migration path, if it makes you happy. Maybe people will
try Debian/BSD and like it so much they'll go straight on to FreeBSD. Maybe
it'll be the other way. If your system is better, why worry? ;-)