Re: vote

[Nathan Myers <ncm@nospam.cantrip.org>]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 07:00:51AM +0800, Nero wrote:
> > > BSD tools have been upgraded and kept modern as well- and
> > > considering, especially in NetBSD, their proven robustness
> > > and portability, it seems almost backwards to be replacing
> > > the BSD toolset with the GNU toolset.
> 
> If this is true, and those tools provide
> pretty-much the same functionality, I think
> certain things should be left BSD, so more
> important things can be done, then later on if
> they still want the GNU version, port it then.

To me it is purely a technical tradeoff:

 - using any particular BSD utility means we need to create and maintain
   a Debian package for it, and then make any other dependent packages
   compatible with both the BSD and the Debian version.

 - using any particular Debian utility means we need to port it to work 
   with a BSD kernel and utilities, and maintain the port.

The balance will be different for each package.  The most difficult
choice might be BSD libc vs. GNU glibc.  Ultimately the latter seems 
preferable, to ease porting of other userland packages, but the port 
will be a lot of work; until then the BSD libc will have to do.  
Maybe "then" will never come, and other packages will get ported to 
work well enough with BSD and GNU libc.  The total effort for that
might be larger, but those portations can be done incrementally.

For other utilities closely tied to the kernel, such as mount and ps,
a Debian packaging of the BSD version seems more appropriate.

Nathan Myers
ncm at cantrip dot org