[ CCing Debian Project Leader and Secretary, to ensure that they have the ]
[ chance to speak to the topic, even if they don't see it on the mailing ]
[ lists. ]
On December 2nd, I was contacted by Luke Mewburn, on behalf of The NetBSD
Foundation, asking about the "transition" to calling the NetBSD port
"Debian GNU/KNetBSD", and expressing their appreciation for this change,
as it reflects (in their opinion) a more accurate statement about what the
system is, and avoids any potential dilution of the NetBSD trademark.
I explained that "Debian GNU/KNetBSD" was actually a separate effort,
primarily by Robert Millan, to port Debian to a system consisting of
NetBSD's kernel (thus, 'KNetBSD') and a ported GNU libc, while the other
effort was aimed at a NetBSD kernel and native NetBSD libc. I did, however,
say that I (at least) would be happy to try to find a name they found
equally suitable, for the same reasons, rather than continue to use the
current one.
On December 3rd, Mr. Mewburn confirmed that The NetBSD Foundation would
prefer to see the name changed, and I brought the issue up on the
debian-bsd mailing list for discussion.
After a good discussion that covered a variety of topics that went beyond
the port name, but covered important related issues, I made the following
proposal, which has received no objections for one week (Mr. Millan did
make one request regarding the design of patches, which is not in conflict
with the proposal):
-----
For the porting effort formerly known as "Debian GNU/NetBSD" or "Debian
GNU NetBSD/i386", the following four identifiers will be used:
1) 'uname -s' will be 'NetBSD' (this is unchanged).
2) 'uname -v' will have the name 'Debian' in it at an appropriate place,
so that it is possible to determine a full set of system information
solely from uname. (This is somewhat flexible due to possible changes
in the NetBSD implementation of the concept of 'vendor').
3) The GNU config triple will have '-netbsd-gnu' as it's third part.
(This is unchanged - and don't blame me for a 4-part triplet. I didn't
start it, merely maintained consistancy with -linux-gnu).
4) The Debian port name will become 'Debian GNU/KLNetBSD(i386)'[1].
-----
[1] i386 target, Kernel+Libc of NetBSD, GNU userland, Debian distribution
I'm not entirely certain what else, if anything, is required to make these
changes (except updating the web pages, which will obviously have to wait
until the normal method of doing so has been restored), since the origional
decision on the port name was relatively informal.
If anyone objects, or wishes to see further requirements met, please let
me know, and I'll do what I can to resolve the situation. Please note that
all of my discussions with The NetBSD Foundation, and it's representatives,
have been both cordial and productive, to date, and that I feel their
request is born largely of having seen an example which they preferred,
rather than any antipathy towards the Debian project as a whole, or the
various BSD porting efforts under it.
--
Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org> ,''`.
Debian GNU/KLNetBSD(i386) porter : :' :
`. `'
`-
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