Re: assimilating OpenBSD
On Tue, Feb 06, 2001 at 11:17:48PM -0600, David Starner wrote:
> Debian is a project to create an operating system. Including the Hurd
> streaches that a little, but since the Hurd runs the same libc and
> the same userland, it's feasible to do without most non-Hurd users
> and developers worrying about like. It can and has been considered
> little different from a new architecture.
I would not agree with this view on the Hurd. The reason why it works so
well so far is because the Linux distribution of Debian is based on the GNU
system.
The discrepancies between Linux and the Hurd grow when you leave the area
the GNU system covers (you may want to include the area of POSIX compatible
applications).
> A BSD userland would mean that every package would have to be audited
> for GNUisms. Take the number of Bashisms found, and the fuss over the
> tar bzip option, and think about doing that for almost everything in
> standard. It's a lot of work for a lot of maintainers who may not care
> in the least about the Debian BSD project.
The work will need to be done by the Debian BSD people, and they will file
bug reports, in exactly the same way as I and other people are weeding out
the Linuxisms in Debian packages. It will make the software better (yes,
even for GNU/Linux there will be long term benefits. Note that GNU programs
are amazingly portable, although the goal of the GNU system is just to build
the GNU operating system. This is because GNU authors recognize the value of
portability).
Note that bashisms don't need to be eliminated. You can also declare an
epxlicit dependency on bash, what you should do anyway.
> The Debian project is here to make an operating system. People are
> always welcome to base their projects on Debian, and for something
> like this Software in the Public Intrest ought to be willing to
> help. But the extra work it adds to Debian means it shouldn't be
> done here.
It's not feasible to base your work on Debian if you have to do global changes
like weeding out linuxisms/gnuisms/whatever in all packages, if your changes
will never be incorporated. It's much better to start from scratch in this
case, which is duplicating a lot of the work though.
Thanks,
Marcus
--
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann GNU http://www.gnu.org marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de
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