From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED, HTML_MESSAGE,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 7334 invoked from network); 3 Jun 2022 22:53:14 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 3 Jun 2022 22:53:14 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2A459421E4; Sat, 4 Jun 2022 08:53:10 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-vk1-xa34.google.com (mail-vk1-xa34.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:4864:20::a34]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id C5FBC421E2 for ; Sat, 4 Jun 2022 08:53:04 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-vk1-xa34.google.com with SMTP id b144so3999465vkb.13 for ; Fri, 03 Jun 2022 15:53:04 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=bsdimp-com.20210112.gappssmtp.com; s=20210112; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to :cc; bh=v2vd5vNiarda0uaieNgsZ/D4WH5T4JiZ3+eIHfpzubI=; b=EIkA8+rJ0UZ83pbok30UtDplBYAiR+z1y9DTkHe7p4IPdnBUJmBgPm++bwvRWADDPx kHNliZfES29uLXLit7/n0pex5e+f0tYhyaNAPqRT6B5VG1Fb8xnYGr86MqjRW8IZMgGi 5o1GVnh8jTTfSJgbHkqOuFSopTz++/j4ch+KSsBZEGsDaJtwCWIb9tqbAICV9PnXMX0g DrqVOFDwgzcsRhufe7+nATWn7d9QBW5u6VkZZ00+fUBTJkrkD1iw+xzVoIAiCaTKPnN4 hOxSNh7wwtW4uybqayJKp6OTieW1wGkyc0TLwbSy85PwQoRw9v5QByl/2MU3TH3SXrpW 9yyw== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20210112; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=v2vd5vNiarda0uaieNgsZ/D4WH5T4JiZ3+eIHfpzubI=; b=HFuCIyPn+5+FXYqI13nJ9s4LY1Qyxc6VeiRCYT9XcXtD7By6Qf1OyqDpuk6SiKQLzm DepjMC6Zs6PUCUChKhSfXgU+xVKJ5YMmABl1CYEuzLxo5MjPWzYCzV+vdG8/d9pWHyLj AEo7FVNFO/8b2hz30DLmMJFQ+phADjXziF4TXzhdxjJjYuU83+iiYhUN4MeA/OzVvKYr fFJV7XNqwSlH99SfrHwKj7RBcApsea3SpeyMl29y4/Gk8b/7LPrZsC4ogIlKDNZeq1jA MYCDSX/z2zY/dTYdlmwmipuwgkAd2XmVez8zs8gdyOvvUZCo/HrGU2hhUUkrzhfrHImm x55w== X-Gm-Message-State: AOAM531htPRFarSMdA1o8AFALkjxA/K+fCadU4UsZBzlZsP7//l1a9UF 1wZNl0XkeR/QlZ8Uc1pY5NchO4kSiZSDJ2TKYzCPcQ== X-Google-Smtp-Source: ABdhPJy5oOHl/ThYqOcUX4wjeBNBbiBA/ua8Oy6X5njbd6paZD2NcJ1kR7WaO3Pj/ax0hU7Gaken4weuulzf2m+L1c4= X-Received: by 2002:a1f:ccc4:0:b0:358:6ab4:b766 with SMTP id c187-20020a1fccc4000000b003586ab4b766mr5382212vkg.13.1654296783590; Fri, 03 Jun 2022 15:53:03 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <20220603202330.f4spdxyn34uiyy5v@illithid> <20220603213215.GO10240@mcvoy.com> <20220603214032.GQ10240@mcvoy.com> <20220603223014.GS10240@mcvoy.com> In-Reply-To: <20220603223014.GS10240@mcvoy.com> From: Warner Losh Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2022 16:52:52 -0600 Message-ID: To: Larry McVoy Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="00000000000023ab3d05e092fce6" Message-ID-Hash: F2TONHCUGVTRESCEGMRPQBN3HCSYI3XB X-Message-ID-Hash: F2TONHCUGVTRESCEGMRPQBN3HCSYI3XB X-MailFrom: wlosh@bsdimp.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Fwd: [simh] Announcing the Open SIMH project List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: --00000000000023ab3d05e092fce6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" On Fri, Jun 3, 2022 at 4:30 PM Larry McVoy wrote: > On Sat, Jun 04, 2022 at 12:16:49AM +0200, Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote: > > Larry McVoy writes: > > > > >> I do not agree. Linux won because BSD was embroiled in litigation. > > > > > > Like I said, we experienced that differently. In my opinion, people > lean > > > on the litigation excuse when they don't want to admit that *BSD was > not > > > a good way to do operating system development. > > > > What were the differences? The BSD projects were: > > > > - 386bsd: run by Jolitz, with no input from anyone else > > - NetBSD: forked from 386bsd, run by Chris de Metriou as a > > cooperative effort between a host of indviduals (me included) > > - FreeBSD: forked from NetBSD almost immediately, by a group of > > contributors who felt that performance and device support on the Intel > > platform was more important than maintaining hardware portability > > - OpenBSD: forked from NetBSD after de Raadt established a kind of > > record by being kicked off both the NetBSD and FreeBSD mailing lists. > > > > I'm open to contradicting arguments, but I do feel that the BSD platform > > was a much better starting point back then, and ought to have won - but > > Linux, while inferior, was available and non-threatening. > > Dude, I was there. Jolitz used to work for me at Sun, Theo's Sun 4/470 > was given to him by me, I know most of the players. > > I agree BSD was a better starting point if there was one BSD. > > The problem is there was {386,Net,Free,Open,DragonFly}BSD where there > should have just been "BSD". One, not a bunch. > Except from 1993-1996 there were only two of those BSDs. NetBSD and FreeBSD forked in 1993 due to the inability of the patchkit to adequately cover the problems in 386BSD governance. OpenBSD didn't fork until late 1995 or early 1996 depending on when you count such things (Theo's firey email, or the first release). Drangonfly BSD didn't fork until a decade later in 2004 due to a dispute in how to make FreeBSD's kernel SMP. And 386BSD stopped being a thing in 1993 when Jolitz disappeared from public view and NetBSD/FreeBSD filled the free vacuum that created and BSDi with BSD/386 filled the commercial space. > Where do you think Linux would be if there was {A,B,C,D,E,F,G}Linux? > There is one kernel. One and only one. With everyone working on that > one kernel. > Except there never really was only one kernel. There have been hundreds of forks of the Linux kernel over the years. Most of them have been commercial of some flavor (Redhat, Debian, OpenSUSE, MontaVista, WindRiver, Android etc) had hundreds or thousands of patches on the base Linux kernel for a long time and trying to move from one to another if you also had patches was a nightmare. Kernel.org has kept going, and many of the chanages from these systems were lost. Some were not as good as what came in upstream, while others were encumbered by commercial contracts that made them unappealing to upstream. True, many of them did wind up in kernel.org, but to say there aren't forks in Linux is stretching reality a bit... > If you can't see the difference, I don't know what to tell you. Are you > seriously going to take the position that BSD is better off because > it has all these variants and replicated effort? Because if you are, > this conversation is over, at least from my point of view. > I think Linux's greatest strengths were the different distributions, though at times it causes a great deal of duplicated effort. They allowed different communities the room to customize things in an easy way. I believe that, more than one kernel, has been a driver of innovation. But honestly, the litigation was a deal killer for many BSD users in the early days, and that gave Linux room to grow. Had the BSDs not faced the competition from Linux and had similar resources poured into them, the NetBSD/FreeBSD split would have been good competition, much as there's good competition between Debian, Redhat, Suse, Canonical, etc today in the Linux space which helps to drive innovation. Even today, with the benefit of hindsight, it's hard to pin which of these facts on the ground was the biggest driver for most people... Warner --00000000000023ab3d05e092fce6 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable


=
On Fri, Jun 3, 2022 at 4:30 PM Larry = McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jun 04, 2022 = at 12:16:49AM +0200, Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote:
> Larry McVoy <lm@m= cvoy.com> writes:
>
> >> I do not agree.=C2=A0 Linux won because BSD was embroiled in = litigation.
> >
> > Like I said, we experienced that differently.=C2=A0 In my opinion= , people lean
> > on the litigation excuse when they don't want to admit that *= BSD was not
> > a good way to do operating system development.
>
> What were the differences?=C2=A0 The BSD projects were:
>
> - 386bsd: run by Jolitz, with no input from anyone else
> - NetBSD: forked from 386bsd, run by Chris de Metriou as a
>=C2=A0 =C2=A0cooperative effort between a host of indviduals (me includ= ed)
> - FreeBSD: forked from NetBSD almost immediately, by a group of
>=C2=A0 =C2=A0contributors who felt that performance and device support = on the Intel
>=C2=A0 =C2=A0platform was more important than maintaining hardware port= ability
> - OpenBSD: forked from NetBSD after de Raadt established a kind of
>=C2=A0 =C2=A0record by being kicked off both the NetBSD and FreeBSD mai= ling lists.
>
> I'm open to contradicting arguments, but I do feel that the BSD pl= atform
> was a much better starting point back then, and ought to have won - bu= t
> Linux, while inferior, was available and non-threatening.

Dude, I was there.=C2=A0 Jolitz used to work for me at Sun, Theo's Sun = 4/470
was given to him by me, I know most of the players.

I agree BSD was a better starting point if there was one BSD.

The problem is there was {386,Net,Free,Open,DragonFly}BSD where there
should have just been "BSD".=C2=A0 One, not a bunch.

Except from 1993-1996 there were only two of those = BSDs. NetBSD and FreeBSD
forked in 1993 due to the inability of t= he patchkit to adequately cover the problems
in 386BSD governance= . OpenBSD didn't fork until late 1995 or early 1996 depending
on when you count such things (Theo's firey email, or the first releas= e). Drangonfly=C2=A0BSD
didn't fork until a decade later in 2= 004 due to a dispute in how to make FreeBSD's
kernel SMP. And= 386BSD stopped being a thing in 1993 when Jolitz disappeared
fro= m public view and NetBSD/FreeBSD filled the free vacuum that created and
BSDi with BSD/386 filled the commercial space.
=C2=A0
Where do you think Linux would be if there was {A,B,C,D,E,F,G}Linux?
There is one kernel.=C2=A0 One and only one.=C2=A0 With everyone working on= that
one kernel.

Except there never really w= as only one kernel. There have been hundreds
of forks of the Linu= x kernel over the years. Most of them have been commercial
of som= e flavor (Redhat, Debian, OpenSUSE, MontaVista, WindRiver, Android etc)
had hundreds or thousands of patches on the base Linux kernel for a = long time
and trying to move from one to another if you also had = patches was a nightmare.

Kernel.org has kept going= , and many of the chanages from these systems were lost.
Some wer= e not as good as what came in upstream, while others were encumbered
<= div>by commercial contracts that made them unappealing to upstream. True, m= any of
them did wind up in kernel.o= rg, but to say there aren't forks in Linux is stretching
= reality a bit...
=C2=A0
If you can't see the difference, I don't know what to tell you.=C2= =A0 Are you
seriously going to take the position that BSD is better off because
it has all these variants and replicated effort?=C2=A0 Because if you are,<= br> this conversation is over, at least from my point of view.
=

I think Linux's greatest strengths were the differe= nt distributions, though
at times it causes a great deal of dupli= cated effort. They allowed different communities
the room to cust= omize things in an easy way. I believe that, more than one kernel,
has been a driver of innovation.

But honestly, t= he litigation was a deal killer for many BSD users in the early=C2=A0days,<= /div>
and that gave Linux room to grow. Had the BSDs not faced the comp= etition from Linux
and had similar resources poured into them, th= e NetBSD/FreeBSD split would have
been good competition, much as = there's good competition between Debian, Redhat, Suse,
Canoni= cal, etc today in the Linux space which helps to drive innovation.

Even today, with the benefit of hindsight, it's hard t= o pin which of these facts on
the ground was the biggest driver f= or most people...

Warner
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