Version of top included in FreeBSD

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Bruce Cran
> Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 2:08 PM
> To: questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Version of top included in FreeBSD
> 
> 
> I've noticed that the version of top included in FreeBSD is 3.5beta12 
> and a new version 3.6 was released last year (see 
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/unixtop).   I realise fixes and 
> improvements have been made locally in the 3 years since 3.5 was 
> released, but are there any plans to merge in a newer version, or will 
> improvements continue to be made locally?
> 

This is an excellent opportunity for you as (I assume) a freeBSD newbie
to make a contribution to the system

Download the new version of top.  Read the license and make sure some
bozo hasn't GNUified it.  Compile it on FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE.
Test it out to see if everything works fine.  Compare it's output
to that of the existing top to make sure it matches.  If it does, then
send in a PR that states you have tested it out, where to get it,
that it's still under a BSD license, and what if anything you did
to get it to compile.

You see, even if you cannot do anything fancy like port the changes
from the old version of top into the 3.6 version, the fact that the
new version of top hasn't introduced some bogosity that makes it
a pain in the arse to deal with under FreeBSD is of immense value.
After all your talking about an hour of developer time just to
see if the new version works at all, and produces output that isn't 
far out in left field.  If a core developer knows the new top
version works and is license-compatible they are going to be much more
willing to spend the time porting the FreeBSD-specific changes over
to it than if it is a big unknown.

And if your more advanced, you can compare the original beta version
of top that was used against the BSD system one, see what changes were
made, check to see if they were fed back to the top maintainers and
if they were implemented in the top code, and if not, submit them to
the top maintainers so the source gets updated.

Ted