Peeve: why "i386"?

[George Barnett]

From: "Rahul Siddharthan" <rsidd at online.fr>

> Why do all the BSDs continue to refer to the 32 bit Intel architecture
> as i386 even when they typically won't even install on an i386 any
> more?  Why not call it x86, or ia32, if not in the kernel config then
> at least in the release notes and documentation, as everyone else has
> been doing for years?

The reason it's done this way is so that once every 6 months there can be a
mundane argument on various lists about some minor cosmetic name that
non-geeks don't care about anyway.

:-)

/bad week


--george