Why are so many people using 4.x?

[Jerry McAllister]

> 
> 
> Hello Vladimir!
> 
> 
> >30 years of development and continual introduction of new features
> >build on top of existing ones is considered a very good design. And
> >FreeBSD is still extensible and growing, despite of its age.
> 
> Yes, the fact that it's still ongoing is amazing.
> 
> If it has managed to keep going for 30 years, it will surely keep
> on going for another 30 years.
> 
> What I meant was, the fundamentals for FreeBSD was set 30 years
> ago. Isn't it time we change that?

So what _fundamentals_ would you have be changed?

> >And FreeBSD is not a skyscraper neigther literally, nor metaphorically
> >- it's more like a spaceship - a very robust one - gives you the means
> >and tools to save your life in deep space when a threat to your life
> >appears and there is noone around.
> 
> I think you're watching too much scifi.
> 
> >Before even starting talking about design, we should give proper
> >definition for this concept.
> >What is good design?
> 
> It's pretty well defined at http://www.designcouncil.org.uk
> 
> >How do we measure one design against an alternative one?
> 
> You ask an experienced designer, preferably an architect.
> That's the only way, otherwise you'll just be trying to bite your own tail.
> 
> >The widespread notion of good desing is related to the ability to
> >maintain, extent and comprehend easily some complex system.
> 
> No. Good design is transforming something complex into something easy.
> 
> FreeBSD is complex.

FreeBSD is easy - very much so in comparison with some other 
so-called 'systems' available for comparison.

////jerry

> 
> >30 years... You do the math!
> 
> ?
> 
> >I'm not sure you're ready to present a new and revolutionary design
> >(you should start a new threat on that). It's more like you're in
> >search of volunteers to your FreeBSD Critisism Project.
> 
> I should be ready in a few weeks.
> 
> If you're interested I'd be glad to show it to you!
> 
> >Revolutionary design means starting from scratch  - this would be a
> >huge, tremendous investment of time and efforts(choose a platform, a
> >language, write a compiler for it, start building a kernel, write
> >completely new device drivers - Microsoft have its Singularity
> >Research Project - an operating system written entirely in C#, but
> >they don't share the tools - the C# compiler and linker they use to
> >build that system, neighter the code - you can get just a couple of
> >PowerPoint presentions, an interview, and a short 50 page long paper,
> >about the features that this system will introduce - on the other hand
> >you can get all of the FreeBSD source code, tones and tones of
> >documentation, and hundreds of ready to help you people - FOR FREE).
> 
> Revolutionary design, according to Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific
> Revolutions, one of the most popular science models of our time,
> characterizes science (where the same applies to design) as going from
> normal science to science in crisis and from science in crisis to scientific
> revolution. To me there's a crisis now because I personally believe things
> are moving in the wrong direction. Again, this is just personal.
> 
> >And there's no guarantee that this new design would last even 5 years.
> 
> You're absolutely right!
> 
> >At some point in time this will probably happen, but it won't be
> >FreeBSD. FreeBSD is not a vendor - it's an existing and evolving
> >operating system and a commited community of FreeBSD users. The
> >emphasis is on evolving.
> >If we want to stick to FreeBSD, the new design should be evolutionary
> >one, which is pretty different in concept - we would start from a
> >familiar code base and would slowly integrate changes (just like the
> >DragonFly project) into this base, thus creating a new BSD branch of
> >development.
> >
> >Best Regards,
> >Vladimir Tsvetkov
> 
> Thank you again for your useful response!
> 
> All the best,
> Vaaf
> 
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