sharing code between the various *BSDs

[Chris Rees]

On 26 June 2010 09:56, Alexander Best <alexbestms at uni-muenster.de> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 4:12 AM, illoai at gmail.com <illoai at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 21 June 2010 18:13, Chris Rees <utisoft at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> On 21 Jun 2010 23:12, "Alexander Best" <alexbestms at uni-muenster.de> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> hi there,
>>>>
>>>> i can't remember where i read this the other day, but i found this to
>>>> be a great idea. basically the idea was to have one code pool which
>>>> all the *bsd flavours share and also to which every *bsd committer has
>>>> access and can make changes. especially code in /bin, /sbin, usr/bin,
>>>> /usr/sbin or /usr/share (probably other places too) would benefit from
>>>> this a lot. right now most of the work that gets done in one of these
>>>> places by lets say dragonfly won't make it into freebsd or netbsd for
>>>> a long time. or what's even worse: sometimes people document problems
>>>> or bugs which have already been fixed in some other *bsd. if somebody
>>>> fixes the problem that's just wasted time because it's been done
>>>> beforehand.
>>>>
>>>> would this be even possible or not at all?
>>
>>> Politics...
>>>
>>
>> There are architectural issues.
>>
>> You would think that a Ford 302 V8 would be a fairly
>> simple swap into an old 305 engined 1979 Impala,
>> given that they use the same fuel, the same lubricant,
>> the same coolant, the same basic voltage, are within
>> 1% displacement, and turn at similar RPMs, but the
>> case is simply not so.
>
> i don't think you can compare BSD to cars. of course i'm not talking
> about kernel code or something like that. but if you take a look at
> most of the userland manuals or certain applications the code differs
> only by a few lines in all the BSDs. or think about spelling issues in
> manual pages. most of the time these changes won't make it into other
> BSDs for years or not at all.
>
> cheers.
>
>>

I would respectfully disagree. Anything of virtue done to the BSDs is
generally shared as people see it. That's the great thing about their
existence, they all borrow code from each other to suit their
interests, while pursuing their own relentlessly.

Far better to have a choice, after all they're all Free.

Chris