Re: Please forgive a blatant plug: I reviewed v10 for the Reg

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

Liam Proven <lproven%gmail.com@localhost> writes:

> Step 1: a binary interoperability standard, so apps from any BSD can
> execute on any other BSD (on the same CPU architecture, obviously.)

This is not so much about the binaries about about the ABI for libc and
other core libs.   But I suspec this works better than you think, if one
arranges for the other libs and deals with elf tags.

> Step 2: identify the core OS elements that are widely different, and
> those that are largely shared because they are upstream FOSS code.

All BSDs come from 386BSD and Net/2, said in a very broad brush way.

> Unique and different:
> * Kernels
> * LibC
> * Init daemon, maybe?
> * Packaging tools

It's not accurate to say that the kernels are unique.  There is a lot of
common code.  You can't really slice it that way, because what's common
and what isn't is not organized along the kinds of lines you are
listing.

> Largely common:
> * Shells
> * Coreutils?

coreutils is a term for a GNU package, and many/most of those
utilities in BSDs aren't from that.   Really, coreutils is the linux
reimplementation of traditional utilities.

> * Console-level userland?
> * X11 server?
> * Other core servers, such as HTTPD, SSH, etc.?
> * Compilers

Lots of things are the same because they are from the same upstream,
eg. OpenSSH.  But others are differnet.  Again you can't really slice it
that way so easily.

> Mostly separate:
> * Desktop environments and window managers
> * Upstream apps such as editors, web browsers, office suites, etc.

Mostly these are the same upstreams, perhaps packaged differently.
emacs runs on all of them.  I'm not sure what your point is here.


I see the biggest benefit to adding kernel support for other BSD's
interfaces, and things like stealing updated zfs code from FreeBSD.
But that's all work, and people do work when they feel like it.