Linux vs FreeBSD, and other *NIXes

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

On Sat, 22 Jun 2002, James Hunter Heinlen wrote:

> > I saw something I missed earlier - its in this thread somewhere....  It
> > says that Linux has very little official oversight - although I have never
> > contributed code to the kernel I have heard that is not the case.  I have
> > heard the maintainer will readily not accept code that isn't up to par.
> ...
> > Did I miss something somewhere?
> 
> Perhaps.  Perhaps it is a matter of perspective.  By 'Official
> Oversight', I assumed the author meant oversight by someone in
> authority outside of the coding group, such as a non-technical
> manager/boss, or some standards setting agency.  Perhaps it was
> something particular to that environment, but when I was a technical
> consultant in DuPont, official oversight meant outside influence, that
> we would be judged by someone who was not one of us.  Since I was in
> the Division of Commercial Explosives, this meant that the ATF, DoT,
> DoE, DoI BoM, OSHA, MSHA, and on rare occasion, the DoD held that
> role.

It was I, BLU's official instigator and starter of flame wars, that said 
it.  It's my understanding that, while people from all over 
contribute to the source code of FreeBSD, there is a relatively small 
group that writes most of it, and they go over what others submit much 
more closely.

Linux has some people, like Alan Cox, that fit this function, but there 
seem to be lots and lots of "keepers of the code", each managing their own 
part.  You occasionally hear of one codemaster disappering from the face 
of the planet or becomming unreachable or unresponsive.  In fact, there 
was a thread on the Red Hat mailing list last week.

Again, I don't know these things to be fact.  I guess I should join a 
FreeBSD mailing list.
 
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DDDD   David Kramer         david at thekramers.net       http://thekramers.net
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DKK D  Isn't the universe an amazing place?
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