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Old 18th June 2008
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Oko Oko is offline
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Kosovo, Serbia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ocicat View Post
Various comments:
  • First of all, no official OpenBSD developers read these forums, so all anyone can say here is attempt to paraphrase what can be gleaned from reading the project's goals:

    http://openbsd.org/goals.html

    ...as well as discussions found on the mailing lists such as misc@.
  • Given the alternatives of focusing on enhancements & refinements over compatibility to other operating systems, the developers obviously choose the former. My understanding is that Linux compatibility is of nominal interest to any of the developers.
  • The core customers of interest to the OpenBSD project are the project's developers themselves. They simply make public releases every six months as a gift to the rest of us, & source is available at all times. Users have no say as in the project's direction unless significant blocks of code are accepted & incorporated into the source base.
If you have Linux applications which are invaluable, you might consider porting them to OpenBSD & submitting your work for inclusion into the ports system. By doing this, you will be benefit both yourself & the community at large.
I am familiar with the stated goals of OpenBSD project. I could not agree more with them. That is why as I do not use anything else on any on my computers but OpenBSD. I also said that I have linux compatibility layer turned off on all my machines. The Linux compatibility layer is ONLY needed for running Linux binaries. Examples are infamous Opera web-browser or Adobe Reader. All other software which is truly free (source code available) can be compiled and ported to OpenBSD. My post however did rise some legit questions.

Obviously in the past developers felt need to have Linux compatibility layer
and there is nothing wrong in stating that OpenBSD is mature project with
one of the best packaging systems and almost 5000 ports that doesn't need
such compatibility anymore. Both of us a familiar with the attitude of OpenBSD community towards Linux binaries.

I think and you probably know better than me that bumping up
compatibility layer to Fedora core 9 would actually require some serious
kernel work. I am not qualified for something like that. In the past week or so there have been so many exciting news from Hackaton. I feel that the work on such compatibility layer by any of developers would be waist of time. That might not be the case in incoming months.

By the way the question is already raised on misc@ by Nikolay and it was ignored. My feeling is that the community as a whole is contempt with the fact that OpenBSD will essentially lose Linux compatibility layer in incoming months. My feeling is also that most developers and users generally have the attitude that if one needs Linux specific or Solaris specific application for which only binaries are available that one should run that operating system at least for that specific task.

Best,
OKO

Last edited by Oko; 18th June 2008 at 09:55 AM.
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