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FreeBSD Can Now Be Built From Linux/macOS Hosts, Transition To Git Continues

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Re: FreeBSD Can Now Be Built From Linux/macOS Hosts, Transition To Git Continues

#101

Post by db48x »

asveikau wrote: post #84
jlgaddis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... some help pages on the web are still recommending git-svn as a conversion tool for migrating Subversion repositories to git. DO NOT DO THIS. You may damage your history badly if you do. -- http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6778 (2015-05-28)

ESR is a little grandiose. Note he doesn't give much detail, just say that it will bite you and you should listen to his assertions because he has done it more than anyone in the world.

You're not exactly wrong, but the test suite for Reposurgeon has a number of test cases derived from malformations caused by other tools, or made worse by other tools. The real problem here is that they were gathered over a decade, and nobody (myself included) really documented them very well. They all made sense when we committed them…

Also, most conversion tools will handle the most common cases OK, and only generate garbage in oddball situations. They don't print out a warning when the oddball situations happen, so unless you go back and look at every commit you'll never notice the damage. Most of those situations only happen because of accidents, like creating a Subversion branch the wrong way, then deleting it and making it the correct way. Or adding files to a CVS repository by copying ,v files from a different CVS repository.

Re: FreeBSD Can Now Be Built From Linux/macOS Hosts, Transition To Git Continues

#102

Post by vehemenz »

saghm wrote: post #73
vehemenz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux is head and shoulders above Windows on the desktop When plug-and-play, drivers, and power management work correctly. When business software is compatible. When you don't have to search through obscure forums or jump on FreeNode to figure out why your wireless card doesn't work. When your filesystem corrupts and won't boot because you didn't shut it down correctly. When your font anti-aliasing and resolution s…

> When plug-and-play, drivers, and power management work correctly. When business software is compatible. When you don't have to search through obscure forums or jump on FreeNode to figure out why your wireless card doesn't work. When your filesystem corrupts and won't boot because you didn't shut it down correctly. GP did say "in 2020"; I haven't had any of those issues for years

This is the same canned response we also had twenty years ago.

"Works for me, so it's not an issue."

Re: FreeBSD Can Now Be Built From Linux/macOS Hosts, Transition To Git Continues

#103

Post by danuker »

eschaton wrote: post #93

This has been possible on NetBSD for quite a while, glad to see FreeBSD joining the party! Now we just need OpenBSD to support cross-builds… it takes a while to build even a kernel on my mvme88k system.

All I can think of is "Reflections on Trusting Trust".

Re: FreeBSD Can Now Be Built From Linux/macOS Hosts, Transition To Git Continues

#104

Post by louwrentius »

patrec wrote: post #62
louwrentius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing to extinghuish, except for the notion of Linux on the desktop, that was never a thing anyway, except for a few technerds. Microsoft has indeed embraced Linux, in the context of Azure, they are making a ton of money thanks to Linux. And if people develop for Linux-based platforms, why not give them the tools?

There is something to extinguish: Apple. Microsoft had a significant problem that all the best (non-game) developers used macOS (and a few even linux), which severely damaged their ecosystem. They fixed that. Apple might be in for a rude awakening in turn when they realize the toys they enjoy selling for exorbitant profits had an ecosystem dependency on the professional products they more or less abandoned.

Yes I agree with that.

Re: FreeBSD Can Now Be Built From Linux/macOS Hosts, Transition To Git Continues

#105

Post by louwrentius »

whizzter wrote: post #38
louwrentius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the year of Linux on the desktop will be heralded by Microsoft introducing WSL3 that provides absolute compatibility with all Linux applications. ;-) Not that most people would want to run most of those, but Microsofts corporate customers are fed up with supporting those Linux laptops and all the problems related to that.

Really afaik the only thing missing from working well with mainline WSL2 now is some UI apps using GL,etc for X11 and iirc that is being worked so no need for any WSL3. Considering i've mostly used win envs to begin with this is already good enough that i see very few reasons to ever bother with installing Linux for myself again and even those are dwindling quickly.

Interesting, thank you!

Re: FreeBSD Can Now Be Built From Linux/macOS Hosts, Transition To Git Continues

#106

Post by lproven »

jodrellblank wrote: post #99
lproven wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well done for signally failing to get a single point I made. Well up to HN commenter standards -- perhaps you'll make it on to https://twitter.com/hn_commenter I am typing on Linux right now. I work for a Linux vendor. I like Linux and use it every day. I do not run Windows at all, anywhere, unless someone is paying me to. As for Android, there is this thing called AOSP. Check it out. You might also wish to contribut…

How do you explain your contradictory beliefs that "Linux is huge and doing great" and that Microsoft is desperately trying to make its tools look credible with marketing and hype, and at the same time Microsoft is bordering on world domination with _disastrous_ news that might extinguish Linux forever? Or where Linux is the dominant computing platform everyone serious uses, and at the same time in danger of being sq…

Do you genuinely believe that you are refuting my arguments here? My points are not complicated or difficult, and your responses are facile.

Linux is strong on servers and phones.

This is, in part, because you can deploy tens of thousands of servers (and tear them down again) at very little cost, and Google gives Android away.

No software licensing.

Being cheap to do means not much money goes into Linux development as a result. Google is doing it to weaken Apple.

Always follow the money.

Windows still dominates desktops. This makes MS money. Not from Windows, but what goes on top: Office and Exchange and Server licences. Evidence: MS gave Win10 away for free in order to get it established.

If Linux development slows and stabilises, then it will be easier to run Linux binaries on other OSes that merely emulate Linux. (Examples: WSL, FreeBSD Linuxulator, Joyent SmartOS.)

If MS manages to make WSL a better Linux than Linux, then it strengthens the market for Windows running Linux workloads, which weakens Linux.

There are multiple markets here. You have to consider all of them and their interactions.

No, E&E is _not_ about standards and protocols. It is about money.

Netscape was free for non-commercial use. In business, you had to pay. Also, Netscape sold one of the leading web servers. That is how Netscape made money.

MS made IE free, but free is no good if the product isn't as good. So it built IE into Windows, and IIS into Windows Server, and gave them away for free, including upgrades. To make them desirable, it added some snazzy interactive stuff in the form of ActiveX (client-side) and ASP (server-side).

Result: Netscape couldn't sell its pro products any more and went broke.

Ubuntu is big on servers because Ubuntu is a good desktop, and when it came out, the other decent desktops -- e.g. SUSE -- cost money. Ubuntu took their market share but didn't make any money. Within a decade, most young techies knew Ubuntu first so they chose it for server stuff too, and servers make Ubuntu money.

Ditto Red Hat and SUSE (now). Give the desktop away for free, make money on servers.

Follow the money.

If Windows can do that better, nobody will bother with Linux. The money goes to MS instead, then RH & SUSE & Ubuntu will die, and I will be out of a job.

It is not about standards. It is about money.

Re: FreeBSD Can Now Be Built From Linux/macOS Hosts, Transition To Git Continues

#107

Post by lproven »

jodrellblank wrote: post #100
lproven wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the motive, as someone cited before me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis... I was merely agreeing. Look at MS' history. It used this tactic to kill or maim a long list of companies: Netscape, Lotus, WordPerfect, Aldus, Novell, Sybase, STAC, Central Point Software, Quarterdeck, and dozens more. It tried it with Sun and Java -- it failed, but only just. It tried it with the WWW itsel…

> " Look at MS' history. It used this tactic to kill or maim a long list of companies: Netscape, Lotus, WordPerfect, Aldus, Novell, Sybase, STAC, Central Point Software, Quarterdeck, and dozens more. " Netscape defunct 2003, FireFox still exists. Lotus 1-2-3 last release 2002. Sybase still existed until it was sold to SAP in 2010 and SAP killed it in 2014. WordPerfect still exists. Quarterdeck defunct 1998. Sun, Java…

The reason MS didn't have to do this stuff in the last decade or 2 is because it has already killed all its opponents.

Name another big desktop app vendor will hundreds of millions of seats. Name another industry-leading groupware system.

The last big dominant rival MS took down was Nokia's phones operation, but it mainly succeeded there because Google and Apple accidentally helped: Evidence: MS doesn't make phones any more. It derailed the #1 smartphone vendor's own OS efforts and planted an MS exec in charge so that vendor used exclusively MS phone OSes, but it wasn't good enough. The OS failed and the vendor left the market.

Apple is in a different market. Apple sells hardware. Its OSes are free. It also makes a cut on content for those devices.

Character attacks? Have you bothered to read any of the links I have supplied to support my argument?

Re: FreeBSD Can Now Be Built From Linux/macOS Hosts, Transition To Git Continues

#108

Post by saghm »

vehemenz wrote: post #102
saghm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When plug-and-play, drivers, and power management work correctly. When business software is compatible. When you don't have to search through obscure forums or jump on FreeNode to figure out why your wireless card doesn't work. When your filesystem corrupts and won't boot because you didn't shut it down correctly. GP did say "in 2020"; I haven't had any of those issues for years

This is the same canned response we also had twenty years ago. "Works for me, so it's not an issue."

I agree that my experience is only one datapoint. But your comment was in response to someone who's experience was having more issues on Windows than Linux by saying that you don't have issues on Windows, which is the same thing.

Personally, I run into way more issues when I try to use Windows than Linux; for example, whenever I boot into Windows on my desktop, it doesn't recognize that my ethernet cable is plugged in unless I unplug it and then replug it back in. It also sometimes just doesn't give any audio output when it boots up, and I have to reboot to get it to work. These and other issues I have may not be issues you run into, but they are just as valid experiences as the issues you might have with Linux. My point is that the argument that Windows "just works" out of the box is not as objective as you might think.

Re: FreeBSD Can Now Be Built From Linux/macOS Hosts, Transition To Git Continues

#109

Post by whizzter »

lproven wrote: post #107
jodrellblank wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " Look at MS' history. It used this tactic to kill or maim a long list of companies: Netscape, Lotus, WordPerfect, Aldus, Novell, Sybase, STAC, Central Point Software, Quarterdeck, and dozens more. " Netscape defunct 2003, FireFox still exists. Lotus 1-2-3 last release 2002. Sybase still existed until it was sold to SAP in 2010 and SAP killed it in 2014. WordPerfect still exists. Quarterdeck defunct 1998. Sun, Java…

The reason MS didn't have to do this stuff in the last decade or 2 is because it has already killed all its opponents. Name another big desktop app vendor will hundreds of millions of seats. Name another industry-leading groupware system. The last big dominant rival MS took down was Nokia's phones operation, but it mainly succeeded there because Google and Apple accidentally helped: Evidence: MS doesn't make phones a…

I remember the 90s just fine, but i think MS also knows that they lucked out on the antitrust rulings with getting their fingers slapped. Also on top of it Gates isn't there in charge to be ruthless any more (and the competitors today knows the things to watch out for).

But more importantly than all that... MS knows they aren't competing with other companies per-se but rather ecosystems, open source and developer mindshare. If we don't like it we can fork off things and go on our way (like developers did during the Ballmer era despite him jumping around chanting developers....).

Windows isn't even the most used personal OS today, Android is.

Funnily enough thanks to MS in part, not because they sabotaged Nokia (Many N insiders have spoken about how dysfunctional and unfocused their management was even before MS came into the picture), But rather because they fucked over their enthusiastic WinPhone7 users, retailers and devs with WP8 not supporting the prev generation of devices and API's changing.

WP7 had a far snapper and easier to understand UI than contemporary Android devices, but once they dropped the WP8 news the old devices just lay on shelves and sellers who had bet on WP7 selling were left with un-sellable devices and didn't feel like buying a new batch to see it happen again.

Re: FreeBSD Can Now Be Built From Linux/macOS Hosts, Transition To Git Continues

#110

Post by lproven »

whizzter wrote: post #109
lproven wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason MS didn't have to do this stuff in the last decade or 2 is because it has already killed all its opponents. Name another big desktop app vendor will hundreds of millions of seats. Name another industry-leading groupware system. The last big dominant rival MS took down was Nokia's phones operation, but it mainly succeeded there because Google and Apple accidentally helped: Evidence: MS doesn't make phones a…

I remember the 90s just fine, but i think MS also knows that they lucked out on the antitrust rulings with getting their fingers slapped. Also on top of it Gates isn't there in charge to be ruthless any more (and the competitors today knows the things to watch out for). But more importantly than all that... MS knows they aren't competing with other companies per-se but rather ecosystems, open source and developer min…

Yes, that's all fair.

I know why the WinPhone fiasco happened: they, very reasonably, wanted to get everything on an NT base. WinPhone 7 was WinCE, WinPhone 8 was NT.

I don't think they realised how many people used WinPhone 7 and were happy with it. Over here in Czechia, Windows phones were the main smartphones I saw when I moved here in 2014 -- Android and iOS were very rare, because they were very expensive. Windows phones were the affordable way to get a smartphone -- there were a lot of candybar dumbphones still around here in 5-6 years ago.

I don't think dodging antitrust was luck, though. I think the US was afraid to kill or even maim one of its very few big success stories, one of the only ones that _wasn't_ being outcompeted by Asian or European companies.

Since then, MS has lost some big battles -- notably, phones and tablets -- and it's learned to be conciliatory and how to appear friendly to people too young to remember the viciously rapacious 1990s MS.

My point is, I still think it is just play-acting friendly. This is the null hypothesis: same company, same people, same structure, and therefore, same business practices. It just got burned a few times so now it wants to come over as a reformed character.

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