Questionable statement in article

[Devon H. O'Dell]

Glenn Sieb <ges+lists at wingfoot.org> scribbled:
> Ceri Davies said the following on 8/9/2004 4:48 AM:
> 
> >I'm assuming you failed math.
> 
> Thanks--love you too!

Okay, this is getting really ridiculous, and the statement is false. It
would be rather simple to figure out which syscalls FreeBSD was unable
to translate and thereby make a certain piece of software fail to run on
FreeBSD. For instance, there are certain socket options in Linux that
are not avaialble on FreeBSD and cannot be emulated. Software that makes
use of these options will _not_ run on FreeBSD.

Simply, there's no way to verify the statement and it should be viewed
as false. All Linux binaries will _not_ run on FreeBSD and the
statement:

code(FreeBSD) + code(Linux)

is therefore moot. This is assuming all Linux binaries will work on
FreeBSD (and also ignores the fact that it's only the binaries that
FreeBSD will run -- there is certainly less code written for FreeBSD
than there is for Linux -- take a look at the patchfiles in ports some
day).

Glenn: They're making the assumption that all Linux binaries will work
on FreeBSD.

A more accurate statement would be:

FreeBSD_Compilable_Code + FreeBSD_Binaries + FreeBSD_Emulatable(Linux) >
Binaries(Linux)

You can't blindly make this statement, however, without first proving
the following:

Binaries(Linux) - FreeBSD_Emulatable(Linux) < FreeBSD_Compilable_code +
FreeBSD_Binaries.

Now, once you factor in the SVR4 compatibility and others, this
statement gets exceedingly difficult to make. When somebody wants to
audit the amount of binaries that will run on FreeBSD and get a number,
let me know.

Also, it's interesting to note that OpenBSD will do the same -- it has
Linux syscall translation as well -- it will also run FreeBSD binaries.
Does this mean that OpenBSD has a conceviably larger amount of binaries
that will run on it than FreeBSD?

Until this statement can be quantified, I think the best solution is to
just take out the assumed / subjective / non-factual content and place
something that is known to be true.

Ceri: The last post was rather uncalled for. Should I assume the same of
you because your proof was invalid?

These kinds of pissing contests are really what's getting FreeBSD in a
lot of trouble these days.

-- 
Kind regards,

Devon H. O'Dell   |      dodell at sitetronics.com
Key: 4D3D8CA7     | IRC: dho at freenode/dho at efnet
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