Ilwrath wrote:
Yeah, I think they missed that part. I will ask why you chose netbsd, though... Amiga OS has most everything you'd need for the project you're working on, and really it's just not an Amiga if it isn't running Amiga OS. Besides, didn't netbsd recently drop the Amiga m68k line after lack of interest?
Well, you can also look at it as a continuation of the AMIX tradition.
NetBSD didn't drop Amiga/68k - that was OpenBSD, and it's an example of the differences between the... three/3.5/four major BSD projects. NetBSD's focus is on continuing/extending the BSD lineage through wide platform support and an open development model. (Read: Major alterations to NetBSD must generally survive on/not break the codebases for the platforms supported.) OpenBSD was forked from NetBSD, and originally chose to preserve the Amiga port, among others- but their focus is on security, and so they've decided to allow the (undermaintained, for lack of knowledgeable volunteers) Amiga port succumb to its bitrot;
they have bigger things to
worry about right now.*
FreeBSD, in turn, began sort of oblong to NetBSD,** and has since taken on a sort of staid, RedHat-like role, supporting i386 (and soon a few other platforms) for what's supposed to be stable, 'production' use... and for now, Darwin attracts those who equate free labor for Apple with Saving the Universe. (Okay, that's a bad joke. A lot of developers seem to enjoy Darwin because 1. many of its outstanding issues are probably 'easy stuff' long-since tackled in the other systems, and 2. it, and the commercial OS based on it, are 'different' enough that people are finding it a playground for ideas that couldn't be made to fit in the other projects, for whatever reason. Plus, Apple does
pay their developers.)
Perhaps that mudd- er, clears things up? In any case, NetBSD isn't known for dropping projects; at worst, they end up in perpetual
stalled development or
limbo - which *does* mean anyone can jump in at a later point and improve them. (Not that the linked amigappc attempt seems to *have* any code that made it to the tree.) Even OpenBSD
isn't removing the code from their server; they're just not going to roll new developments into it without anyone to catch integration issues and tell them if it works.
--
*Each word is an individual link, there. Know all the deadly.org ones don't make it obvious.
**
Bang forehead on link to continue;
history of the death/rebirth of the original 386BSD project here...
and a timeline including BSD and Linux development over here.