Jon Dowland writes: > It completely predates Debian releasing non-Linux > kernels and is not mentioned in the social contract. That some > people feel it justifies (or even mandates) non-Linux kernels in > Debian is a retcon. pf, ZFS; these are valid reasons stated that > support kFreeBSD. "I interpret 'the Universal OS to mean'?" is not.
Debian has a long history of trying to make it possible to use Debian for as many purposes as we can, even when that means that the system has to be more complicated, or even when it means Debian has to be less perfectly suited to some particular purposes - even particular purposes which many people think are very important. Or to put it another way, we place a very high value on flexibility. Whatever phrase one uses to encapsulate this, I think it is one of Debian's strengths. Being able to run a different kernel is, I think, one of those strengths. Others have given practical reasons why one might want to run a specific different kernel right nnow. But another reason is just that it wouldn't be healthy for us to bind ourselves too inextricably to the success of any other project, even one as well-established and apparently successful as the Linux kernel. For me, all this means we should not standardise on an init system which depends heavily on very Linux-specific (and perhaps not even particularly stable) kernel features. Ian. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20024.15657.543535.292...@chiark.greenend.org.uk