Re: [Bug-gnulib] Re: [PATCH] ping on GNU/KFreeBSD patch sent a while ago

[Bruno Haible]

Robert Millan wrote:
> Just a sidenote -- Richard's point is that the "K" means "kernel of" to
> distinguish between FreeBSD as the whole system and KFreeBSD as its kernel.
> Then the kernel name in that context would be "KFreeBSD" ("Kernel of
> FreeBSD")

Which goes against the nomenclature set out in config.sub. There RMS wrote:

# The goal of this file is to map all the various variations of a given
# machine specification into a single specification in the form:
#       CPU_TYPE-MANUFACTURER-OPERATING_SYSTEM
# or in some cases, the newer four-part form:
#       CPU_TYPE-MANUFACTURER-KERNEL-OPERATING_SYSTEM
# It is wrong to echo any other type of specification.

FreeBSD with FreeBSD userland and FreeBSD with GNU libc and GNU userland
certainly share the same kernel, then either they should be called

        i386-pc-freebsd-freebsd
        i386-pc-freebsd-gnu

or (if RMS really thinks it's his job to tell how the FreeBSD kernel should be
called)

        i386-pc-kfreebsd-freebsd
        i386-pc-kfreebsd-gnu

But using different $host_kernel values ("freebsd" for one and "kfreebsd"
for the other) will only create porting hassles for programs which depend
on the kernel (e.g. which depend on the way to access the sound card or
the console keyboard map etc).

Also, to detect whether the ELF dynamic loader from GNU or the ELF dynamic
loader from NetBSD is used, programs have to look distinguish
        i386-pc-netbsd-gnu
and     i386-pc-knetbsd-gnu

i.e. they have to look at the $host_kernel field. Although the ELF dynamic
loader is implemented in libc, not in the kernel.

It's just silly.

Bruno