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BSD's ifconfig isn't really related to Linux's ifconfig anymore because BSD has continued development and the Linux fork or version (don't remember which it is

BSD's ifconfig isn't really related to Linux's ifconfig anymore because BSD has continued development and the Linux fork or version (don't remember which it is anymore) hasn't. Linux's ifconfig is a part of net-tools (http://net-tools.sourceforge.net/ http://net-tools.sourceforge.net/) and the latest release of net-tools, v1.6, was released in April 2001. It's been unmaintained for over 17 years. Some distros began deprecating ifconfig when the Linux 2.2 kernel was released because it lacked features. The Linux ifconfig command doesn't support wireless network devices because they essentially didn't exists when the the command was written. Shit's old. It's like comparing Seamonkey to Netscape Communicator.

ori_b 8y ago
> BSD's ifconfig isn't really related to Linux's ifconfig anymore because BSD has continued development and the Linux fork or version (don't remember which it is anymore) hasn't. There's a simple solution to the lack of maintenance on ifconfig: Maintain ifconfig. There's no need to break shit.
- da_chicken 8y ago
  It's open source. Feel free. I'd expect there are significant architectural differences between Linux and BSD by this point, though, that would make it quite a challenge. Alternately, it might be like adding major new features to Xorg: possible but extremely challenging. My understanding is that the Linux version of net-tools was based on the BSD software, but I don't know how much code is actually shared between the two projects. It was intended to be syntactically equivalent and support the same features (at the time). You'd probably find it easier to write a net-tools-like wrapper for iproute2. Yes, someone could have just extended net-tools. But nobody did. Instead, they wrote iwconfig and other tools when they were needed, and then someone decided to write a competing package, iproute2, that did everything. And that package added feature support when they were added them to the kernel, and bugs got fixed. Those didn't happen with net-tools unless each distro took care of it. https://lwn.net/Articles/710533/ https://lwn.net/Articles/710533/
  - ori_b 8y ago
    > It's open source. Feel free. I use BSD. And while I would send in patches for ifconfig, I haven't needed to. I have sent in patches for other things.
davidcuddeback 8y ago
> It's been unmaintained for over 17 years. So is the Linux ecosystem just going to rewrite tools everytime their original developer moves on or passes away? It's going to happen more in the future, so are we going to see more and more rewrites in Linux? There's something to be said about the BSD approach of maintaining the OS (kernel + userland) as a whole. They don't seem to have this problem.
- acqq 8y ago
  One great thinker gave a very clear view of what is going on in so many open source projects: https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
  - BenjiWiebe 8y ago
    I prefer fixing bugs to rewriting. Anyone want to hire me? /semi-sarcastic
equalunique 8y ago
Maybe Linux distros should look into using BSD's ifconfig as their upstream.
kalleboo 8y ago
So Debian can remove mysql and alias it to mariadb (with all kinds of interesting side-effects), but nobody thought to fork net-tools in order to actually maintain it, but instead decided to write something from scratch?

ori_b 8y ago

> BSD's ifconfig isn't really related to Linux's ifconfig anymore because BSD has continued development and the Linux fork or version (don't remember which it is anymore) hasn't. There's a simple solution to the lack of maintenance on ifconfig: Maintain ifconfig. There's no need to break shit.

da_chicken 8y ago
It's open source. Feel free. I'd expect there are significant architectural differences between Linux and BSD by this point, though, that would make it quite a challenge. Alternately, it might be like adding major new features to Xorg: possible but extremely challenging. My understanding is that the Linux version of net-tools was based on the BSD software, but I don't know how much code is actually shared between the two projects. It was intended to be syntactically equivalent and support the same features (at the time). You'd probably find it easier to write a net-tools-like wrapper for iproute2. Yes, someone could have just extended net-tools. But nobody did. Instead, they wrote iwconfig and other tools when they were needed, and then someone decided to write a competing package, iproute2, that did everything. And that package added feature support when they were added them to the kernel, and bugs got fixed. Those didn't happen with net-tools unless each distro took care of it. https://lwn.net/Articles/710533/ https://lwn.net/Articles/710533/
- ori_b 8y ago
  > It's open source. Feel free. I use BSD. And while I would send in patches for ifconfig, I haven't needed to. I have sent in patches for other things.

davidcuddeback 8y ago

> It's been unmaintained for over 17 years. So is the Linux ecosystem just going to rewrite tools everytime their original developer moves on or passes away? It's going to happen more in the future, so are we going to see more and more rewrites in Linux? There's something to be said about the BSD approach of maintaining the OS (kernel + userland) as a whole. They don't seem to have this problem.

acqq 8y ago
One great thinker gave a very clear view of what is going on in so many open source projects: https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
- BenjiWiebe 8y ago
  I prefer fixing bugs to rewriting. Anyone want to hire me? /semi-sarcastic

equalunique 8y ago

Maybe Linux distros should look into using BSD's ifconfig as their upstream.

kalleboo 8y ago

So Debian can remove mysql and alias it to mariadb (with all kinds of interesting side-effects), but nobody thought to fork net-tools in order to actually maintain it, but instead decided to write something from scratch?