Updated FreeBSD Release Schedule

Serin K Medusa writes: "The folks over at FreeBSD.org have put up a new 'roadmap' detailing the plan of action for the remainder of the year. In particular, check out the plans for a 5.0 preview and expected dates for 4.6. Interesting reading if you're following -CURRENT."

Re:i like freeebsd

[Anonymous Coward]

Why screw up the rock solid stability and great security just to put out a few more issues a year. If you want bleeding edge, pull your binaries off the daily builds and you can have updated to your heart's content.

Re:Well planned release

[ksb]

Oh well, it won't be the first time a better OS has lost (think VMS)

I think this article should really show that it's certainly not time to write off Freebsd...

Re:Well planned release

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Linux is a kernel and FreeBSD is a whole OS. You should compare it to one of the distros.

Re:Well planned release

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that distributions don't develop anything, they just package the kernel and userland, none of which they created themselves. FreeBSD develops and packages all of these things. I'd say that puts them well above any Linux distro in terms of comparisons for completeness.

Re:Wind River to follow Apple's Mac OS X strategy?

[rycamor]

So?

As a happy FreeBSD user, I fail to see why this "sucks". FreeBSD users tend to have the attitude that if FreeBSD is a good thing, why keep it from anyone? Business or non-business, it doesn't matter. In fact, generally it is a good thing for businesses to use FreeBSD wherever they want, because sooner or later they realize that they will benefit directly by contributing back to the main FreeBSD effort. Otherwise their (patched) version will drift too far from the main releases to be able to keep taking advantage of FreeBSD. Symbiotic relationship, you dig...?

Attitude problems

[Eric Green]

1) FreeBSD is user friendly, but it's picky about who its friends are. I like FreeBSD, but that's because I'm a member of the circle of people that FreeBSD is friendly with: computer geeks.

2) The attitude of the FreeBSD elite towards the hoi paloi is well known and noted. FreeBSD zealots have accused both me and David Miller of needing Qualudes in our meals when we point out (with code patches) idiocies in FreeBSD that need fixing (especially irritating when we just finished fixing the same idiocy in Linux... idiocy is idiocy, no matter what OS it is in or who wrote the code, and the migration goes from Linux->FreeBSD as often as it goes from FreeBSD->Linux, there's no reason for FreeBSD zealots to jump down our throats just because we're Linux geeks who found a bug in their precious OS).

3) The so-called stability advantages of FreeBSD are a myth. From FreeBSD 3.3 up to FreeBSD 4.0, both my system at home and my system at work would spontaneously reboot at random intervals under FreeBSD (I mention two different systems because that rules out hardware problems -- hell, they didn't even have the same chipset, one was AMD and one was Intel, the only thing they had in common was that both had an IDE hard drive). In fact, FreeBSD 3.4 led me to switch back to Linux -- I got tired of my system spontaneously rebooting and destroying all my unsaved work.

I love the FreeBSD ports system, and wish there was something similar for "mainstream" Linux distributions. RPM's rock for pre-packaged software (pkg_add etc. are decidedly showing their age as package management tools), but suck for software that you're trying to update from the source stream.

FreeBSD has one advantage: It is an operating system. Linux is not an operating system. Linux is a kernel, surrounded by a hodge-podge of tools tossed into it willy-nilly kitchen sink fashion. In particular, the entire "C" library situation in Linux is tragic. It seems like every other release of a distribution will go to a new incompatible version of the "C" library, to the point where we have over 10mb of "C" libraries loaded in memory to run our normal work load of software compiled against various different versions of those libraries, and the "C" library suffers hugely from code bloat. FreeBSD never seems to have that problem. Of course, FreeBSD doesn't have any precompiled commercial software written for it anyhow...

Basically: I see no religious reasons to use one OS over the other. At various times in each OS's development they have swapped places as to which one was least stable. Neither one is anywhere near perfect. But I expect to be flamed roundly from FreeBSD zealots with attitude for daring to suggest that their precious OS was at anytime unstable, even though they can go to their very own mailing list and see the bug report for the problem -- and see how long it took to solve it.

I currently run Linux. I run Linux for one reason, and one reason only: software availability. Yes, FreeBSD has a Linux emulator. No, it isn't perfect, and I don't have time to play with it nowdays. I am by no means a rabid fan of Linux nowdays -- the whole 2.4 series kernel has been a disaster, for example -- but I need to get work done, and it's "good enough". Purity is for virgins, not software.

Please Ask Yourself This

[Neovanglist]

I have a question of this community. I remember back in the days when conversations would be carried out over BBS forums/newsgroups. What I remembered of those "old-school" programming/networking communities was a group of people who were always ready to help, and who were always ready to encourage someone in whatever they set out to do. I have a hard time understanding how this community turned into something as bitter and close-minded as what it is now. It seems that there are only a handful of people left out there that still have the original focus of what created this community.

I do not understand how this bitter *BSD vs. *Linux war started. One side blames the other, and vice-versa. The result is a spiral toward a completely destroyed community. You may ask yourself "Well what is in being nice and helpful for me" the answer is, if this trend continues and expands itself onto others like it has as of recent, there will be no more community. That means that once again the computer world will be dominated by companies who are out for nothing but money, and as a direct result, you will suffer from it. Even with corporations like Sun Microsystems, who are big supporters of this community, if the community turns south, it will start to hurt them as well, resulting in them ceasing involvement with it.

As much as you all say *BSD is dead, you do nothing but complain about how it is dead, and why nobody should focus on it any more. Wouldn't someone truly in the spirit of open-source do what they could, or contribute to *BSD in some way to help it? You must all see that the reason any OS will fail is because of a lack of support from a community. Even Windows would disappear off the face of the earth should no person want to use it or support it. I do not believe that *BSD is dead, but with respect to those who do, please answer my question. Why do you continue to say this without making a effot to help? The only reasons I can find is that it is either easier for you to just complain and do nothing, or you vent personal frustration on it thus making yourself feel better at the expense of others. Both are acceptable, but there are other answers that would benefit the community as a whole as well.

This community greatly reminds me of a failed Communist government. It started with intentions to make everyone equal, and make everything available to everyone on the terms that some people would give to the community as well as take. But this proves that history repeats itself, even on a medium such as the Internet. It would seem to me that once again a Communist government has failed because of one thing. Money. Greed from corporation's, people's frustration from it, and a mixed, and cut-throat atmosphere have destroyed it. The people are becoming bitter, and taking harsh sides, (Note the way people acted during the Russian/Soviet revolutions, because the community activity matches up quite well with what we see here) and making bitter enemies.

As much as it would seem, that all hope is lost, it is not. With cooperation of this community, and a re-focus of what we all try to stand for, we can rebuild it into something far greater, and something remarkable that can leave it's positive mark on the world for future generations to behold.

Please, join me and join all of us who want to make this community great, and voice your thoughts on what this should become. Lets build toward a future, not destroy it. I am going to call this emotion of mine the "Open-source Manifesto" and hope that one day the world will share it for the good of not only the Internet, but the people that love it so.

Regards,
Chris Gilbert

Re:Well planned release

[SurfsUp]

Funny, I switched from RedHat to FreeBSD due to a seemingly endless line of RPM dependancy issues, config files that seem to defy all logic, and a directory structure that feels like your totally lost in a video game maze.

It sounds like you really needed to try Debian.