BSD Usage Survey

hubertf writes "The BSD Certification Group announced the BSD Usage Survey today (non-English version also available). 'This survey aims to collect detailed statistics on how and where BSD systems are used around the world. The survey is short- only 19 questions- and should only take a few minutes to complete. The survey covers usage of the four main BSD projects - FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and DragonFly BSD.'"

Personal use?

[theapodan]

The survey doesn't address personal use, which I would assume is a larger, more important part of the various BSD projects because with larger consumer market share, there is more of a push to develop drivers to support devices, and more reason for appliation developers to port apps.

I think that developing an operating system intended for business is a fine thing, but developing an operating system that can handle different markets in the event of a collapse of a market is better.

Re:Dragonfly BSD

[CyricZ]

But don't forget that the core DFBSD developers were a few years back amongst the core FreeBSD developers. They include guys like Matt Dillon, who basically was FreeBSD before the split. It's no wonder that DragonFlyBSD is now becoming the premiere production BSD: all of the developers who once made FreeBSD great are now working on it! Meanwhile we see FreeBSD still struggling to produce a stable branch. It was only with the latest FreeBSD 5.4 release that many people actually considered switching over.

Like it or not, DragonFlyBSD is bound to take the role FreeBSD has. DragonFlyBSD will soon be the BSD you use on your production server or workstation. Its revolutionary rearchitecturing will no doubt be quite beneficial when it comes to the multicore and multiprocessor systems which will soon become widespread. Meanwhile, systems like FreeBSD which have failed to make the transition to a far more threaded kernel design will lose the performance race.

Re:Personal use?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

...Do you see any goal about "intended for business"?...

and...

They are not very interested in "markets" or "market share".

If this is the case, then honestly, what is the purpose of a BSD Certification? Obviously the goal of such a certification (in fact all "professional" certifications) is acceptence of BSD (or whatever the product) in the business sector. Think about it.

Re:Personal use?

[theapodan]

What you seem to be ignoring is that the way to drive acceptance of *nix operating systems has been to bind them to hardware, sun, ibm, etc. Linux has rewritten paradigm to great success, and the BSD's also do so. However, without sufficient push for more devices, BSD can ONLY be targeted at the business sector.

So here's the question that I pose to you: what is the purpose of a BSD certification if only the business sector uses BSD? Without end users, there is nobody that needs a certified tech. There is less risk involved in hiring someone uncertified if there is no stake with end user consumers.

So before you go mouthing off that I should "Think about it," perhaps you should dwell on the relationship between software vendors and the consumer.

Or you could churn out 10 more posts in hopes of getting modded insightful again.

Re:4 Main?

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X is not a BSD distribution, nor is OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, FreeBSD or FlyingWang BSD. Each BSD is it's own operating system, not that mangled mess that is used to refer to a Linux-based operating system.

Also, OS X contains BSD code, it is not based on BSD - it is based on OpenStep, which contained BSD code as well. Google's your friend.

Re:Personal use?

[Huge Pi Removal]

Harder to install? /stand/sysinstall (run from the boot CD) is functionally identical in 4 and 5. I've installed many FreeBSD servers down the years, and I can't say I've noticed any difference with 5. You just say "yes" or "no" to the options, hit install, then spend the next few minutes digging round the ports installing what you want (and the ports system is unchanged too).

What, precisely, did you have problems with?