NetBSD Project Calls for Donations

A reader writes:"Thor Lancelot Simon from the NetBSD project recently made a post to the netbsd-advocacy mailing list, outlining the project's desperate need for monetary donations from its users and supporters to help improve NetBSD for everyone. Please read Thor's post here and think seriously about helping out this excellent open source project. Even the smallest donation counts, if enough people pitch in."

An excellent BSD

[terryfunk]

You should contribute it is excellent. Something that you need when you least expect it

Re:An excellent BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll second that. I think it's unfortunate that when people are summing up the BSD's, they often go for the age-old "Free for performance, Open for security, Net for putting on a toaster". This gives people the impression that NetBSD is only worth checking out if you want to run it on bizarre or outdated hardware, and consequently it never seems to get considered as an OS in its own right. I urge those with the time and interest to at least check it out. Even on run of the mill x86 systems that will run any other OS, NetBSD provides a clean, minimalist, reliable Unix that's a pleasure to use. Just because it doesn't have a whole lot of hype doesn't mean there's not a lot to be excited about.

Re:An excellent BSD

[cmad_x]

Disclaimer: I haven't tried NetBSD yet.

NetBSD provides a clean, minimalist, reliable Unix that's a pleasure to use.

The thing is, OpenBSD provides just as good a minimalist, clean and reliable system (note that in my opinion, the term minimalist is subjective). Heck, even FreeBSD provides a clean and reliable system (whether is minimalistic or not could be argued).

I'm willing to give it a try though. Mainly because some of the pkgsrc features seem nice. Of course I might run into other neat stuff w

Re:An excellent BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenBSD provides just as good a minimalist, clean and reliable system

Quite right - I love OpenBSD as much as the next guy, and use it for my router/firewall box. I'd consider NetBSD more suitable for a desktop or desktopesque box, though. It boots faster, for one thing, and pkgsrc tends to keep more up to date with its software than OpenBSD ports and packages. I see that the Firefox package in OpenBSD 3.7 is 1.0.1, which is before an awful lot of nasty security fixes where made (well, it says 1.0.1.p1

Re:An excellent BSD

[compass46]

Firefox was updated 6 days ago to 1.0.4 for the 3.7 branch.

http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/ports/www/mo zilla-firefox/Makefile?rev=1.21.2.1&content-type=t ext/x-cvsweb-markup [openbsd.org]

Re:An excellent BSD

[compass46]

I don't see why anyone modded down the parent of this reply...

I use both Free and Open since those serve my my needs. Haven't found a need for Net not served by the other two so far. I would say that FreeBSD makes a better desktop for me because of the frequent updates to the ports tree. I like having Gnome 2.10 installed and having 2.12 probably ready a few weeks after its release.

On the flipside, I like having OpenBSD on my server box because the ports tree is updated less frequently. Essentially on

Re:An excellent BSD

[cmad_x]

I would say that FreeBSD makes a better desktop for me because of the frequent updates to the ports tree. I like having Gnome 2.10 installed and having 2.12 probably ready a few weeks after its release.

Yes, that's why I use it as my dekstop OS as well.

My personal wish is that FreeBSD would take the same approach that OpenBSD had NetBSD have with their ports trees and create a security branch. That would give me the size of the FreeBSD ports tree with the stability of the Open/Net Trees.

A secur

Re:An excellent BSD

[Tet]

OpenBSD provides just as good a minimalist, clean and reliable system

Much as I love OpenBSD, that's not strictly true. The NetBSD init system, for example, is a thing of beauty, and it's both cleaner and more functional than the traditional equivalent found in OpenBSD. There's a lot of innovation happening in NetBSD, and it's worth keeping an eye on.

Re:An excellent BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly the reason I think it's important people donate (I certainly will be). I think the NetBSD project is at a very exciting time in its life, where it is making the sort of solid progress that could help it become less obscure than it is now. After the excellent 2.0 release, it would be a shame if financial troubles slowed things down now.

Re:An excellent BSD

[mvdw]

Yes, yes, yes, Open BSD is nice and all, but does it run on Alpha with turbochannel bus? Does it have downloadable install ISOs? Does it have pkgsrc? No, no and no, so it is not a direct replacement for NetBSD for me.

Of course, I should probably be running openBSD on my sparc web server, but netBSD had downloadable, bootable ISOs available, and openBSD didn't...

Re:An excellent BSD

[Gendalia]

The NetBSD packages collection [netbsd.org] works on OpenBSD, among a host of other operating systems.

Re:An excellent BSD

[UnixSphere]

I don't even use NetBSD, but I am donating anyways. If I ever do try BSD or migrate to BSD, NetBSD is the most attractive.variant in my eyes.

Re:Seriously

[FullMetalAlchemist]

No they won't; unfortanly; because it's open source. People are cheap!

Now, go get yourself a subscription and think of all the lovely and unrivaled man-pages that you get, similar to a magazine subscription :-)

Re:Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people really prefer donating money to buying CDs, even if the project has a lot of value to them. I hear this a lot about OpenBSD, where a lot of supporters will make an FTP download and donate $50 rather than buy the CD simply because it's more convient for them.

At any rate, I don't see how this would help. Presumably they aren't going to stop letting you download it for free. In that case, buying a copy is really not very different to just downloading it and donating some money - which is re

Re:Seriously

[aliquis]

I would indeed buy some nice looking Net(any-)BSD t-shirts if available. But just logo on white shirt? No thanks. OpenBSD has decent shirts, and stickers!
Case badges, mouse mats, bags, would also be ok =P

Re:Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the niftiest non-technical things about OpenBSD (up there with the release songs ^_^) is the quality of the merchandise. They have a wide range of tshirt designs in all main colours and levels of seriousness, and also some really nice posters. NetBSD's merchandise leaves a lot to be desired, admittedly, although I think I read somewhere that even they acknowledged this and were working on it.

Wasabi Systems used to make a nice black t-shirt that said "This Brain Runs NetBSD" and had a picture of th

Re:Seriously

[aliquis]

BSD mall [bsdmall.com] has some items but it seems they don't have that shirt.

PkgSrc

[rpbailey1642]

PkgSrc [pkgsrc.org] alone is worth a small donation. With it, you can compile the same apps for many different operating systems, including Solaris, *BSD, Linux, and Irix. While not as extensive as some of the Port systems, the fact that it is so standardized across the board is a decent exchange.

Re:PkgSrc

[The Nine]

PkgSrc is much more extensive than OpenBSD's ports, and not quite as extensive as FreeBSD's - but, frankly, you'll find most of what you'll ever need in there. And you're right, the portability aspect is wonderful.

Re:PkgSrc

[rpbailey1642]

Just FYI:

Gentoo(Linux, not BSD) [gentoo-portage.com]:
19384 ebuilds, 9440 Packages, Last Updated At 12:21:45 GMT

PkgSrc (NetBSD+) [pkgsrc.org]:
Over 5400 packages

FreeBSD Freshports [freshports.org]:
10897

I was unable to find stats for OpenBSD, but I last recall it was in the 2000 range.

Anywho, my point being, it contains about 1/2 of the packages that Gentoo has (and, let's be honest, a lot of the stuff in Gentoo is fluffy crap) and runs on platforms that it is dead-impossible to find decent apps for, like AIX.

Re:PkgSrc

[pschmied]

It just so happens that AIX support is a little behind the other platforms with pkgsrc. Nevertheless, I know what horse to bet on. Pkgsrc is amazing.

I'm actually trying to work out an issue with pkgsrc on AIX as we speak (perl58 is broken).

When I send the NetBSD people my donation, It'll be with a thank you card.

-Peter

Re:PkgSrc

[Brandybuck]

You can't make a straight comparison, because each of those projects has a different level of package "granularity." For example, do you make kdeutils one package, or split it up into a dozen? Is X.org one package, or has it been broken out into libs, server, clients, fonts, etc? There's also the issue of multiple versions of a software counting as multiple packages.

Comparing you numbers, it seems fairly clear that PkgSrc has half the available software as Gentoo, but it's hard to tell if which has more be

Hit up corporate users

[DesScorp]

Our new office's copier uses NetBSD as it's OS. I'm pretty sure the company hasn't dropped a dime in the foundation's pocket. I'm a supporter of the BSD license, but if companies are using the OS, and not pitching in even a pittance voluntarily, perhaps a gentle reminder of how much expense it would cost to move to a new OS is order? Perhaps another reminder of how if they went to say, ohhhh, Linux, that they'd have GPL issues to deal with? Yeah...that sounds like it's worth a check for a couple of grand to me...

Double Standard

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I'm pretty sure the company hasn't dropped a dime in the foundation's pocket.

Don't you remember? BSD and GPL are free as in beer. No cost. Just like music, remember? You remember those pesky RAII guys? Free as in don't have to pay a thin dime free? You feel no reason to pay for corporate sponcered IP, why should I pay for yours?

Re:Hit up corporate users

[liamjfoy]

Am interested in the copiers model information. Who makes them?

Re:Hit up corporate users

[DesScorp]

Here's [stengerbusiness.com] what you're looking for...

I was perusing the manual when I saw the note on its' OS. They clearly state it's NetBSD. We've got the 2522.

Re:Hit up corporate users

[hubertf]

FWIW, the "Savin" family seems to be produced by Ricoh, which is known to use NetBSD [netbsd.org] for some time.

- Hubert

Re:What is needed is a series of benchmarks

[rudolfel]

Mee too. I always like benchmarks. Especially when the people who do it have no idea of what a benchmark is. How about a bechmark which compares apples with grapes ? I would really like one of those ;-)

Re:I'd donate if...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can send a check or do a bank transfer. Just contact the finance email address listed in the link. Trust me, they will happily accept your donation.