Now, finally, there's the promise of a BSD that has Office Apps, and advanced Window Managers like Gnome and KDE and a whole wealth of other goodies that have suddenly become available.
It sounds like you're accusing the BSD systems of trying to soak up the credit for other people's work. There are a couple of flaws here. One of them seems to be a fundamental problem with how some folks in the Linux camp think - the notion that software developed on Linux should automatically be developed for Linux. We shouldn't forget that most of the really useful stuff that Linux systems use (the X-Window system, TCP/IP, BIND, Sendmail, various WWW servers and so on) were developed for UNIX systems generally (often under Open Source though non-GPL licences). It is good and proper that Linux systems should take advantage of this code that big-hearted people contributed to the community. But similarly, it is reasonable that people writing Linux-focussed software should (and generally do) write their software so that it will compile and run on just about any other UNIX system, including BSD. So Linux used existing UNIX services and GNU tools to build an OS and that BSD (or AIX or Solaris or whatever) users benefit from projects that gain their Oomph from Linux fever. That isn't riding on coat-tails, that's making the best use of the available technology, consistent with what the software authors wanted. And of course, it's what Open Source is all about...
In any case, any success that *BSD has is, in not small part, due to the availability, reliability and quality of gcc. Last I checked, gcc is Open Source. Thus, the lesson to be drawn from BSD's success is that Open Source is a powerful force.
Well, the first point to note is that BSD predates gcc (GNU anything, actually) by a number of years. The various Free BSD's today, of course, benefit greatly from gcc, and it's hard to see how they would get by without it. Nonetheless, I can't come to terms with your conclusion. The success of the current BSD generation is of course an indication of the strength of Open Source software. Because BSD _is_ open source software. Open Source != GPL.
Furthermore, I can honestly say that I'd be just as lost on AIX, Solaris and just about any other commercial UNIX without the option of installing gcc for free instead of an expensive vendor-supported compiler.
Re:If the BSD's succeed (Score:1)
It sounds like you're accusing the BSD systems of trying to soak up the credit for other people's work. There are a couple of flaws here. One of them seems to be a fundamental problem with how some folks in the Linux camp think - the notion that software developed on Linux should automatically be developed for Linux. We shouldn't forget that most of the really useful stuff that Linux systems use (the X-Window system, TCP/IP, BIND, Sendmail, various WWW servers and so on) were developed for UNIX systems generally (often under Open Source though non-GPL licences). It is good and proper that Linux systems should take advantage of this code that big-hearted people contributed to the community. But similarly, it is reasonable that people writing Linux-focussed software should (and generally do) write their software so that it will compile and run on just about any other UNIX system, including BSD. So Linux used existing UNIX services and GNU tools to build an OS and that BSD (or AIX or Solaris or whatever) users benefit from projects that gain their Oomph from Linux fever. That isn't riding on coat-tails, that's making the best use of the available technology, consistent with what the software authors wanted. And of course, it's what Open Source is all about...
In any case, any success that *BSD has is, in not small part, due to the availability, reliability and quality of gcc. Last I checked, gcc is Open Source. Thus, the lesson to be drawn from BSD's success is that Open Source is a powerful force.
Well, the first point to note is that BSD predates gcc (GNU anything, actually) by a number of years. The various Free BSD's today, of course, benefit greatly from gcc, and it's hard to see how they would get by without it. Nonetheless, I can't come to terms with your conclusion. The success of the current BSD generation is of course an indication of the strength of Open Source software. Because BSD _is_ open source software. Open Source != GPL.
Furthermore, I can honestly say that I'd be just as lost on AIX, Solaris and just about any other commercial UNIX without the option of installing gcc for free instead of an expensive vendor-supported compiler.