BSDi Is Livin' On The Edge! 52
Again, from Daily Daemon News, it looks like the Japanese ISP, Livin' On The Edge has infused BSDi with a 5 million dollar strategic investment to keep developing the iExtreme line of servers and provide backing to the FreeBSD project. The actual press release is here.
excellent (Score:1)
Now, try to imagine the state of open source in another five years! Paying for an operating system for which you don't even have access to the code? You're nuts!
Japaneese (Score:2)
Re:but bsd aint linux (Score:1)
St-eenk-ing BSD/OS ;-) (Score:1)
It seems to me that BSDI has got a pretty good deal buying out Walnut Creek. I can't think of a single benefit (as a FreeBSD user) of the Walnut Creek merger with BSDI... maybe it'll make it easier to sell to my boss with some sort of commercial support package, but that's it.
IMHO, BSD/OS has long been surpassed by FreeBSD in terms of architecture, hardware support and price.
Brown Out
Re:ok don't flame me, but free bsd is bad (Score:1)
Re:excellent (Score:2)
Our friends across the big pond don't like the idea of spying or crashing an entire government full of MS OS's. Why can't we seem to take a lesson from the Chinese?
service option (Score:3)
Yahoo should invest in FreeBSD too! (Score:1)
Re:Yahoo should invest in FreeBSD too! (Score:3)
http://www.bsdi.com/news/press/20000310.php?emp
BSDi also announced that Yahoo! Inc. will take an equity interest in the new company.
money is always good.. (Score:1)
Re:but bsd aint linux (Score:1)
Ok, maybe BSD is inherently secure than Linux. But the system is as secure as the administrator can make it secure.
(Troll after this)
NT may not the most secure system in the world, but if admin knows what he does, and be careful about every service on the system, he/she can make a pretty good secure system out of it too.
Besides, if you look at it, BSD is pretty fragmented too (not that I really care). Just look at how many Unices (commercial or not) are derived from BSD.
XTREME! (Score:2)
Re:St-eenk-ing BSD/OS ;-) (Score:2)
Re:XTREME! (Score:1)
Re:Where (Score:1)
Re:but bsd aint linux (Score:3)
Err, I mean five. Only five BSD. Still, BSD is not fragmented at all. Just five BSD: OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, BSD/OS, Darwin... and MacOS X.
OK. Only six BSD. Still, its not that fragmented. Only six BSD: OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, BSD/OS, Darwin, MacOSX... and 4.4 BSD Lite Mach Server.
Hmm... maybe I'll try again. Only seven BSD. If you squint, they're not fragmented at all. Just seven wafer thin BSD versions. Unless you count all the old BSD operating systems, like SunOS, Ultrix, NeXT step, etc. Only seven. Until tomorrow.
Yeah -- BSD isn't fragmented, and like you said, it never will be.
Never attribute to malice... (Score:2)
Let me reiterate why it doesn't matter a single bit whether you publish under BSD, Mozilla or GPL license. Money and stupidity.
You mention Microsoft. Point to *one* bit of code where the stole (errr... reused, it's legal after all) stuff under the BSD license. They insisted on implementing their own TCP/IP stack, rather than reusing the free BSD stack.
If the BSD license had been compatible with Linux's, Linux could have had a decent TCP/IP stack years before it did. Really, Linux is as hurt by the license rift as BSD is.
I don't care how many companies use my work for free. Obviously you do. So be it. Now go out and fight extortion, hoarding and abuse rather than bashing the other free software developers.
Re:St-eenk-ing BSD/OS ;-) (Score:2)
I don't believe in fate! (Score:1)
As long as BSD powers the systems I care about most, Linux powers a significant fraction of the rest, and the Evil Empire is way down on the list of systems *I* care about, life is good.
Really, the "my foobar is bigger than your foobar" comparisons are relevant only if you need to convince top brass that you're making the right choice based on the numbers. I use what I think is best for the job, and so I think should anyone. Choice is good.
Re:but bsd aint linux (Score:1)
Jolitz started out with bad code too. (Score:1)
Linux *is* making astounding leaps in both functionality and quality. The BSD's *are* lagging in things like support for cutting edge (or real sick) hardware. Which is good and which is bad is a personal judgement issue.
Linux is pretty much an open development environment. BSD is more characterized by port maintainers who say Njet. Matter of fact, if Bill Jolitz had listened to all the critics who said that the i386 port was too ugly to touch with a ten foot pole, BSD would've been pretty much dead by now.
My personal view is that there is a continuum that runs from Linux, via FreeBSD, to OpenBSD, NetBSD and BSD/OS.
On the one side, there is a perfectly acceptable OS that may contain more stuff that idealists find ugly. On the other, there's a perfectly acceptable OS that is focused on correctness and security more than on features.
I'm running all of the above at home or at work, and all have their place. Sometimes you need products produced by people who say njet, and sometimes you need people like Bill Jolitz to produce something ugly that works and build on that.
We now return you to your regular schedule of Microsoft bashing.
Re:Security hole in *BSD TCP stack (Score:1)
Re:ok don't flame me, but free bsd is bad (Score:1)
Well, duh! That's what's so great about it!
Re:*BSD foundering (Score:1)
ummm... where you say "the" in all-caps : that's usually considered *rude*. I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it...
Re:ok don't flame me, but free bsd is bad (Score:1)
Stop depending on a license to make you free, because you already are!
All Code enters, no code leaves! Rarr!! (Score:3)
The code that is in FreeBSD stays there. BSD/OS is free to use the code. Big surprise. Even better, with BSDi's ability to pay programmers, there are a few more people getting paid to do nothing but work on open source code.
Maybe you should take a careful look at an awful lot of the code that is in Linux, when you have a spare cycle or two. BSD people don't raise a fuss about our code being used for Linux, and re-licensed. Know why? We tend to believe in freedom to use the code in _any_ _way_ you want to. (though preferably in some kind of productive way :) )
Do you realize you're as free to use the code created by FreeBSD programmers under the BSD license as BSD/OS is? (and all you have to do is give credit to the original coder.) Where's the bitterness coming from?
It's hard to be mean to a company that is paying more people to do what they love, code... it's similar to the large linux companies paying the salaries of top Linux hackers. Suddenly, gifted people aren't weighted down by other jobs, but are able to devote their time to the open source community.
Only the most rabid of "programming for money BAD!" zealots would disagree with this, I think.
-Ceren E. (who works at a company that pays both Linux and BSD hackers to do their thing)
FreeBSD'S "Strange Attractor."
cerene@uclink4.pinkfakehambad.berkeley.edu
BSDi is Livin' In the Fridge? (Score:3)
Re:but bsd aint linux (Score:1)
And the 180+ linux versions don't represent fragmentation?
Re:Jolitz started out with bad code too. (Score:1)
> functionality and quality. The BSD's *are*
> lagging in things like support for cutting edge
> (or real sick) hardware. Which is good and
> which is bad is a personal judgement issue.
BSDs had working USB support more than a year
before Linux. Does that qualify as lagging? Linux
is making "astounding leaps in both functionality
and quality"? Have you tried using latest kernel
2.4.0-testX-preY lately? Rumors about it's
improved stability are nothing but shameless hype
spread shamelessly by marketing drones working
for these countless Linux distributions "vendors"
which only need these gimmics to fool investors
into investing even more money into their
business. One of the most anticipated features of
the new Linux kernel is it's new VM which has
been largely based on FreeBSD design. Again, this
fact speaks quite contrary to Linux advocates
which like to create an impression that Linux
camp is the only innovations source in the Free
Software world, while the truth is that Linux was
always following someone's steps and did quite
poorly at that.
What's the point of BSD? (Score:1)
I'm sure BSD is a great OS. I used it years ago when Linux wouldn't recognize my mouse properly.
But, as the "email" from "bill gates" mentioned the other day, it seems like an enormous waste in duplicated efforts by creating very similar products independently.
If it's essentially the same as Linux, wouldn't it be beneficial to everyone involved to consolidate, and work together on a single, faster-evolving operating system? If one is superior in an area, won't it end up being incorporated in the other eventually anyway? Why not start at that point instead?
I admit to not knowing much about it, but I've always wondered that, and if someone has a serious answer, I'd appreciate the info.
Re:but bsd aint linux (Score:3)
My honest opionion is that Linux has gained an advantage over BSD by the very nature of its fragmentation (in distributions -- not in the kernel). Some of that advantage has been technical, but much of it has been social; the wide variety of linux has allowed just about everyone to find something in linux they like. Whether you're a l337 hacker trying to learn all the "arcane" options to "1337" commands like 'tar -xf && configure && make install', or an IBM executive trying to find a distribution to offer on workstations, or a software vendor hoping to escape the Microsoft hedgonomy, there is a Linux distribution made just for you.
It can also be argued that widespread linux buy-in has lead to a much wider variety of hardware and softare available to linux, making linux more flexible than BSD, and in some sense, technically superiour to BSD. This is dangerous arguement, however, as the same arguement leads us to believe that DOS is somehow superiour to both. In fact, the exact opposite may be true -- it is possible that an unfortunate side effect of a rush to popularity is a desire to provide a laundry list of desirable sounding items, instead of a short list of necessary items done correctly. Unfortunately, it also often true that broken things are talked about much more often than working things -- there is a strange correlation between popularity and brokeness that simply can't be ignored.
Unlike most people here, I do not believe "choice is good." At least, I do not believe it in the sense that it is often said -- I see no great advantage to being able to choose KDE or Gnome, or among a half dozen Java Virtual Machines, or among a dozen or so competing Linux distributions. But choice is very important in some cases. Different computers are used for different things. The demands placed on a farm of inexpensive webservers or a mail server are very, very different than the demands placed on a personal workstation, which are very different than the demands on a 365x24x7 SPF database server. Choice here is good. The option to choose the right tool for the task is very important. It does not matter much to me if I choose among two tools available for a job, which both do pretty much the same thing. It does matter to me if I can choose one good tool for one job, and another good tool for another job. This is where the choice between linux and BSD is good.
But there is another way to interpret choice; it can be interpreted as freedom. Its the kind of freedom that RMS keeps talking about -- the freedom to improve something that needs improving. BSD and linux are not so much about giving consumers a choice of operating systems (which is good, because they're not really interchangable), but instead about giving the developers a choice to develop what they feel needs developing. If I want BSD with SMP support, its entirely my choice to make a BSD with better SMP support. If I want a journaling filesystem, its entirely my choice to make a journaling file system. Its my choice.
This kind of choice really is what has led to both the fragmentation and vitality of Unix through the years. I would have to imagine that most of us on slashdot have had more accounts on more unix varients than we can count on our fingers and toes. We've all pulled our hair out over the differences. And we've all also realized that without every vendor being free to build their own thing, and copy each other, Unix would have stagnated and died long, long ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What's the point of BSD? (Score:1)
So if anyone should join anyone, Linux developers should stop and join FreeBSD.
Btw, not for everyone the only goal is "world domination". I don't care if there are more users of some other OS, be it Linux of Windows or whatever. I only care that my favourite OS (which is clearly FreeBSD, it costs me much less time to maintain and run than anything else) has enough developers to keep my needs w.r.t. the operating system satisfied.
That said, my needs are not satisfied: What is really lacking is a native JDK with a decent JIT (such as a real 1.3 port with Hotspot). With all the money flowing into FreeBSD, and with all its professional users/ISP's, I don't comprehend why that is taking so long.
Nice, but where is that decent JDK? (Score:1)
Maybe SUN is somehow frustrating developments in this area, since they're scared that FreeBSD might be a real competitor for Solaris?
In fact it is, I know several ISP's that used to use Solaris and switched to FreeBSD or BSD/OS.
Whereas the small, starting ISP's tend to choose Linux (in that sense, Linux isn't as much of a competitor to SUN), the larger and more professional ones used Solaris, then switch to BSD.
Re:but bsd aint linux (Score:1)
offcourse there are small differences between different distros (biggest one being slackware using bsd init while rest is using sysV init) but lsb is working on making common standards for all gnu/linux based distros
imo differences can be both good and bad, for example if you like bsd init than you can run slack, if you dont like it use another distro.
btw can i run for example binaries compiled for nbsd on fbsd or bsd/os without any kind of emulation? if not than bsd is much more fragmented than gnu/linux is.
Re:Nice, but where is that decent JDK? (Score:1)
Though I'd rather have a native version of course.
*BSD is not for small potatoes. Large services and companies run on it. Maybe not very many, but that doesn't matter as long as it fills *your* need. It does fill mine so yes, I get FreeBSD.
Btw Linux does not fill my need: it costs me too much time to keep a stable and up-to-date version. The only advantage to me would be a native JDK, but if I have to choose between
BSD: easy maintenance, best performance, good consistent documentation, non-native JDK
Linux: native JDK
the choice is easy for me.
Average age of Livin On The Edge employees (Score:1)
Or maybe I just can't cope with being older than the average age :-)
(Is this a particularly Japanese/Asian thing - is the startup/tech community even more ageist over there?)
Re:What's the point of BSD? (Score:2)
150+ versions of Linux (wasted effort)
The GPL license causes people to have to re-write code so they can use it under license terms more acceptable than the GPL.
If it's essentially the same as Linux,
Ok... lets say we can lump Linux AND BSD in the same marketshare. And, lets say 10 million Linux users. BSD runs at 20%, 2 million. 12 million total users. Which of these 'linux' things have more than 16.6% of the 'combined market'?
So BSD is the leader in this market.
I admit to not knowing much about it,
Well, now you know that, based on conservation of efforts, BSD is a better choice.
*sigh* (Score:4)
Anyway, before storming in and complaining about how terrible BSD is, perhaps you should use it and try and offer constructive criticism, as BSD users generally do when they are faced with a bombardment of Linux users.
In some ways, this feels a bit like the old Amiga 500 vs. Atari ST wars. Neither side would admit that it's just cool to be able to have some reasonable processing power in your home for less than £400, they just wanted to undermine the other side. I get the feeling that the FreeBSD crowd are fitting into the under-dog Atari ST niche where their solution isn't as popular, but is better in some areas than anything else around. For the ST it was sound (they're still in use today in a lot of studios), and for FreeBSD it's stable, clean server and workstation work.
*sigh*
Re:Nice, but where is that decent JDK? (Score:1)
I have jdk-1.2.2b10 installed on my system. It is native. I have tested it enough to see how stable it is, but I have heard no complaints from other people.
First make sure you have swing downloaded (/usr/ports/java/jfc). Go to
Re:but bsd aint linux (Score:1)
This is not necessarily true. Some binaries are dependent on files being in different locations than a distribution may have placed them. The most recent RedHat shipped with a beta gcc which will cause trouble with its binaries being run on different Linux distributions. Different libc's can cause problems if you are not careful. Do not forget that hardware platforms dictate different binaries. This is probably why RedHat dropped the sparc platform. I think that was the platform they dropped. Suse still carries it though.
can i run for example binaries compiled for nbsd on fbsd or bsd/os without any kind of emulation?
I believe you need emulation, but I do not know. Fortunately, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD prefer to build software from the source as opposed to sending binaries (i.e., RedHat). As far as I know, the source will build on any of these BSD systems if it can build on one of them.
After running Linux from v0.99.14x to v2.2.12, I have watched the ever changing file layout with much pain. I basically maintained an ancient SLS distribution all those years. I can say with 100% certainty that FreeBSD is much easier to maintain. I will no longer have to face the problems of different libc's not getting along with the compiler. It was a relief to switch.
If you look at Linux with the eyes of psychohistory, you will see the divergence taking place.
With corporate backing happening more and more... (Score:1)
Re:but bsd aint linux (Score:1)
i can run same binaries on every linux distro, thus linux is same os (imo anyway) and is not fragmented into different incompatible os.
Great. You can run them on some of the BSDs too. As a recent example, my coworker got fed up with his Unreal Tournament server running on Red Hat and just copied the UT files directly to an existing FreeBSD server we had lying around. Thanks to the Linux compatibility, we are now enjoying UT running on the solid FreeBSD foundation.
Even if you assume that all Linux binaries will run on every distro (which is false, but close enough), the config file layout changes so much from one distro to the next that it really doesn't matter. At least the BSD folks have the presence of mind to give the projects different names, instead of trying to say that they're the same thing, just in a different distribution. If you can compile something on one BSD, you'll most likely be able to compile it on the others.
btw can i run for example binaries compiled for nbsd on fbsd or bsd/os without any kind of emulation? if not than bsd is much more fragmented than gnu/linux is.
Who cares if it's using emulation? If the binaries run, that's all that matters. Are debs and rpms compatible without installing extra software? Also a pointless discussion.
Anyway, use whatever you want. It's not about forcing everyone to use the same OS. It's about making a good OS that fits your needs. I find Open/FreeBSD nicer and easier to use than Linux, so I use them. That's it.
---
Re:excellent (Score:1)
I am not taking sides on the Microsoft NSA-key issue. For more information on the issue, please check out Cryptome [cryptome.org]
However, your comment:
is quite funny: FreeBSD and Linux and other OSS CAN be proven to not have any back-doors. Microsoft software cannot. China, Japan, and militia-men (and anyone else that wants) can audit the software they run for anything they want to. -AlRe:but bsd aint linux (Score:1)
As for the ports, I have that in many cases a port from FreeBSD can be used on either NetBSD or OpenBSD with little or no changes required. I have heard about the port unification project. It will be very useful.
Re:Security hole in *BSD TCP stack (Score:1)
Re:Security hole in *BSD TCP stack (Score:1)
Re:excellent (Score:1)
Practically speaking, yes. Open source software can be proven not to have any back doors. However, impractically speaking, no software is safe. I'm sure you all have already read this, but just in case, check out Ken Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust [acm.org].
Re:*sigh* (Score:1)
Probably for the same reason BSD zealots go the the Linux stories and rail about the "evils" of the GPL...
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
Re:but bsd aint linux (Score:1)
Insightful? This should have been moderated as Funny!
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
Re:ok don't flame me, but free bsd is bad (Score:1)
and not get the source to any changes back
I don't understand why the BSD license even exists. Why not copyright your source code and then put it in the public domain if you don't care how other people use it?
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
Re:ok don't flame me, but free bsd is bad (Score:2)
First of all, it makes no sense to both copyright AND place it in public domain. One or the other, but not both.
Second, users of the BSD license (as well as MIT and some others) are sharing their code, not giving it away.