Jordan Hubbard Resigns from FreeBSD Core 344
SteelX was one of many readers to cite this story in the Daily Daemon News which reports that "Jordan Hubbard is resigning from the FreeBSD core. Jordan is a founding member of the FreeBSD project." Note: According to this email, Hubbard is definitely not quitting FreeBSD; he's just changing the nature of his involvement with it.
Well, thanks Jordan (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks a million for all your hard work.
Re:Well, thanks Jordan (Score:1)
Re:Well, thanks Jordan (Score:1, Insightful)
Really. Thanks jkh. (Score:5, Insightful)
We never looked back. Over the years I've built at least 50 servers based on FreeBSD and at least that many based on linux. I've found them both to be reliable and good enough for commercial use but thanks to jkh and his pragmatic views on an OS distribution FreeBSD has been the more "stable" OS over the years.
Re:Really. Thanks jkh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone know how we could send jkh a nice case of beer and a pizza in return for the great work?
Re:Really. Thanks jkh. (Score:2)
Re:Really. Thanks jkh. (Score:2)
--
Re:Really. Thanks jkh. (Score:2)
Re:Really. Thanks jkh. (Score:1)
Yesterday, our company's mail server ( a Redhat Linux ) sunddenly stopped working and crashed, when we power off it and power on again, we found that the system just can not auto recover from crash, it refused continue to mount other filesystemes, we later found that our five ext2 file systems are all corrupted, we must manually
repair it, when finished the recover, we found mass file were lost.
we also use FreeBSD as our CVS server, in two years, we never found FreeBSD crash, we never lost
data even someone imprudencly power off it without shutdown system.
FreeBSD is rock solid, it's true.
Thanks Jordan and other FreeBSD hackers, you are my hero.
Re:Really. Thanks jkh. (Score:2)
Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is depressing. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Sooner or later, real life karma HAS TO catch up with them. We may never know for certain, but I for one, am looking for that strange little article on page 4 of the newspapers, describing how the most unbelievable set of circumstances managed to simultaneously drown, decapitate, burn, crush and and poison some pimply faced jerk of a teenager. This will be the one clue we have... that, and the slight S/N ratio increase here on
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:1)
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:2)
While we're on that topic, it would be interesting to see something about the embedded market as well. It's always tough to guage these things because GNU/Linux has huge popularity compared to the *BSD operating systems.
-Paul Komarek
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:2)
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:2)
Microsoft counts OEM Windows sales as equivalent to Windows usage. They could use registration numbers, but those would be too low. And then there is "piracy" in the case of Windows.
I figure the Linux Counter isn't any worse than any other estimation method -- especially since we're not even being careful to define what we mean by "user". At any rate, they guy's estimate of 18 million linux users falls between the research companies' estimates of 2 million to 60 million. =-)
-Paul Komarek
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:2, Funny)
2. How long has JKH been on the core?
3. Where does JKH currently work?
4. Will JKH be replaced? Where on the net can you find procedures detailing this process?
5. Do some research. How many people have been removed from the core? How many people have resigned from the core? What happens when a person quits the core team?
But what does any of that have to do with a rhetorical request to
Imagine a beowulf cluster of Jordan Hubbards
BSD can prove now how well it is organized (Score:2)
We FreeBSD users have always claimed that one of the big edges FreeBSD has over Linux, is that it is not a one man show. Linux will have a hard time and is in risk of fragmentation when Linus leaves Linux development. FreeBSD, much better organized, is not in such danger.
The first test when JKH stepped down as president and became a mere core member has been very succesful. Now is the next stage where the original 'leader' kind of leaves the project. Now FreeBSD can show that it is indestructible and not in any way dependant on a single person.
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:1)
Re:I just hope... (Score:1)
/usr/ports/emulators/vmware2
/usr/ports/em ulators/vmware-tools
etc, etc
Re:I just hope... (Score:2)
He was busy on the GL part when NVidia put him on the backburner due to the GF4 release being near.
I am sure that work has now resumed and it will only be a matter of time.
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Linux, the kernel, has an informal core body, with people wandering in and out. It is a much smaller project than FreeBSD, since FreeBSD is more than just a kernel. Therefore, one should be careful when reasoning about the benefits FreeBSD development methodology would bring to Linux.
-Paul Komarek
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you ever tried to release a significant piece of software with 101 different target platforms that vary so much? The reason Microsoft became such a success was because they provided the software developer a stable, standard platform to target (then Microsoft got its head up its arse, but that is a different topic). As long as Linux is such a raging mish mash, it will never become a success. FreeBSD, due do its development style, has the ability to surpass Linux as the alternate desktop OS to Windblows. However, the issue here is, that too many people have their heads up Linus' gaping arse to grok.
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:2)
No, I haven't. Have you? I have never seen any major project attempt to support every platform with precompiled binaries. Source availability is a major part of things working at all. It seems that developers usually choose to support one or two distros, and leave support for the remaining distros to interested 3rd parties. This is a sensible way to distribute the load.
If one wishes to release one's software binary-only, then I am not very interested in the difficulties encountered. I'll take source code over convenience any day.
-Paul Komarek
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I know. "X" will take over, "X" beeing Alan Cox or Matt Welsh or another of the handful of persons assumed to have sufficient standing with the community. But even if that works - Linux names him successor - it will work only in this first iteration. And I doubt even that.
f.
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:2)
-Paul Komarek
Re:Before the posts get out of hand... (Score:2)
How on earth can an open source project go out of business?
Please, take your trolling elsewhere.
Now the real work begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now the real work begins (Score:1)
i want to meet the original BSD Is Dying troll (Score:4, Funny)
Re:i want to meet the original BSD Is Dying troll (Score:2, Funny)
Apple? (Score:1)
Re:Apple? (Score:1)
Re:Apple? (Score:1)
Sorry to see him go... (Score:1, Interesting)
form he does today. The rest of the core team
is really strong, but clearly his involvement
will be missed. An interesting question for the
Linux side of things will be how long some of their
mainstays (Torvalds, Cox, et al) will hang in.
Everyone needs a change of direction sometime--
no one expects these people to want to do the same
thing for the rest of their lives, and it would
be unrealistic to do so.
Re:Sorry to see him go... (Score:1)
What the world is horribly short on are people who follow their dreams. Yes, it is completely reasonable to follow you dreams for the rest of your entire life. That was the point of my previous post. If everyone followed their dream for the rest of their lives, this world would be such a better place.
Too much success? (Score:1)
To all the "See BSD IS dying" trolls -- seems Jordan is leaving in a large part because of the bureaucracy and management overhead. Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't those signs of too much growth?
The platypus versus the daemon... (Score:2)
It is sort of sad to see something like that happen, though. One could assume it was inevitable, though I suppose that would be hard without knowing what exactly he does at Apple.
/Brian
Re:The platypus versus the daemon... (Score:1)
WHERE THE FUCK CAN I BUY A HEXLEY T-SHIRT????
Re:The platypus versus the daemon... (Score:1)
I'm also sad because AFGF (ask fucking google first) is a phrase I'm very fond of. I've had my googling schools questioned by an AC. I'm humbled, sir. Humbled.
Re:The platypus versus the daemon... (Score:1)
Re:Hexley vs. Beastie? (Score:2, Informative)
Beastie is the FreeBSD mascot
Link to Hubbard Hired by Apple... (Score:2, Informative)
hmm... (Score:1)
I switched my webserver from Linux to FreeBSD and haven't looked back.
Re:hmm... (Score:1, Offtopic)
You don't want to watch? rm -frv
Re:FreeBSD over Linux, yeah baby! (Score:2)
You should use netsaint:
Category net
netsaint-0.0.7,1
Extremely powerful network monitoring system
Maintained by: blaz@si.FreeBSD.org
Requires: freetype2-2.0.9, gd-1.8.4_6, jpeg-6b_1, libgnugetopt-1.1, netsaint-plugins-1.2.9.4, png-1.2.2
Description : Sources : Changes : Download
What I want to know is... (Score:1, Offtopic)
I find that after a really hard semester during which I've done nothing but pound my head at school and work. A good beer is the best way to unwind and relax. Jordan most definitely deserves it.
Best of luck to you Jordan, and thank you for all the really great work you've done for the world's best OS.
-Peter
Re:What I want to know is... (Score:2)
Re:What I want to know is... (Score:1)
Re:What I want to know is... (Score:2)
-Peter
kind of strange (Score:2, Insightful)
Pressure from APPLE? (Score:1)
Seriously, though, FreeBSD 5 rocks and Darwin is stuck in the old 3.? days. Macs would rock even more if they had a more modern BSD.
Re:Pressure from APPLE? (Score:2)
it's bogus. There's a lot to the Mac OS X kernel
that's not BSD at all. For example, the SMP stuff
is at the Mach layer, if I understand correctly.
Not to be mean, but please don't shoot your mouth
off like this, it's bad for everybody. It's ok to
speculate, but mark it as speculation.
Re:Pressure from APPLE? (Score:1)
Re:Pressure from APPLE? (Score:1)
Re:Pressure from APPLE? (Score:2)
Robert Watson and his TrustedBSD project has even got commit access on the Darwin tree.
Scott Long and myself have for UDF some contact with some Apple people.
Just because it is not visible to the general public doesn't mean that it is not there.
Re:Pressure from APPLE? (Score:2)
Thank you, Jordan (Score:3, Insightful)
I just want to say: thank you.
Just as I suspected (Score:3, Funny)
I don't belive all this trolling! (Score:1)
As for *BSD, from what I gather OpenBSD is still the only OS that can claim no remote vulnerabilities with the standard distro over four years. If there was ever a reason to use it as a firewall/gateway/router this should be it. I don't know much about FreeBSD and NetBSD except for Theo de Raadt's rant's about IP, but I like the OpenBSD attitude: They don't seem to see themselves in competition with any OS, they take their time to review the code and release a solid OS. On top of this they have a definite plus in terms of not being developed in the US and therefore not being subject to US export restrictions.
Could it be.....SATAN? (Score:2)
He's resigning - or is he? (Score:3, Funny)
Haiku for *BSD (Score:3, Funny)
Ugly Troll screams into night
Nobody listens
Haiku for Mod Bombing (Score:3, Funny)
With overrated, no less. Cheap shot. I think I'll write another haiku about it.
Crack smoke wafts through air
Humorless moderator
Why do you hate me?
Re:Haiku for *BSD (Score:2, Informative)
Please re-submit your haiku for moderation.
Re:Haiku for *BSD (Score:1)
Re:Haiku for *BSD (Score:1)
Limerick for *BSD (Score:1, Funny)
To hear him, you'd think him a crackpot
He kept screaming "BSD IS DYING!"
With false statistics, exaggeration, and lying
In truth, his rants were less pleasant than crotch-rot
Re:Limerick for *BSD (Score:1)
I couldn't resist "rewriting" it in 'proper' limerick form, however...
There once was a troll found on slashdot
Whose posts made him seem like a crackpot
Something's wrong with his head
Screaming BSD's dead
Thanks to Darwin it's just hit the jackpot
It does lack some of the panache of the original...
AFAIK, a limerick must follow these general conventions:
w S w w S w w S w - a
w S w w S w w S w - a
w w S w w S - b
w w S w w S - b
w w S w w S w w S w - a
(w=weak / S=strong / [ab]=rhyme scheme)
Cheers =)
Re:Limerick for *BSD (Score:2)
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got it all wrong, these aren't businesses. It's not a competition. Nobody wants to see the other guy go under. It's all about cooperation.
I think the lack of BSD projects is best explained by the huge number of Linux projects. Linux is cool, it's flashy, it goes with your gucci shoes, baby. It excites the hell out of people, which is a really good thing. Lots and lots of projects get created.
FreeBSD, on the other hand, isn't so exciting. There's not a fire under anyone's ass to get things done, since things are working pretty well as is.
I could be wrong, and if I am (even just a little bit), I'm sure someone will by kind enough to point out how.
Oh, and if this was a troll, bravo. No offense or anything, it just kind of has that ring to it.
You're half right... (Score:5, Insightful)
There isn't a huge number of linux projects (please read on before modding as troll).
There also isn't a huge number of BSD projects.
Actually, most of these projects... GNOME, KDE, etc... are pretty kernel/distribution independent. Remember, linux is only the kernel. Most of what you think of as linux, is GNU software. And it's all pretty portable, to a certain extent, even to windows (barf).
Linux and BSD don't compete for projects, they share them.
Slightly offtopic: What's with the "bsd is dying troll" variant that claims BSD lacks SMP? Will the next version claim that BSD has no keyboard support or shell prompt?
no! (Score:2)
People keep repeating this, but it just isn't true.
When people say or refer to "linux," they sometimes mean the kernel, and they sometimes mean the entire usable distribution. This includes the gnu utilities in all of the "working" distributions I know about save tomsrtbt (which, oddly, has started calling itself GNU/Linux). Important as those tools are, they're still a minority of what is thought of as "linux". X, sendmail, Perl, and others are larger than the GNU portion. A machine with just the Linux kernel and GNU software would be pretty close to useless for most purposes.
GNU software is significant--but it's hardly the bulk of what people mean by "linux"
>Will the next version claim that BSD has no keyboard support or shell prompt?
sure; it's supported keyboardless systems for years
hawk
Re:You're half right... (Score:2)
Indeed -- no keyboard...
Re:You're half right... (Score:2)
Re:You're half right... (Score:1)
Re:You're half right... (Score:2)
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:2, Insightful)
You've got it all wrong, these aren't businesses. It's not a competition. Nobody wants to see the other guy go under. It's all about cooperation.
You've both got it wrong. We (I speak for all of us, and the other ussesses know who us is) don't care about Linux any more than to offer some compatability.
You guys go on and try to topple Windows. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. We're content to have a stable OS on the DT that can't be beaten when it comes to heavy volume servers.
I'm not trolling, but if you guys ever have to maintain a box (not just a developer's workstation, or a play machine at home)... a full on mission critical server, you will find yourself securely seated with me in the BSD camp.
That is, if you can convince the powers that be to let go of Sun for a minute or two.
Anyway, FreeBSD is going somewhere. It will keep going towards that somewhere, regardless of what you think, or who nVidia releases drivers for, or whatever. BSD's community has a different spirit and you won't understand it until you look into it.
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:2)
ICC works on FreeBSD, which funnily is the Linux binary.
Furthermore I am at the moment revamping TenDRA in order to have an extra alternative. Takes time to get it up to par, but it is slowly coming about.
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:3, Insightful)
Gnome: application, works fine under FreeBSD
Mozilla: application, works fine under FreeBSD
The Gimp: application, works fine under FreeBSD.
No cool software for it.
What is it you are missing? Groupware? Last week I installed Evolution, without problems. Keep in mind, all these well-developed 'Linux' applications are actually well-developed 'Unix' applications and run under every Unix-like Operating System.
So, next time please consider: Linux (any distribution) is nothing more than Unix-like, *BSD (any flavour) is nothing more than Unix-like and *x (any commercial version) is nothing more than Unix-like. And they all are capable of running the same software, just
Edwin
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:2)
Actually, that's not true any more. As with anything, the arrival of the masses lowers the quality. As Linux has got more popular, the number of poorly written Linux-specific applications has increased dramatically, and the portability of a lot of software has significantly decreased. Yes, a lot of it does still work, but there's plenty that doesn't. Interesting to note that all three applications you cited are portable at least in part thanks to the design and portability of gtk and gdk.
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:2)
AFAIK most linux ports on FreeBSD install linux libraries and software from RedHat's RPM. Including glibc.
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:5, Informative)
Gnome is not a Linux program. Mozilla is not a Linux program. Gimp is not a Linux program. They all run just fine under FreeBSD.
GCC, bash, XFree86, tar, Perl, Windowmaker, etc, etc, etc, aren't Linux programs either. They're all Open Source Unix programs that work just fine under just about every Unix OS there is.
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:2)
You need to get a clue and find out what BSD really is. BSD predates Linux and GNU. BSD is more Unix than most systems that can claim that trademark.
On the other hand, did you realize that the original (unofficial) logo for Linux was the platypus? That's because Linux was, and is, a patchwork of of "hand-me-downs from other projects". It's a kernel from one project, binutils and libc from another, daemons from a third, filesystems from others, etc. And glue from the distros to hold it all together.
On the third hand, FreeBSD is a complete integrated OS. Everything from the OS to the shell is one complete source tree. Some of the stuff is contributed, of course, like tcsh and gcc, but the vast majority of it is pure BSD software.
The point is that no major software emanates from FreeBSD - none.
FreeBSD does not claim or want to be a clearinghouse for every open source project under the sun. Neither does Linus Torvalds for that matter.
Your silly rant is puerile. You're like some kid shouting that your dad can beat my dad up. The actual fact is that every project that you mentioned as major contributors from every distro and freenix out there. Including FreeBSD. You would be surprised at how many Gnome and KDE developers use FreeBSD.
p.s. Redhat doesn't own GCC. The FSF owns GCC. Go look at the copyright.
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:2)
Including Red Hat, if you use VMware.
Linux vs FreeBSD... (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to be a big Linux advocate, unfortuantely it seems that Linux has been becoming more and more unstable. The hundreds of different distributions of Linux all have their pros and cons, but there is no centralised package or ports system. Want a package for Linux ? Ok, cool - DEB, RPM? RPM? That's the most popular. But don't try using a Mandrake RPM or a SuSE RPM on RedHat.
Linux has given up its usefulness for graphical installers and Windowesque gimmicks. The code bloat is unbelievable. Unless you roll out your own distribution or use a minimalist distribution like Slackware, the default installs for RedHat, Mandrake, etc are huge, Windows-like monstrosities.
So what?, I hear you say. Linux is stable and secure. Wrong again. The Lion worm proved that Linux is not as secure as one might believe. The fact that VMs get changed in the middle of a stable release branch (2.4.x) shows bad organization.
It took Linux years to overcome its awful filesystem problems, and now journalling filesystems are available. But speedwise, compared to the FreeBSD FFS, they are slow and cumbersome, and have yet to prove as reliable. FFS Softlinks are a few generations ahead of any journalling filesystem on the market.
FreeBSD is far better organized, the ports and packages collections are better synced and more reliable, the system is more stable and easier to understand. The firewall included with FreeBSD has been proven and has a far better track record than ipchains or iptables, the latter having security problems in its first week or release, the former having no stately inspection and being a complete mess due to its shell-script bound layout.
But Linux has more software than FreeBSD!, scream the Linux die-hards. What they fail to realize is that 99% of Linux software runs under FreeBSD. I haven't encountered a Linux program that didn't run under FreeBSD. Sure, I've heard reports by trolls that certain software doesn't work, but all the software I've tried works, in fact, even faster than the native Linux versions in most cases. To the VMWare troll: Yes, VMWare does work under FreeBSD.
FreeBSD vs Linux is a debate that won't ever be settled, but people who have used both generally prefer FreeBSD for mission-critical tasks. Those who claim that FreeBSD performs worse than Linux either haven't used FreeBSD or are trolls.
I won't say that FreeBSD is the best Unix variant on the market, but the best open source Unix variant? Yes. Solaris is still tops, but in terms of Free (Open Source) systems, FreeBSD is probably the best all-rounder. NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linux all have their respective places, but overall, FreeBSD will probably take over most of the open source server market, at least in organizations with serious management.
Re:Linux vs FreeBSD... (Score:2)
Nuff said.
Re:Linux vs FreeBSD... (Score:2)
I can't win.
Re:Linux vs FreeBSD... (Score:2)
Hmm.. I will use our company as an example.
We have 10 load balanced Java based app servers. Each one is a dual processor system. I have tried running our software with BSD's native Java platform and frankly it sucked. I am not trolling, I am not anything.. but the performance was almost 1/3 of what I could get on Linux with IBM's JDK. And if your suggestion to that issue is run in Linux compatibility mode, your smoking crack.
Even compared to Solaris, we get more bang for the buck out of our little linux machines. Especially since IBM's JDK is SOO damn fast.
You make it sound like Linux has no place, and anywhere you might use Linux, you should only use FreeBSD. Thats frankly untrue. We have 10 servers that are running Debian and they have had almost 0 problems (Other than loosing the hard disk on one of them).
We use an OpenBSD box as our firewall. I don't think I would trust FreeBSD for that either
Cheers
Re:Linux vs FreeBSD... (Score:2)
Of course it makes only sense to compare 1.3.x with 1.3.x, 1.4.x with 1.4.x and so on. This is because Java VM implementation evolved greatly.
I built a dual P4-2,2 GHz FreeBSD 4.5-STABLE system last week, and it performed very good (it even made use of the hyperthreading, there were 4 virtual CPUs).
I am not trolling, I am not anything.. but the performance was almost 1/3 of what I could get on Linux with IBM's JDK.
I'm pretty sure you are not comparing the same Java JDK version.
And if your suggestion to that issue is run in Linux compatibility mode, your smoking crack. Why? Linux compatibility mode is just a different instructuion decode/execution mode of the kernel, each system call is translated into a FreeBSD kernel system call, the libs that are used are original Red Hat libs. That is why I was able to run the Linux 1.3.1 JDK on the dual box.
However the Linux ABI support is not 100%, I had a problem running the Versant OODB. Acting as client to other OODB nodes was no problem, but acting as server failed not because the database service daemon didn't run (it seemed to work fine) but because on administration tool which is used to create new database files barfed on a file locking issue (the call complained about a wrong argument). I had no time to resolve it, but with a bit of help, this should have been solved with a few mail exchanges with the Linux emulation port maintainer. Linux Java SDK 1.4 didn't work too. I guess will not be fixed until someone with a need for it and debugging capabilities will hunt the issue down.
In general it is more useful to built a native Java SDK. You should be able to built the 1.3.1 SDK, after you got the sources from Sun and the diffs from the FreeBSD Java project. This hassle is due to Sun's prohibition of self rolled binary releases. The legal problem was reported to have been resolved, but it has not led to a binary release yet.
Even compared to Solaris, we get more bang for the buck out of our little linux machines. Especially since IBM's JDK is SOO damn fast.
The fastest one should be Sun's 1.4.0 release. Especially for Swing clients under X11, where they stopped moving bitmaps around instead of drawing commands.
Note that I answered this despite I think that you are a troll. :)
Re:Linux vs FreeBSD... (Score:2)
Note that I answered this despite I think that you are a troll.
Hehe, on Linux w/IBM JDK 1.3.1 it still performed (our application, servlets) almost 25% faster than the latest Sun version 1.4.
I am not trolling, just reporting our usage. Take it for what it is. As for performance on a 2x2.2ghz machine, no doubt anything you run it will seem quick
Cheers
BSD emulates Linux (Score:1)
BSD emulates linux. A common suggestion from experienced BSD tool developers is to create a linux binary so you can target both BSD and Linux. If performance becomes an issue then consider adding a native BSD binary.
Re:BSD emulates Linux (Score:2, Informative)
1) Most "Linux software" isn't "Linux software" but "Unix software" and compiles and runs on FreeBSD just fine.
2) FreeBSD has Linux BINARY support, so if the source isn't available (StarOffice, VMWare, etc) you can still run your choice of programs. It doesn't do this via "emulation" but by translating Linux syscalls into FreeBSD syscalls where everything is executed natively.
3) It would be _more_ accurate to say that FreeBSD emulates Linux as opposed to "emulating Linux software", but it's still wrong (See #2.)
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:2)
There are a lot of people who started a project and developed it on Linux because that was what they had installed, the same goes for FreeBSD.
The Apache people started on BSD unixes, the PostgreSQL people on BSD as well. MySQL on Linux, etc etc.
And how many of these people do start side projects, but do not do any kernel work related to either FreeBSD or Linux?
Isn't a typical release of a Linux distribution not the same as a FreeBSD, NetBSD, or whatever other OS distribution? A new kernel containing fixes, enhancements, and new features combined with very recent userland utilities.
I also doubt you did proper research with regard to the rest of the items you mentioned:
- the cool software is the same as for the Linux community
- the development tools are the standard CVS, binutils, gcc, gdb
I won't even continue to comment on the rest, since you need to do some proper research before spreading FUD (which will than automagically be no FUD, or at least less).
Have a nice day.
Re:A question for freebsd people (Score:5, Informative)
First, I can see no lack of enthusiasm, not from jkh, let alone the BSD commiters, developers or user base. The steadily growing mailing list subscriptions are only one of many indicators. If you had read jkh's letter you would not have missed that he is not stopping work on FreeBSD, on the contrary, without the managerial work as a core member he can actually contribute *more* code and knowing jkh I am sure he'll raise his voice on many issues concerning the BSDs in the future.
The rest of your article seems to miss the current state of affairs so much that Richard P Feynman would probably attribute it with the same line he used for crank theories -- "not even wrong". To be more specific:
"poor quality of development tools" -- you mean make(1), gcc(1), cvs(1) or what? Care to elaborate when they are actually the same tools any linux (or for that matter unix) hacker uses? Typing
$ cd /usr/src; cvs update; make world
for the first time and watching the complete system being built was one of the most beautiful experiences in my hacker life.
"Very little projects from the FreeBSD community": You apparently have a different understanding of what constitutes a Linux or FreeBSD project than I have. Linux being kernel-only, lets address kernel projects going on in FreeBSD:
"controlled development model"? In FreeBSD more than 300 committers have write access to the repository. How does that compare to Linus, the benevolent dictator over the linux kernel? Funny that arch linux hacker Alan Cox is also actively working on the FreeBSD kernel. He seems to have no fear of working for both camps, heck, he might even be working on the Hurd and other OSes. The FreeBSD people couldn't care less. We value everybody's technical expertise and that is exactly what makes our community a place to be. Come to think of it: instead of uttering FUD why not learn from each other about strengths and weaknesses? Why the NIH attitude?
I give you a half point on the "no companies involved" issue. To be frank, the Windriver episode was not something to be proud of. I have no real insights into what went on inside WRS, but if I had to guess, I'd attribute it to lack of real enthusiasm. Other companies in the meantime have taken the role Walnut Creek had in the past, notably http://www.freebsdservices.com/ and http://www.freebsdmall.com/ They seem to do so well that I got the FreeBSD 4.5 DVD for free (like all 300+ committers).
With all this combined enthusiasm I have absolutely no doubt that FreeBSD will continue to have a great future.
Regards,
Jens, who is proud being a part of it.
Re:GNOME is next? (Score:1)
Re:BSD + Apple + M$ (Score:1)
Re:BSD + Apple + M$ (Score:1)
> MS has non voting stocks.
MS *had* non-voting stocks. They dumped them onto the market in the fall of 2000. That, plus a couple of blunders/mis-timings Apple made, plus the impending industry-wide disaster made Apple stumble badly that quarter. During the victory party for Apple's supposed demise, the earnings warnings started to come in as the computer makers one by one fell on their collective faces. Apple bounced back to profitability the very next quarter. The rest of the industry was not so fortunate.
Don't worry about MS influencing Apple anymore. The five year contract was a one time deal to give Apple the cash to get back on their feet. The deal is up in August, and both parties seem happy to return to Microsoft's former role as 3rd party developer/OS competitor.
"Mothra, you are Life Eternal! Hear the prayers of your servants. Come back to us from out of the legend. Come and save us with your power of Life!"
- From the US release of "Mothra" May 10, 1962
(Interesting that the last day of the WWDC falls on Mothra's 40th anniversary in America.)
Re:BSD + Apple + M$ (Score:2, Informative)