FreeBSD Core Developer Thrown Out 681
SlashChick writes "From a discussion on the freebsd-chat mailing list, it appears that one of the FreeBSD core developers, Matt Dillon, has been barred from committing any changes to the FreeBSD kernel. Dillon was one of the developers 'responsible for making FreeBSD 4.x the most rugged and stress-proof free operating system in existence,' and also contributed to fixing the Linux VM. Unfortunately, there has been little explanation from the FreeBSD core team about why Dillon was thrown out, leading to speculation and worries about the future of the FreeBSD kernel. Does the Slashdot community have any more insight into this situation? Would someone from the FreeBSD team care to elaborate and assuage our worries?" CD Update: Greg Lehey from the core team has infact elaborated in this comment.
I know as much about this as the next guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Differences in opinion. Maybe I am wrong (NEVER!) but that would be my guess.
Re:I know as much about this as the next guy (Score:2, Insightful)
He was probably overly nice and diplomatic.
little devil! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:little devil! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:little devil! (Score:3, Funny)
Little explanation? I think there's enough. (Score:5, Informative)
I think that's fairly clear. There are many strong, good hackers in this world who wouldn't be able to work together. While it's unfortunate that Matt and the rest of -core weren't able to resolve it, it's a fact of life in a big project...
Re:Little explanation? I think there's enough. (Score:2, Insightful)
In my mind an unwritten requirement for most jobs is "smart and friendly." If you rub people the wrong way you're limiting yourself to small, one-person projects. Not the end of the world if you (or your manager) recognize this and play to your strengths. -IT
Re:Little explanation? I think there's enough. (Score:2, Insightful)
I've read some hella good flames and wars on the linux kernel dev list, I never recall someone being invited not to take part though. Al Viro is especially good and reading your code and then telling you exactly how incompentent your are.
If this guy is the master hacker everyone makes him to be, this isn't enough explanation. Shouldn't the users have some say? Perhaps the mistreated developers should move on to other projects or maybe grow into adults and learn to take the heat, it's just software, it's not like you should be taking the flames seriously.
Re:Little explanation? I think there's enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
Suffice to say, the ends do not justify the means.
Re:Little explanation? I think there's enough. (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course that's the whole BSD movement, 2 developers get their panties in a bunch and instead of either one of them being big enough to compromise they fork. You can't tell me that the OpenBSD folks aren't doing things that all BSDs benefit from, same for FreeBSD and their amazing accomplishments. FreeBSD has been strong so far but it's sad to see them drop to that same level.
Re:Little explanation? I think there's enough. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Little explanation? I think there's enough. (Score:5, Informative)
What does this have to do with GPL or its attitude? Linus could just as easily bar kernel patch submission from some individual who he thought was causing problems.
This problem individual could just as easily keep on running with his own special kernel, with all these swell changes Linux kept rejecting. Same goes for FreeBSD- you can get the source, and this guy, or anyone, could keep on writing new code, patching their setup and giving the away the code.
Just because a project is GPL doesn't mean that it'll take code from anyone, or have a CVS server to which anyone could commit. From where would you get this silly idea?
Re:Little explanation? I think there's enough. (Score:3, Insightful)
Apples, oranges.
Matt Dillon is not banned from any mailing lists. He's only been removed as a "committer". In linux there's only one "committer", Linus himself. Others send patches, to the mailing list or to their pet maintainer upstream. Matt can still do both with FreeBSD, or simply use the send-pr command. What he can't do now is make changes directly to the source tree.
Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Fact: The best programmers typically have a low tolerance for idiocy, and if you want the best programmers on your team, listening is a better solution than firing them. Poor social skills? Probably. Gets a helluva lot of productivity out of these people? You betcha.
-E
Re:Little explanation? I think there's enough. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that's a little unkind. Politics and ideology get in the way of many things. Someone that's a brilliant coder is of little use to a team if they are not prepared to listen to other people.
If I were a hardned cynic of course I would refer the reader to my signature...
Re:Little explanation? I think there's enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only difference between the bitchy whining children in open source development and the bitchy whining children in closed source development is that the latter have signed NDAs that keep the pissing contests out of the public spotlight.
Re:Little explanation? I think there's enough. (Score:3, Insightful)
Open projects who have a decided leader (Linux w/ Linus for instance) can also work this way, though I doubt Linus wants to arbitrate every argument
Matt Dillon? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Matt Dillon? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps Hedy Lamarr [hp.com]?
Politics (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Politics (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps he stole someones stapler?
Splitter! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Splitter! (Score:3, Funny)
Wow and actor and a coder (Score:5, Funny)
Or maybe he admitted to owning a copy of Windows XP?
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
Another Branch? (Score:4, Insightful)
On that note, it's more likely would get adopted by one of the other BSDs, and not really need to start his own. I'm sure OpenBSD can use the help.
Politiburo (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing the BSD developers need to know is that they have no justification in keeping this secret. It is aboput the users after all.
Re:Politiburo (Score:4, Funny)
Is that is why he kept banging his shoes against tables all the time? Because they were such horrible fashion statements?
Re:Politiburo (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Politiburo (Score:5, Funny)
Wait...maybe that's not cool after all....
Arrogant, opinionated, COMPETENT jerks allowed (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, Matt is not, and never has been, indispensible to the FreeBSD project. His biggest contribution probably has been cultural more than anything else -- he was working at UCB back in the "real" BSD days and knows how "it spozed to be". I suspect that doesn't make him popular with some of the (relative) newbies who want to add lots of features and stuff -- Matt's code has always been stripped down, clean, and fast as hell (if not always the most elegant or user-friendly code in the world). If the FreeBSD folks got tired of him carping about "the BSD Way", their loss... but it's not going to cripple FreeBSD by any means.
-E
Re:Politiburo (Score:2)
Re:get some perspective, please. (Score:2)
And you're right. The developers owe the users nothing. They can sit at computers all day ignoring feature requests and bug reports, kicking people out they don't like, and generally doing whatever they want. That doesn't mean it's right. The free software development proccess should be open and transparent, not wrapped up in ego trips and power games.
I think my original point still stands. Free software doesn't belong to the developers, it belongs to the users.
Re:get some perspective, please. (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? Whose right is being taken away? The legal IP owner who decides to license his software under the GPL? The person that wants to use the software without abiding by the IP owner's license?
Exactly what private right is being taken away?
Re: Politiburo (Score:3, Funny)
In the private sector such behavior usually leads to a promotion into management.
Maybe he didn't comment his code well enough (Score:5, Funny)
Similar to the Net/OpenBSD split (Score:5, Interesting)
Oddly enough, it was a very similar event that led to the creation of the OpenBSD project. Theo started it after a (rather extended, IIRC) tiff with the rest of the NetBSD core team.
If Matt decides to fork the code and start his own project, I think the technical world would be a better place for it. A fifth open source BSD might seem excessive to some, but there are still many ways for such a project to differentiate itself.
Re:Similar to the Net/OpenBSD split (Score:4, Funny)
Hmmm....I'm not convinced, you'll have to try harder.
Re:Similar to the Net/OpenBSD split (Score:3, Insightful)
dillon will, in fact, leave the project for good: nothing in this matter requires that. But it's certainly good to note that the BSD world is better for OpenBSD, not worse. Maybe dillonBSD would be another good one.
Slashdot ... (Score:5, Funny)
I know, its not even funny.
FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Firstly, the FreeBSD Core team (the use of "core developer" in the title of the article could be misleading) have given a lengthy explanation of this decision on the developers private list. This is where the explanation belongs and where it should stay. The reasons and the action are internal to the project and don't need to be aired in public.
Secondly, Matt is not the first, nor the last I dare say, high profile developer to leave the project. It didn't mean the death of FreeBSD then, it doesn't now. No single developer, no matter how talented and hard working, is irreplaceable. While Matt's technical contributions will certainly be missed, the claims of "imminent death, film at 11" are the same baseless FUD that came out when Mike Smith left or would have come out when John Dyson left (had Slashdot been around).
Thirdly, Matt is still free to contribute should he so wish. The only difference is that he will now have to contribute through PRs, at least for the near future, just as every other contributor started off doing, rather than directly committing himself. Whether he chooses to do this once the dust has settled is, of course, up to Matt.
Finally, long live FreeBSD! Can we please get back to worthwhile stories now :).
Re:FUD (Score:4, Interesting)
No, actually it's indicative of elitism. It separates the haves from the have nots in the worst way possible. "You're not a member of the core team, you can't commit" as opposed to the way it's done in Linux, where the lines are well-defined but not labeled.
Any projects needs leadership, but even avoiding dumb lofty titles and meaningless labels go a long way towards improving what is, in the end, a communist-type dictatorship that runs largely on good will (and I make no judgement regarding that, that's just what it is).
Re:Bona fide cuestions (Score:5, Informative)
It is incredibly frustrating to read Slashdot whenever something like this comes up, because so many people (Linux people, it seems) confuse Core with the body of committers, despite the fact that we go through this exercise over and over again.
Re:FUD (Score:2, Insightful)
Thank you for providing, in a single sentence, the best reason to use Linux rather than FreeBSD. With FreeBSD, you basically have a bunch of whiny elitest developers writing code behind closed doors and releasing periodic snapshots for the dirty masses to consume. With Linux, you have a bunch of whiny, elitest developers writing code in the open, warts and all. Since pretty much all developers are whiny and elitest, I'd much much rather have the second situation when I am using code for important tasks.
Re:FUD (Score:2, Insightful)
Please explain how a public CVS repository (and CVS commit mailing list) is "writing code behind clsoed doors".
While you are at it, you may want to explain the logical leap from internal developer politics to code openness.
Yes, that's right. FUD on slashdot... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:FUD (Score:2)
It will come out precisely because people don't keep their mouths shut.
The best way to avoid the controversy is to be honest without being blunt. If you want something to stay unknown, put out a press release. If you want the news spread, divulge the information as a secret.
I'll put the over/under of the email at 5 days.
BSD will be stronger than ever! (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds like crappy politics - ruins more stuff than it should. Why can't people just shut up and code?
Reminds me of a certain someone, a certain website, and a certain -1 Offtopic Mod.
But what do I know? Until you get two people together to talk it out while being moderated, you'll never get anywhere once the lines of communication break down.
Why can't people just shut up and code? (Score:2)
err... people like to hear them selfes, by talking people can give there mind some rest and by talking crap they thought over and over again they get some small comment from someone that they then add to there idea and make it a little bit better and so it goes on until you need to talk again...
its life face it
This is old news. (Score:3, Funny)
Who's next ? (Score:3, Funny)
New Linux Developer (Score:2)
The Matrix Has You (deja vu)... (Score:4, Funny)
"FreeBSD Core Developer Guy: A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just
FreeBSD Core Developer Girl: How much
like it, was it the same cat?
Theo de Raadt Version 2.0
Snowdog
It was the cover sheet! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It was the cover sheet! (Score:3, Funny)
I just hate for the best movie ever to be misquoted...
I heard a little about it... (Score:3, Funny)
I caught a bit of the conversation about this man's departure. I can't remember details, just something about a red stapler.
Re:I heard a little about it... (Score:3, Funny)
An Apple New Employee in the making? (Score:3, Funny)
A bad day for FreeBSD... (Score:2)
About the only good thing that came out of the downfall of Best was Matt dedicating so much time to FreeBSD development. Whatever personality conflicts there were, I can't help but believe that this is a very bad thing for the future of the FreeBSD. Sure, it is an open source project and others will probably fill the void, but Matt was certainly making a big difference as an individual.
-Chris
Will Matt Dillion end up coding OpenBSD? (Score:2)
Can't commit? (Score:2, Funny)
Matt Dillon From The Amiga Days? (Score:2, Interesting)
His stuff filled many a directory back in days before my newsreader started logging into a server instead of pointing to a spool directory.
Same thing happened at NetBSD (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a long discussion in Peter Wayner's Free for All [wayner.org], a book that's now free as in beer.
If FreeBSD is going to die becasue of this.... (Score:4, Insightful)
If they let this project revolve around one guy then the project was doomed from the beginning.
Actually this is a good test of FreeBSD, if it survives its because its bigger then this one guy, which is the way projects should be.
dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:5, Informative)
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, then what the hell was the point of this whole article?
Oh and I see the FreeBSD team has their hands tied behind their backs. Freedom counts folks...
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:4, Interesting)
So whatever the original poster's idea behind this was, I have no idea about.
Freedom counts, yes, just not at the expense of someone's person. Learn some social skills and think for a change more along the lines of: what if I were in that position, would I like to have the nitty-gritty about my/their behaviour displayed in full? (There are times when you definately _are_ wrong about what you've done, you know.)
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:5, Insightful)
The FreeBSD core team has informed the development community in detail about the reasons for Matt's removal. We don't think it's appropriate, nor fair to Matt, to wash dirty linen in public.
When it comes to Free software, isn't "the development community" the same as "the public"?
This stuff raises more questions than it answers. Granted, I really don't care about the precise names behind FreeBSD, and I'll forget about this promptly I'm sure, but I hate to think the influential folks in the BSD community aren't engaging in some kind of power play or the keeping of dirty little secrets. There should be openness in the mechanics of the BSD as project, just like the code is open.
I'd like to think Free software is above the stuff that goes on in corporate boardrooms, but maybe not?
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:4, Insightful)
very few people, especially on this board, contribute to any open source projects (I would say far less than 1%).
So its hardly like the great unwashed masses are making linux what it is; the unwashed masses DO, however, make Slashdot what it is...
devlopment community vs. public (Score:5, Insightful)
The two are not the same. I am a consumer of FreeBSD, by virtue of having a Virtual BSD Server from aplus.net. My use of that operating system in no way entitles me to know what transpires between the developers of that OS.
If I want to know the nitty gritty details of OS development, then I need to subscribe to the general mailing lists, read the code, and submit my own work.
Since I'm not prepared to do the above - I am quite happy to be a mere consumer in this case - I don't have any objection to people saying "this is a private matter, it doesn't concern you."
That the source code is available for your perusal is completely unrelated to the behavioral dynamics which govern the production of that code.
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:5, Insightful)
Free Software is not necessarily developed publicly. Every project is going to involve at the very least a few e-mails back and forth in private between people. And maybe that evolves into a more formal core team.
So what? Not everything is meant to be aired in public. You act as though you have some "right to know." Who or what twisted your mind into thinking that it is your "right" to stick your nose in everybody's business?
I think you need to go turn off the television and stop reading Slashdot for a while.
NOTE: Of course I was hoping someone kindly leaked the details in the comments, but I'm just curious. I don't expect to be given the details just because I have a pulse.
The flamewar is here: (Score:5, Informative)
The problem [freebsd.org]
The solution [freebsd.org]
NOT another solution [freebsd.org]
The flamewar starts.. [freebsd.org]
and continues [freebsd.org].
Re:Matt Dillon is a hack (Score:4, Insightful)
When you're working on a large project with tight deadlines, sometimes you have to put in hacks. Sure, it hurts to do it, but sometimes there is just no choice. The quote you use suggests one of these situations: there's a bug in a piece of code you have no control over, and no influence over. You however are dependent on it to provide some funtionality you _must_ deliver. Only choice is to put in a workaround, and of course lean on the appropriate developer (very) heavily to fix their code pronto.
Now I've never worked on a large O/S project, so maybe he could just have gone in and fixed the IPFW (whatever that is) himself, in which case this argument is moot, but in the world I work in people own code and they don't like other people fiddling with it.
Re:Matt Dillon is a hack (Score:3, Insightful)
I would have to heartily support that.
For a critical feature in a large project, having that feature in a workable state is more important during on-the-fly development and testing than having it in a perfect state. Perfection can be achieved later with a little discipline. Having it non-functional is just time-consuming.
The fact that it's considered a crude hack is all the more motivation to fix the code so you can remove it.
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure this will get modded down, but that's a pretty gutless statement to make, and really isn't supported by the commit logs. Though, when it's time for Core to toss someone under the bus...
To be sure, there is plenty of history with Matt, much of it not great. He's simply not a team developer. However, I honesty hope there's more to this [freebsd.org] and this [freebsd.org] than there appears to be.
One wonders when Core is going to stop acting parents and start acting like leaders.
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:3, Insightful)
Now you make it sound like you are friends ("It's always sad to have to make these decisions.") and this move is something radical and/or important ("It's even more difficult to defend them when our hands are tied behind our backs.") when coding for free distros is freetime hobby for most of us. "..hands are tied behind our backs." yeah, right. Your hands are never tied behind your back unless you do it to yourself. Just do what you like and explain why if you want, but don't come out telling that your hands are tied. That's lame attempt to put the blame on "the system". We have enough people around already weeping that same I'm-doing-my-job, my-hands-are-tied song.
"Nothing is as important as gardening and even that isn't very important" -some wiseguy somewhere
Quick summary. (Score:5, Informative)
Matt has a holy cow, and has been acting
like a USENET-troll. It's far too easy to send nasty email, still, people.
Reading all the relevant threads in the freebsd lists, here's a quick run-down, with names (other than Matt's removed)
Matt: I have a patch
freeBSDer1: better to fix the ipfw ABI issues (which are in the update log anyway)
Matt: This is bullshit! I'm going to core.
freeBsder2: I have a non-reboot way to fix the prob with an environ var.
Matt: I don't want any !*&&!@ env var! I'm going to core.
freeBSDer1: patch is a security risk, *and* send it through the security officer (SO)
Matt: It's not a *&!*@ risk *&*!@. I want it in.
freeBSDer1: SO established the current ipfw defaults, so changes to that must go through him.
Matt: *!&&^@@ You are being unreasonable.
multiple freeBSDers: No, you are.
Matt: *@$#@!!!
freeBSDer1: Matt, if you can't be civil to your fellow developers (as it states in the conventions), then find another project.
Matt: (rails on about how he shouldn't have to re-write someone else's API just because he's unhappy, when his hack fixes the problem. With expletives, insults, and other nonsense)
freeBSDer3: Matt, send the patch to technical review instead of core.
Matt: This is *&#@%! It's already to core. Why should I have to rewrite the API when this hack is fine?
(more of the same follows, with Matt insulting a larger number of developers every time, and getting more personal by the moment)
Looks like Matt had a couple of very bad days, and vented when he shouldn't.
Is it too late for apologies?
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:4, Insightful)
The Linux kernel developed in a more "freewheeling" way. Some say that Linux had no formal "core," but it did. A core of one. Linus himself. He used to maintiain the kernel himself (without version control, I might add).
Different development groups do things differently. We can bicker and argue all day over whether we would have included or excluded a given developer for doing a given thing. It doesn't matter. Dillon did what he did. The "core" did what they did. That's all there is to it. If this really offends you, take the FreeBSD source code and launch your own BSD project (it has happened before). I doubt you will succeed, but you may. And someday people will be talking about OpenBSD and GeekBSD or SlashBSD and no one will remember FreeBSD. Until then, all us slashbots carping do not mean a thing.
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:5, Informative)
A copy of the committers code of conduct can be found in our handbook [freebsd.org]
Warner Losh
FreeBSD core team
Speaking ex-offcia
Re:dillon leaves the FreeBSD project (Score:3, Informative)
i call it: AWSTATS [sourceforge.net] .
yes, that's right. it reads weblogs really nicely and only needs old versions of perl to run :)
funny how site traffic ( 50k + hits per month) provides a very accurate picture of what the world runs on their machines. i get about 30 percent xp, me and 15 win2k and NT then maybe 3 win95, 4-5 mac, and a smattering of different linux and bsd distros. a few people here and there with lynx or even someone on a solaris machine surfin the web. i wouldn't say that linux has more desktop share than apple. servers, yes, more linux servers than apple ones, but not desktop users. just how it is.
To quote Mike Smith's goodbye letter... (Score:4, Interesting)
"To the grandstanders, the prima donnas, and anyone that thinks that they can hold the project to ransom for their own agenda - give it a break, if you can. When the current core were elected, we took a conscious stand against vigorous sanctions, and some of you have exploited that. A new core is going to have to decide whether to repeat this mistake or get tough. I hope they learn from our errors."
Perhaps the core "got tough" and "learned from
their errors" on this one. That's probably what's
going to come out in the wash.
Matt Dillon's commit bit was removed before... (Score:5, Informative)
It appears (from his perspective) that he did a great deal of work on the VM portion of FreeBSD, but it was (as asserted by members of core) primarily maintenence and bug fixes.
It does seem to give some view of what Matt is like.
-Adam
See Slashdot [slashdot.org]. See Slashdot Google [google.com]. Google, Slashdot, Google!
Core team == Elitism? (Score:5, Insightful)
I kind of read the "elitist" things as assuming a bit much of the FreeBSD core developers as well. Did someone catch a member of the core team slipping and admitting "(Evil maniacal laugh) I have POWER I can commit to CVS, and YOU CANNOT!!! The world is MINE!!" I think you're reading too much; a core developer is just someone who can be trusted to code right and keep things consistent. I don't know were these assumptions of ego trips are coming from. If you want ego trips in BSD, I think OpenBSD with the one guy at the top who started it because he didn't work and play well with others and rather take his ball and play on his own court is a better place to look.
Oddly enough, I didn't see one post about Apache. Apache has pretty much the same development style, with a core of developers that have to approve or can veto a patch. Why isn't anyone complaining about the way that Apache is managed? It's usually held as the shining star of OpenSource, so why is the model for Apache good when a very similar model for FreeBSD is "elitist" and needs to be changed? Hmm, I'd say that some folks say this because FreeBSD is "competition" for Linux and Apache is not, but that would mean I think people waste their times battling one free stable x86 Unix workalike against another free stable x86 Unix workalike and I'd like to assume better than that.
One reason I like FreeBSD is because of that cohesiveness. You lose some speed in getting new features, but you also don't get some of the hiccups. In the 2.4, stable kernel, there's been a VM switch, a scheduler switch, and a change to the VFS subsystem that caused a corruption in the default journaling filesystem (though not with the default configuration of it). You get new features (Linux has had better SMP for forever) but you might bump into problems. The choice is yours. Who the hell said it was a zero-sum game? Oddly enough I haven't read "If you run FreeBSD on any of your servers you can't run Linux and RMS is going to come over to kick your ass" in the GPL, nor have I read "download one RedHat
And if anyone says that the Linux model has proven itself better by virtue of it's success, I'd just say: 1) what's your definition of success, the FreeBSD developers seem quite happy thank you and 2) Linux didn't have to fight a licensing suit (and win it) against ATT/Novel just when it was picking up steam.
Re:well.....bring to MS all FreeBSD programmers... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:well.....bring to MS all FreeBSD programmers... (Score:2, Funny)
Sorry, they already have that. Oh, wait. I thought you said WinBS O D. Sorry.
Re:well..... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Nice name... (Score:4, Funny)
well, an actor atleast...
Re:Free BSD Dying (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux boxen can be made just as stable, just as reliable, just as "there" as any BSD. I guess in a round about way I'm saying it comes down to preference and familiarity just like anything else. I'm familiar with Linux (11+ years familiar). I'm not as familiar with BSD (only about 5 years now) but I know a good deal of its strengths and weaknesses and I'm happy to say that there are places I would put BSD right now and not one of the Linux distros (barring Slackware or my own) just because of extra work involved that should be unnecessary.
Ok, done ranting.
Cliff
Re:Free BSD Dying (Score:2, Insightful)
Be careful about generalizing.
Free BSD (not) Dying (Score:5, Insightful)
First, remember that there is no magic bullet. There are always tradeoffs with anything. Linux has definate strong points (new hardware support usually hits linux first; there are more developers for linux). FreeBSD has fewer developers, and doesn't support the newest hardware as quickly - but the (FreeBSD) network stack is extremely solid, and the system design is very clean.
So, you have to evaluate your goals in these kinds of situations. Are you out to get the newest hardware and features, or are you looking for a clean design and good performance.
There is a reason many sites (like Yahoo [yahoo.com], imdb [imdb.com], cr.yp.to [cr.yp.to]) use Open/FreeBSD to run their servers.
If that's not one of your priorities, but you're still curious: I'd still take a look at FreeBSD; the overall design is quite pleasant to work with.
Also, many of the exploits produced are usually done on Linux, at least initially. This could buy you a little extra lead-time when something malicious is released. It's not security by obscurity, but it is a fringe benefit.
As always, if you're truly curious as to which OS would suit you best, you should put a little effort into it, and do [lemis.com] some [linuxworld.com] research yourself [tek-tips.com]. I'm not saying you shouldn't use Linux, and I'm not saying you should use FreeBSD. FreeBSD is not for everyone. Linux is not for everyone. Do the research, decide for yourself, and next time - when you feel the urge to ask "why use *BSD?" -- you'll be able to at least discuss what you do or don't like about either. Otherwise, you end up contributing nothing to the discussion.
Re:Not trying to be controversial... (Score:5, Funny)
FreeBSD != Linux (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:FreeBSD != Linux (Score:3, Informative)
So lets look at some facts:
Re:Oh great... SlashTroll Fest! (Score:2, Funny)
12. Duplicate lists of what people will say.
Re:Get over it guys (Score:2)
Get real. This is Slashdot.
Re:the reason (Score:2)
BTW, do you know the expression "YHBT"? Well, YHBT.
Re:the reason (Score:2)
When you have been rapped then had the pictures spred on the internet come back and say that!
YHBT. YHL. HAND. (Score:2)