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BSD Operating Systems

MicroBSD Is No More 278

Posted by michael from the microbsd-is-dying dept.
TrumpetPower! writes "Recently there's been quite a row in the OpenBSD community over copyright infringement by the OpenBSD spinoff, MicroBSD. Many parts of MicroBSD would seem to be a wholesale search-n-replace of the two names...including copyright notices. As a result, MicroBSD has shut down. It's worth noting that, as of this story submission, the MicroBSD Web site is still up and running with no special notices."
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MicroBSD Is No More More

MicroBSD Is No More

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  • /. Strikes Again! (Score:5, Funny)

    by s1r_m1xalot ( 218277 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:09AM (#5352737)
    It's worth noting that, as of this story submission, the MicroBSD Web site is still up and running....

    We'll see about that michael... we'll just see about that.

    Definitely a just punishment in this case, though.

    • I used to run a ... (Score:4, Informative)

      by TPS Report ( 632684 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @01:22PM (#5353898) Homepage
      ... mirror [wiretapped.us] of the MicroBSD files/iso images, but after some of the antics performed by the MicroBSD "team", I removed it.

      I liked some of the goals that MicroBSD had, but there were too many things I was uncomfortable with. There were "Anonymous" comments in various forums, giving praise and support to MicroBSD -- when in fact those comments were written by Outback Dingo. Failure to credit OpenBSD in any way when basically mirroring their source and customizing it (perhaps they've since added credit, but it was not originally so). The fact that the MicroBSD site was originally hosted on a "virtualhost" type server, provided by a volunteer, instead of being independently hosted.. not a big deal, but it still struck me as unprofessional.

      In the end, although I liked the premise of MicroBSD, I just didn't feel comfortable with the way it turned out, and ended up removing the mirror.

  • Hmmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by cca93014 ( 466820 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:12AM (#5352770) Homepage
    It's worth noting that, as of this story submission, the MicroBSD Web site is still up and running with no special notices.
    It's worth noting that most sites are still up and running at the point the story is submitted. After that, however, they are fucked.

  • An Unholy alliance (Score:4, Funny)

    by TheIronDuke ( 649926 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:12AM (#5352771)
    Maybe MicroBSD can get help from Microsoft in the patent fight.

  • Not Entirely Functioning (Score:5, Informative)

    by Oculus Habent ( 562837 ) <oculus.habent@g m a il.com> on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:12AM (#5352775) Journal
    You'll note the "Get MicroBSD" links are all 404.

    Apache/2.0.43 Server at www.microbsd.com Port 80

  • Of course (Score:1, Funny)

    by arvindn ( 542080 )
    It's worth noting that, as of this story submission, the MicroBSD Web site is still up and running with no special notices.

    It won't be once we're done slashdotting it ;^)

  • Discussion (Score:4, Informative)

    by AnonymousCowheart ( 646429 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:14AM (#5352797)
    Discussion continues on IRC: irc.microbsd.net #microbsd
  • The home page is still up and running. But that's about it. The rest of the links off the page all return 404.

  • go to microbsd.net instead (Score:5, Informative)

    by FiDooDa ( 23111 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:15AM (#5352804)
    www.microbsd.net [microbsd.net] has the anouncement.
  • If you think this is good, why not look at UniSql and UniUnix from Korea
    http://www.unisql.com/ if it looks like MySql or PHP let me know

  • MicroBSD's site isn't really up. (Score:4, Informative)

    by scottj ( 7200 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:17AM (#5352816) Homepage Journal
    The head of the MicroBSD project wrote to misc@openbsd.org last night that he had just finished removing everything from his site. Go ahead and check it out. Every link I clicked on microbsd.com gave me a 404. MicroBSD is dead. It is no more. They blatantly violated OpenBSD's copyrights. In fact most of MicroBSD was just:

    $osname =~ s/Open/Micro/g;

  • after reading the various links... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WPIDalamar ( 122110 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:18AM (#5352821) Homepage
    After reading the various links given, it looks to me like the MicroBSD guys had an idea, started working on it, one of their developers screwed up and changed come copyright info, people complained, the project wasn't going anywhere anyways, so it just stopped. Didn't look like there was willfull copyright infringment, and I'd like to believe that it really would have been fixed, like the micro guys said.

    Don't attribute to malice what stupidity can explain (or whatever the exact quote is.)

    • Re:after reading the various links... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MisterFancypants ( 615129 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @12:01PM (#5353163)
      Agreed. It seems pretty clear that they weren't trying to pull something over on people -- I mean they made the code available and had to know that people 'in the know' would see their code. Seems like it was just a cut & paste screwup on the part of one developer.

      I don't entirely blame them for closing down shop in this case. As a long-time proponent of Open Source I must admit it sometimes sickens me how annoyingly 'victimized' OSS authors can act when they sense a license violation.

      I mean, sure, you *should* bring attention to license violations when you see them, but the OSS response tends to be way overboard, calling for boycotts, fatwahs, and whatever else before all the facts are known and before it is clear if the violation was really underhanded or just an oversight. It is this kind of religious zealot behavior that is holding OSS back from wider commercial adoption, IMO.

      • Re:after reading the various links... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        No, there is more to it than this...

        From microbsd.com:
        "MicroBSD is stripped down hardened secure version build." ... "Systems features address all aspects of security."

        You just don't commit changes to your source tree, no matter how big or small, without looking at them closely. VERY closely.

        If they were careless and did a global search and replace (which they denied), they don't understand the basics of security and code quality, a bad sign for users.

        If they were ignorant of the issues of copyright and license, that is a bad sign for users.

        If they were malicious, again, a bad sign for users.

        I don't know what the heck they did, how it happened, and how they didn't detect it. I don't really care. It happened, whatever the means, their proceedures are just plain BROKE for any group claiming "security" and "quality". This isn't how it is done. You don't introduce problems then fix them "later".

        As for how "annoying 'victimized' OSS authors can act", you have to have created something to understand the pain of someone else taking it away.

    • Re:after reading the various links... (Score:4, Funny)

      by someonehasmyname ( 465543 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @12:34PM (#5353426)
      Uhh.. It looks as if they did a search for "OpenBSD" and replaced it with "MicroBSD." Quoting one of the links:

      Around line 30, it says this:
      You are STRONGLY urged to use ssh instead of telnet, rlogin, or rsh! ssh is
      included in all MicroBSD systems. The implementation is OpenSSH, which we are
      the developers of.

  • ...but I've actually never heard of one single case where MicroBSD was used in an enterprise-critical environment. The other BSD trees are actually quite well-known... I'd like to see some interesting examples. If there aren't any, well, then it's probably no big loss.

  • ok, I'll bite... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Horny Smurf ( 590916 )
    Given the nature of the BSD license (w/o the advertising clause), I fail to see how modifying the copyright notices is copyright infringement. The same for GPL, as long as the new code is still GPL.


    Could someone enlighten me?

    • Given the nature of the BSD license (w/o the advertising clause), I fail to see how modifying the copyright notices is copyright infringement. The same for GPL, as long as the new code is still GPL.

      I admit that I don't know how the copyright issues go here. But one thing that I'm wondering is if they have been close to committing a simple fraud.

      If I'm selling a CD that has free software source code I haven't written and I claim that I've written all the source, isn't that like selling oranges when I'm saying I'm selling apples? I've not seen the MicroBSD project selling any CD's but sooner or later issues like this might have become a problem.

    • I fail to see how modifying the copyright notices is copyright infringement.

      Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

      • Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
      • Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
      • ...

      What part of it is hard to understand?

    • Claiming that you own the copyright to something, when you do in fact not own said copyright, is a violation of copyright laws in the US.

      You could probably get in trouble for fraud, too, if any money changed hands, like selling MicroBSD CDs.

  • Message from MicroBSD.net (Score:5, Informative)

    by scottj ( 7200 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:19AM (#5352847) Homepage Journal
    www.MicroBSD.net [microbsd.net] has the following announcement:

    The MicroBSD Project has Shut Down! All works have been removed.

    To the OpenBSD developers, There was no intent to modify any copyright in the CVS tree. We have publically acknowledged the issue and have shut down this project. We apologize for the inconvience and commotion this has caused the BSD community. It was never our intent to be at odds with anyone in the community to start. All MicroBSD code has been removed from our servers. The web site will go away. The project will cease to exist. This decision is based on time, efforts involved, the lack of developers, and lack of interest. I personally do not have the time, nor am I inclined to continue with a project that has caused this much negativity in the community.

    At the suggestions from various repected people in the industry who supported us, we are sorry. We feel it is not in the best interest of the project to continue its exitance. To those that opposed us from the start, We will just go away as you wish.

    Specific developer(s) who committed files with those copyright violations were planning on rectifying the issues. Instead, I have decided to completely remove the source tree and all traces of code commited.

    There is currently no CVS, cvsweb or downloads available due to a copyright issue being brought to our attention. We have ceased all development activity to address the issue and remove any violations from the cvs tree. This was an unfortunate oversight on our part, and was not intended to violate any copyright issues. We have taken pain staking measures to be sure to not modify/violate any copyrights. We assure you this copyright issue, was an oversight on our part and was not intentional.

    In closing we simply ask the the community carry on as it were, and all person(s) with MicroBSD installed, Please remove the code, and install OpenBSD. We will be providing locations to the various apsect of code we had initially committed in features to get the project off the ground before we continued with our planned unique additons to the BSD community. As of now there will be no further contributions to the BSD community as a whole. In closing, Again we apologize for such oversights, and have removed all code.

  • Disputes (Score:2, Interesting)

    by RazzleDazzle ( 442937 )
    There are many disputes over this topic on the openbsd misc mailing list. The lead developer of MBSD, Outback Dingo, claims all modifications which violate the copyright were unintentionally done. There is fairly good circumstantial proof that it was intentional because of examples like:
    • where they state they are the developers of OpenSSH
    • where their sendbug command e-mails gnats@openbsd.org
    • man release..... "See http://www.openbsd.org/anoncvs.html for instructions on fetching the sources for the first time...."
    • I enabled Apache and much to my surprise the page had OpenBSD logo's with "MicroBSD" alt tags!
    You get the idea. If you have the OS (I am sure it will be available somewhere, check the mirrors still) read '$man 1 banner' for a good laugh, from Miod Vallat

    • Re:Disputes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by schon ( 31600 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @12:05PM (#5353189)
      There is fairly good circumstantial proof that it was intentional because of examples like:

      Actually, these examples all seem like proof that it was unintentional.

      Think about it. You want to fork a project, one of the first things you do is change the name. The simplest way to do that is with "s/OpenBSD/MicroBSD/g" - but oops, you forgot that this would also change all of the copyright notices.

      This would explain every single one of your examples (case-sensitivity in the web and email addresses, and it wouldn't change any graphics, but it would change the alt-tag.)

      It certainly seems unintentional to me. If they really had intended to breach copyright, wouldn't they have changed every text instance, and deleted stuff they couldn't change easily (like the OpenBSD logo)?

      • Re:Disputes (Score:3, Interesting)

        by c13v3rm0nk3y ( 189767 )

        I hate to split hairs, but running a global search and replace (which appears to not have been done, or done on a regular basis as they sucked more OBSD code in) is an intentional action. You have to know you are going to clobber some copyright strings that must remain untouched (to comply with the very terms of the copyright).

        Even the OBSD folks keep the old NetBSD CVS tags in the code, and often keep the old comments in the header files, adding their own after them.

        The reason for all the furor seems to be that there appears to be some amount of disingenuousness with the changes that were made.

        OpenBSD has a very clear copyright policy [openbsd.org] and do regular license audits. I don't know if the MicroBSD people should be held up to the same standards or not, but the point many people are making is that the OpenBSD source is not in the public domain. Certainly some of it is, but not all.

        I get the feeling that perhaps some of the MicroBSD people knew what they were doing all too well, while others didn't really consider the implications.

        I mean, there were changes to source that were nothing but changes to the copyright string (the Pentium MTRR code, for example). Perhaps this can be attributed to a mindless global sed command. It's still pretty irresponsible.

        Well, what would the OpenBSD project be without regular kerfuffles like this...

        • "I hate to split hairs, but running a global search and replace (which appears to not have been done, or done on a regular..."

          "...example). Perhaps this can be attributed to a mindless global sed command. It's still pretty irresponsible. "

          If you hate to split hairs, then I'd hate to split your head open, but "I get the feeling that perhaps" your entire post was shit, and I don't mind burning karma to point that out to you and any moderators with an ounce of sense. I would give all of my karma to be able to smack you upside the head just once.

          Your post reeked less of a clever monkey then a zombie parrot. No, wait, your hollow innuendos and insightful link to openbsd.org transformed your comment into a valuable piece of insight. A mistaken search and replace was actually a sinister plot to defame OpenBSD.

          Your post was also irresponsible - it was self contradictory. Yet it contained slightly less text than the source code for an OS, and you couldn't be beothered to briefly check over it.

          "I don't know if /MicroBSD/c13v3rm0nk3y/ should be held up to the same standards or not..." You are utterly nauseating.
          "The reason for all the furor seems to be that there appears to be some amount of disingenuousness with the..." baseless accusations you make to excuse persecuting an innocent mistake.

          Do the world a favor and Open Source your internal organs.

          • Good for you! Don't keep that rage in.

            Let it out, sunshine, let it out. Wouldn't want an opposing view threaten you with a burst blood vessel in your brain.

  • *ahem* (Score:4, Funny)

    by Atzanteol ( 99067 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:20AM (#5352852) Homepage
    BSD is dead!

    Appologies. :-)

  • BSD License would prevent a problem (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:21AM (#5352858) Homepage Journal
    That is the core of the BSD license, as long as you give credit where it is due ,you can do what you want with the code, including selling it.

    So this doesn't really make since as a valid reason alone.

    • Giving credit, sure. What they did, though, was alter the original copyright notices in the source code itself.

      You are -not- allowed to do that.

    • Re:BSD License would prevent a problem (Score:4, Informative)

      by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:37AM (#5352985) Homepage Journal
      That is the core of the BSD license, as long as you give credit where it is due ,you can do what you want with the code, including selling it.

      But you _can't_ claim it as your own.

      From http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=104 570206117686&w=4 [theaimsgroup.com]
      You are STRONGLY urged to use ssh instead of telnet, rlogin, or rsh! ssh is included in all MicroBSD systems. The implementation is OpenSSH, which we are the developers of. (emphasis mine)

      So you see, they didn't give credit where credit is due.

      • They replaced the word OpenBSD with MicroBSD, and didnt take the time to proofread the rest of the text. They just needed to change 'we' to 'OpenBSD' and the problem is fixed.

        Much ado about nothing, a tempest in a teapot. OSS communities like to self destruct over the most minor issues.

        If it read "...OpenSSH, which we (we as in ME, stratjakt! If anyone from that slimeball group OpenBSD says different they're lying) are the developers of..." then it would be a lot easier to argue that it was done purposefully.

        In the end, just a few more developers no doubt leaving the BSD scene for good.
        • If they had expanded the "OpenBSD" to "OpenBSD/MicroBSD", and ONLY in the files where they actually made (non-trivial) additions or changes, then that would at least be potentially tolerable. But REPLACING the "OpenBSD" outright? Outrageous!

          If you can't see this, then write a book, and I'll distribute it with my name on it and not yours. Fair?

          Now, if the issue was restitution, then correcting the problem quickly would probably have been acceptable to most reasonable copyright holders (although, these are OpenBSD devleopers we are discussing). But the offense itself was significant, even if done naively.
          • ... However, the issue wasn't restitution, so the offence can never be absolved, despite the destruction of the project and the alienation of hopeful developers for an innocent mistake made by one of them.

            I am certain that you have never made a careless mistake when executing a UNIX command line. Even if you ever could have, it would have never caused you any harm because of your real-time streaming backup system, so if you accidentally made a less then comprehensively correct Regular Expression, you could easily prevent the problem from ever being caught by immediately powering off your system.

            Strangulation with red tape would be too good for unhuman scum like you. A "core dump" on your face would be generous. Burn those witches, Idiot.
      • However I don't think it was intentional, I have followed the project since its beginning, and I don't see the group as doing something misleading like that intentionally...

        More then likely it was just somone being sloppy... and should be correctable to the other parties satisfaction.. ( and be more careful in the future )
  • When I click on their News1 [microbsd.com] link, I get:

    Not Found

    The requested URL /news.html was not found on this server.

    Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

    So I guess no news != good news?

  • Is... (Score:1, Troll)

    by EpsCylonB ( 307640 )
    BSD dying ? (ducks for cover).
  • It's worth noting that, as of this story submission, the MicroBSD Web site is still up and running with no special notices.

    That's ok, the slashdot effect will eventually set in and then the site will no longer be up and running...

  • a good start (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:26AM (#5352896)
    it's nice to see a failed project that is going nowhere admit it and give up. Unfortunately, sourceforge.net and savannah.gnu.org are full of many such projects that don't have teh good sense to throw in the towel.


    Hat's off to you. Winners never quit, and quitters never lose, but if you never win and never quit, you're just stupid

  • Got me thinking.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:26AM (#5352898) Journal
    You know, when you steal something that is free to begin with, you have a problem.
    • And here I was thinking that the whole point of the @#!$%ing BSD license was that you could do whatever the hell you wanted with the code... build a baby mulcher, weapons of mass distraction, TCP/IP stack for an OS, or BSD distro that fits in a ramdisk. Or floppy. Or whatever.

      Yeah, I know, it's all about the copyright notice, because that is/was the sacrosanct part of the license -- you give a notice in your code. But seriously, if the above permissive attitude is the spirit of the law, couldn't someone at least have contacted the MicroBSD project privately and gotten this resolved without building up a big brouhaha? It sure looks like they'd've been willing to comply.

    • Re:Got me thinking.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 )
      Reputation is not free. It is "costly" to aquire (sometimes even financially) and devilishly difficult to maintain.

      This very instance may serve as a case in point of the latter.

      KFG
    • After I posted the parent, I remembered this discussion recently here [slashdot.org] about Castle using the Linux kernel in their ROMS.

      Similar but different, since Castle doesn't seem to want to release their source, even though they are using Linux code and linked to proprietary code.

      I guess free just ain't cheap enough sometimes.

  • Sad to see it go, really (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:28AM (#5352914)

    MicroBSD was an interesting project, and if we Slashdotters don't kill the server completely, it's interesting to look around. However, looking at the infighting and piss-taking on the mailing lists, it's still apparent that there BSD crowd makes problems for itselves.

    Unfortunately there's too much of a "holier than thou" feeling amongst many BSD coders, but then again, getting rid of Matt Dillon (see earlier /. BSD story) won't help either. I want the BSDs to do well, but the community can be v. problematic...

    Here's an example. After using Linux for several years, I gave FreeBSD a try and was very impressed by the solid kernel and coherent userland. There were a few things I couldn't fathom out though, like getting USB joysticks working, and asking on the mailing lists or similar forums always got the same kind of responses: "Go back to Linux if you want that", "FreeBSD is brill and doesn't need to support it" etc.

    It's this zealotry, patronising attitude and belief that FreeBSD is the "one true OS" that is really damaging its acceptance. All OSes have their loudmouth advocates, but I've never seen anything like the hideous attitude that seems so common among FreeBSDers. And as said, it's all the more a shame because I was genuinely interested in the system and respected its good points.

    And note that I specifically say FreeBSD - I've found that OpenBSD and NetBSD users realise that their OS isn't going to be ideal for all situations, and don't feel threatened by alternatives. It's the stuck-up FreeBSD zealots who think their OS is better than *everything* that are the real problem.

    • Re:Sad to see it go, really (Score:4, Informative)

      by dinivin ( 444905 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @12:04PM (#5353185)

      Frankly, my experiencing have been the exact opposite with FreeBSD and Linux. FreeBSD users and developers have always been easier to approach and nicer to deal with.

      Dinivin

      • heh. (Score:2)

        by pb ( 1020 )
        Maybe they are if you tell them you're running FreeBSD; there are zealots everywhere. Stupid, uninformed zealots that ignore and exterminate rational thought and parrot back their zealotrous crap.

        My personal favorite moronic Linux-bashing comment from the *BSD zealot crowd is that "Linux isn't Unix"; this has to be one of the stupidest fallacies ever, unless these self-same morons are willing to admit that "FreeBSD isn't Unix" either (which they aren't).

        First, the only "UNIX" out there is from SCO, because they own the trademark. So we aren't talking about "UNIX", but rather "Unix". If you read books like "The Design of the Unix Operating System", then you might get the impression that Unix is more like an API that can be copied and implemented; this is what Linux did.

        However, the *BSD zealots actually interpret "Unix" as meaning "Derived from original AT&T UNIX source code". However, they conveniently forget that by law, any free *BSD variant must contain no proprietary AT&T UNIX source code, and therefore it must contain just as much of this code as Linux does, which is to say... none.

        Incidentally, while Linux was gaining popularity, FreeBSD was taking the time to reimplement the missing AT&T code; if Linus Torvalds had had a free copy of FreeBSD to hack on, he might never have had to write Linux in the first place.

        It's amusing that the fact that *BSD "isn't a Unix" as per the *BSD Zealot definition is possibly one of the main reasons that Linux became such a success. Too bad it isn't a Unix, eh?
    • I consider myself to be a FreeBSD zealot. With the exception of a test box at the house which seems to have a different OS every week, all of my servers run FreeBSD. But I know that it's not the perfect OS for every job. That's why I run XP on my laptop and OSX on my G4.

      Don't diss the entire community because a few people on a FreeBSD list are rude. The BSD community has given a great deal to the public. And they have plenty more to offer.
    • belief that FreeBSD is the "one true OS"
      But it is :)
      "Go back to Linux if you want that"
      Really, I haven't found this. I've encountered more of a 'Yeah, sorry, that's a bit of a bitch at the moment. There's some code in -CURRENT that does that, and it should be in -STABLE by the next release.' attitude on FreeBSD users. One question relating to a NIC was answered with a diff to patch an existing driver to work. I've never seen the likes of that in the Linux community. On the other hand I have seen 'Linux users shouldn't use crappy win-modems. We won't support them, and you shouldn't use them. Go back to Windows if you want to use hardware you actually own, or buy a new modem for 3-4x the price you paid for your current one to get Linux support'. My home machine dual boots FreeBSD and Win2k (should that be GNU/Windows, since I have cygwin + The Gimp installed?) and I can often stay in FBSD for days without having to boot back to windows. On the other hand I can only handle Linux in small doses (I admin a Linux network, and it is often a joy to leave it and go home).
      I have found a lot more zealots and bigots in the Linux community, especially the GNU/Debian crowd. So many that I now make a point of actively not using Debian because I have no desire to be associated with (what I hope is) the vocal minority of 'One OS to Bring them all, and in the darkenss bind them' evangelists.

    • Re:Sad to see it go, really (Score:5, Insightful)

      by joshua404 ( 590829 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @12:46PM (#5353528)
      Here's an example. After using Linux for several years, I gave FreeBSD a try and was very impressed by the solid kernel and coherent userland. There were a few things I couldn't fathom out though, like getting USB joysticks working, and asking on the mailing lists or similar forums always got the same kind of responses: "Go back to Linux if you want that", "FreeBSD is brill and doesn't need to support it" etc.

      It's this zealotry, patronising attitude and belief that FreeBSD is the "one true OS" that is really damaging its acceptance.

      Golly, now perhaps you understand what longtime Windows users are made to feel like when they ask similar questions of the Linux community!

      A taste of one's own medicine, I'd say.

  • Sad news ... MicroBSD dead at 55 (Score:3, Funny)

    by The Evil Couch ( 621105 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:34AM (#5352960) Homepage
    I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Operating System MicroBSD was found dead in its Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss it - even if you didn't enjoy its work, there's no denying its contributions to tech culture. Truly an American icon.
  • In other news:
    • MicroSlashdot is Dying!
    • MicroApple is Dying!
    • MicroStephen King is Dead!
    • MicroNatalie MicroPortman with MicroHot MicroGrits down her MicroPants!

    That's all folks!

  • best sample of search and replace... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vectrex ( 16314 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @11:45AM (#5353035) Homepage
    % man 1 banner
    gives out: banner(1) [lebel.org]
    (can't paste it here, I get that lameness junk filter because of all those # characters).
    • This reminds me of the manual for the Commodore VIC20, where the body text had been localized, but the screenshots were still all in the original English. Especially in the 'introduction to BASIC' section, this had some interesting effects:

      PRINT "REGENBOOG"
      RAINBOW

      Very impressive level of machine translation going on there for a box with just a few kilobytes of RAM...

  • Note this is not PicoBSD (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GlobalEcho ( 26240 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @12:28PM (#5353379)
    Whew -- for a minute I thought this was an article referring to a bizarre fallout with PicoBSD [picobsd.org]. PicoBSD is a neat little FreeBSD-on-a-single-floppy distro. Kind of an equivalent to Linux's admirable Leaf Project [sf.net].
    • If "micro" is a million times bigger than "pico", does that mean that you needed a million floppies to hold MicroBSD? *rimshot*
    • Whew -- for a minute I thought this was an article referring to a bizarre fallout with PicoBSD
      Why on Earth would you think that? The title clearly states "MicroBSD Is No More." Not PicoBSD, MicroBSD. And I haven't seen any other comments that confused MicroBSD with PicoBSD, so what's your point?
      • Well, I thought that because I haven't used it for a while, having switched to LEAF. And I never even heard of MicroBSD. So when I parsed BSD, I immediately thought it was my former darling.

        I thought others may have had the same problem. It's not exactly like there's a lot of discussion of either Pico- or Micro-, you know.

        Satisfied?
  • Yes, these guys really screwed the pooch, not doubt about that, same source with the MicroBSD stamp on it, can't question that.

    What is stupid is the way this was handled. Rather then acting like adults Theo and others make personal attacks, against projects, against persons etc. WTF? From everything I have seen all the BSD projects seem to simply be full of arrogant babies. Grow up guys, grow the fuck up.

    • Re:BSD community, uh not.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by bsdbigot ( 186157 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @01:43PM (#5354089) Journal
      The heart of the BSD license, IMHO, is the "advertising clause." It means that you can do whatever you want with my code, so long as you recognize that I wrote the code. What the MicroBSD project managed to accomplish was a wholesale ripoff job, intentional or not. The "work" at MicroBSD violated the only real restriction on the OpenBSD code, which is the advertising clause.

      Theo has done a tremendous amount of work over the years, and arguably his work has contributed not just to the BSD community, but to the open source community as a whole. The man has principles, and he sticks to them. He is hard core. So, it really bugs me to hear people like you complaining about his whining when what he's really doing is standing up for his principles (and his code). I wonder if you feel the same way about RMS; He's always "crying" about the GNU/Linux designation...
    • Rather then acting like adults Theo and others make personal attacks, against projects, against persons etc.

      WTF are you talking about! Did you even bother to read the thread? Of course not, you're a slashdot reader. No slashdot reader ever bothers to inform themselves.

      Here is what Theo said [sigmasoft.com]: "I'm now going to step aside and let our user community decide how do deal with such copyright violations."

      This was the post that started it all. Doesn't sound like personal attacks to me. In fact, the only personal attacks I can find were attacks on Theo.

      From everything I have seen all the BSD projects seem to simply be full of arrogant babies.

      Relatively speaking, everyone is an "arrogant baby" to someone else. No operating system is free from this. Certainly Linux, Windows and Mac fans are not free from this trait.

      I think Linux users should clean up their own interdistro arrogancy and ad-hominem attacks before they commence with dispensing Good Housekeeping tips to other free operating system projects.
  • Lindows has a problem, b/c the giant doesn't like the sound of it. Was it the reason here? Many people might be confused: MicroBSD = MICROsoft BSD.

  • Why bother with the small fish? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by iamacat ( 583406 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @12:40PM (#5353483)
    Lindows charges lots of money for a dervitive or Linux and Wine might well be in violation of GPL because they make it so difficult to get the source. If you follow links they suggest, it asks you to buy their stuff before getting source code of the GPLed components. No word on what to do if I got a Walmart PC. There are links [lindows.com] on their website that could mislead users to think that Lindows is just a regular commercial product with no extra obligations to customers.

    I hope GPL will be modified to require the source to be as easily available and featured as binaries and to be usable on it's own without any commercial software added on. Like Darwin distributions from Apple, not obscure changes that do not compile and do not explain what was done.

  • The site is down now, with a notice explaining the shutdown of the project.

  • This is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lathiat ( 630504 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @12:43PM (#5353504)
    Yeh OK so maybe there was a bunch of search & replace but christ everyone needs to start SOMEWHERE.
    Sure maybe someone did search and replace so they accidently replaced the copyright, maybe someone modified the copyright - what you need to realise is that there were many people with CVS commit and access and the founders probably didnt even look at the notices to check.
    Its also notable that alot of openbsd stuff is in there so they havent just done a mass search and replace rebadge and re-release.

    Obviously a rather fierce reaction was launched against the project to force them to act so abruptly, I don't see the problem with a polite "Excuse me you violated our copyright please fix it or we will XYZ" you should also reliase this is the open source community and events like this just shunt the initiative and creativity of people which shows a complete lack of maturity and disregard for the principles of open source and free software. It seems to be as if they were given no chance or time to fix the violations that existed and correct everything and felt forced to go away. Shame on anyone involved with that. You just crushed someone's dream.

    To everyone in the MicroBSD IRC channel and all the developers regardless i wish you the best you were a great bunch of guys to hang with while it lasted and we'll chat again some time, i bet on it.

    • I don't know, I don't see why you should really be doing a lot of searching and replacing. Who cares if there is another project's name on some parts in the end, MicroBSD was about the whole package after all, right?

      For example, I just recently installed OS X on my old lombard. I was poking around in /etc and realized a lot of the config and scripts actually have OpenBSD there blatantly across the top. If the guys from Apple didn't feel the need to make those sorts of alterations, why did the MicroBSD folks need to? Seems a little fishy or at least kinda stupid.

  • ...then why didn't they just fork it? I thought the BSD licence allowed that.
  • You give stuff away, and they still try to steal it.

  • To be frank, it will be very hard to convince me that this has been an honest mistake, or whatever.

    A global search-and-replace of the project name as the first part of splitting an open source project makes a certain degree of sense. After all, you don't want users of the new distribution getting confused. Of course, the MicroBSD project didn't do this right. On the other hand, the complaints about this sound like just more of the kind of language that is already going back and forth between the developers of the various existing BSD distributions.

  • Slashdot finally gets one right.
  • I think you mean "Micro BSD is dead".

  • It was a stupid idea, anyway (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SecretAsianMan ( 45389 ) on Friday February 21, 2003 @03:03PM (#5355180) Homepage
    MicroBSD was an embedded-Linux-like approach at making a smaller BSD. Now I'm not trying to sound high and mighty here; I'm merely trying to point out factual differences between the Linux way and the BSD way. Linux and BSD are both great, but they are different from each other.

    One of the distinctive things to note about Linux is that its code base is rather distributed. The kernel comes from here, cc comes from there, and the $other_thing comes from somewhere else. The boundary between the base Linux OS and additionally-installed software is sometimes not very defined. The BSDs' code bases are organized differently, each BSD having its own (mostly) centralized, integrated code repository and build system. BSDs do include some "contrib" software (e.g. Less or OpenSSH) that comes from other sources, but contrib releases are still merged and adapted into the main repository. BSDs have a very definite boundary between what is the base OS and what is a third-party package, or "port".

    Either way is a great way to structure an OS code base. However, the organizational differences do have some effect upon what is the best way to make a small or embedded version of the OS. With Linux, it's good to fork off a separate distribution, so that packages and a build system can be most effectively engineered. Granted, I never looked at MicroBSD closely (so I could be totally wrong), but that seems to be the approach they took. With BSD, however, it just doesn't make sense to do it that way. If I just wanted to recompile the entire FreeBSD OS, I would do this:

    # cd /usr/src
    # make world
    Yadda yadda yadda, similarly in the other BSDs. To expand from this, I could build a fully functional embedded system with a measly few hundred lines of sh(1) script. Note how this did not require me to create another, entirely separate open-source OS project. I just piggybacked on BSD's existing, highly-integrated code base and build system.

    To conclude: making it easy to make a small BSD is at most a minor job, easily (and best) doable within the fold of one of the existing BSDs. Forking BSD doesn't make sense for this.

    And before someone flames me, let me say this: I prefer BSD, but both Linux and BSD make great small or embedded OSes. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. I don't wish to knock Linux; my only argument concerns the lack of necessity to fork BSD.

    BTW, no puns intended by "forking BSD". :-)

  • I am fathomly shocked from this story. MicroBSD used to be an important part of my life. I did anything with it, from opening doors, through driving my car, to having sex with girls. I drew all my courage from MicroBSD, and their antics were good, yes they were.

    After a while I switched to another OS whose name won't be mentioned due to chastity (hint: it begins with W), but from time to time I moved to my old 486 box just to see how my old childhood friend, MicroBSD, was doing. And tonight I've found out that it's dead!!!

    This is simply awful. Words can not describe the depression I feel.
    MicroBSD, you may be dead, but there will be always a place for you in my ass.
  • You must be wondering about the leader of MicroBSD, Outback Dingo [geocities.com], and his life story. So let me pour some light on the subject.
    I had the questionable honor of working with Outback Dingo, and I did it for five years, when we both worked in the now-defunct Calamada Industries [voyeurweb.com]. It was horrible at first, but I managed to develop survival techniques that helped me to avoid him and his "work noises".

    Yes, every day he was coming to the office and claiming he got work to do, and then he entered his room, put some George Michael music and started making noises. I don't even want to contemplate on what he was doing there.

    After around 6 hours he would come out, all sweaty and dripping, and say: "Well, I believe I can call it a day". A real outback dog or what?

  • Domain Name:MICROBSD.ORG
    Created On:20-Jul-2002 12:28:15 UTC
    Last Updated On:20-Jul-2002 12:28:20 UTC
    Expiration Date:20-Jul-2003 12:28:15 UTC

    At least they didn't buy the name for 10 years from NetSol..

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