Why is BSD Not As Popular As Linux? 690
hill writes "An article over on Economic Times explains why BSD is as not as popular as Linux. Both use an open-source model, but Linux demands the user community to disclose modifications on its source code, while BSD allows its users to make proprietary changes. The current size of the BSD community is estimated at 2 million, with Linux being around 10 million. This is definately worth the read for anyone interested in comparing the two operating systems. " I'm sure we have a few opinions on the subject.
The more the better (Score:5)
As for the technical side, I keep having to look at both the linux and freebsd kernels as part of my work; they are good references. Both have very good parts. I have to say that usually, the solution adopted by FreeBSD is simpler and a lot more commented/documented (take the bogomips case for example; people are starting to wonder what will happen if the cpu speed changes at runtime, how to detect and recalculate it, etc; freebsd spins simply by looking at changes in the hardware clock counter. simpler
So we need both if we want to keep the high standards we are used to have in the free unices now. That was my original point
It seems fair enough (Score:2)
What I am convinced of, however, is that the BSD's are each a solid piece of work, and each deserves as much attention as Linux has gained lately. It isn't that much work to write software that will run on the BSD's as well a Linux, and I think vendors should be encouraged to support them.
In the end I'll probably keep using Linux, I'm comfortable with it, but I don't want that choice to be based on a lack vendor support for BSD -- we've all had enough of the "one supported OS" syndrome, let's not continue it.
Interest and Effort (Score:2)
More people are interested in Linux simply because more people are interested in Linux. It's sort of like a rolling ball of snow; Linux is collecting more people as it goes. So are the BSDs but they are a little behind right now.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Follow the Money (Score:4)
The hype will come when:
1) There is a billion dollar BSD IPO.
2) When the BSD community starts explaining the biggest advantage of the BSD licence to Multinational corporations. That advantage is, you can choose to HIDE your own source code if you wish. (Get them to at least start supporting OpenSource. Once they find its not as bad as Microsoft says, they will keep coming back for more. Like drugs...the first hit, we'll give ya free.)
3) Some cleaver BSDers (Hi Pat!) start whispering in Wall Streets ears "Feel that you mised out on the Linux IPO frenzy? Take heart, here is BSD...the next big IPO launchpad. It runs Linux binaries, its OpenSourced, AND the licencing difference over Linux doesn't cause the heads of the lawyers in your IP departments to spin about."
When the first IPO of BSD is successful, then you will see the people who use Linux instead of the word OpenSource, refer to BSD as OpenSource...and Linux also. And, the more OpenSource is out there, the better for BSD, Linux, Apache, Sendmail, vi,
NO CARRIER
Two factors (Score:5)
1. Time. BSD was held back by the ATT lawsuit and Linux already had so much mindshare when that was over.
2. The BSD license doesn't enforce the quid-pro-quo. This is a real sticking point for me personally. When I put a lot of work into something, I like to be a partner in a free software development, not someone's unpaid employee dupe. But I feel like a dupe when somebody takes that work private, makes proprietary modifications to my work and doesn't return their modifications to me or the other free software authors who gave him our work.
Unfortunately, history shows that without a license requirement the return of code doesn't happen. Most of the workstation Unix systems are BSD-derived (although these days there is more System V in there) and all of their X servers are derived from software under a very similar license to the BSD. Try to get the source code for those systems. Sun only released its modifications to the BSD system recently, 10 years late, and then under a license that would not allow their reincorporation into the BSD system as free software! Most other workstation manufacturers didn't bother to release source at all.
So, I am more likely to put work into a GPL project. It is possible to take the BSD system and GPL it. The new BSD license and the GPL are compatible, and you can GPL all new work that you do, and in general establish a GPL source thread. But that would annoy a lot of the long-time BSD folks.
Thanks
Bruce
V/S (Score:2)
When, for instance, they both run EMACS, VI, Apache, and loads of other GNU software.
I think that if you don't like the look of the "alternative alternative operating system", A)Your information is out of date B)Wait 6 months and see if it has what you want C)What, you're using a MAC!!!
bsd didn't capture new users' interest (Score:5)
The Oreilly Connection (Score:2)
I mean, we all know that the only way we ever learn anything is by reading an Oreilly book.
Source model? License model? User model! (Score:5)
This applies somewhat to users and to an extreme with developers. As a user, a question revealing that you don't know UNIX, not just *BSD, is enough to have you shouted out the door. As a developer, unless you're a 20 year BSD veteran, suggest an idea or ask where you can begin to help and you should be prepared to be stomped on. Hard and repeatedly. Largely by many of the project principals.
Review some of Matt Dillon's contributions to FreeBSD in the mailing lists. He's repeatedly helped to pull large portions of FreeBSD up to and even past their Linux equivalents. Then consider the rationale behind the community's treatment of him.
A similar type of treatment resulted in the split of NetBSD and OpenBSD. Again, reviewing their mailing list archives shows that this kind of childish animosity and cliquish cult behavior abounds.
To the contrary, it takes all of five minutes to find something to do for Linux and to find a mentor who will help you find your way to the in crowd the first few times you've got a core-level contribution to make. They give you the benefit of the doubt as a new contributor, reviewing and considering your contribution, not your credentials or your ability/willingness to pose as a BSD veteran long enough to be heard.
Frankly, it's surprising that this group exists outside of acedemia at all.
A peek at history (Score:2)
It's yet another example of pump-priming (Score:2)
Some BSD distros are really tough to install -- things like making your own boot disks from scratch for certain systems etc specifically because they want to discourage lusers from bugging them about it.
So in general BSD is smaller because it is smaller -- there is not as big a user/developer community as there is for Linux, hence less development and exposure...
As the OSS model starts to take more and more market share, BSD will develop a a strong competitor for Linux, especially in professionally administrated systems. This is a good thing -- competition provides for improvement. For example if this occurs we may see companies providing BSD service contracts, and improved security for linux.
Another big reason: college undergrads? (Score:5)
As self-fufilling prophecies go, this is another one. BSD continues to be less known, because it is less known. Over half of those same college undergrads I knew in computer science and engineering got hands on experience with Linux before they graduated, myself included.
BSD continued to languish in the realms of unknown software.
Many of the undergrads went out into the work force and are now doing jobs where they can at least provide knowledgable input about Linux. Many of them went to find jobs specifically where they could work on Linux systems. There was no similarly large pool of individuals who knew BSD amongst the dozens of fellow students I knew, including the systems operators (I was one) for our UNIX systems, or much in the faculty. Perhaps a few people seemed knowledgable about BSD, but they didn't talk about it much, because people knew more about and were already interested in Linux.
For the most part, colleges provide the ground where our next generations of individuals in the computer industry learn UNIX-based OS's and determine what technologies they will bring to their initial workplaces. If BSD is as absent from most colleges as it was from mine, BSD won't catch on, because many of the people who would use it will not know about it.
B. Elgin
Quick factual correction (Score:3)
The first free version of BSD (Networking Release 2) was distributed in June 1991, but got tied up in lawsuits from 1992 to 1994. By the time that was cleared up, early versions of Linux were already available.
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"But, Mulder, the new millennium doesn't begin until January 2001."
Three reasons and bonus ranting (Score:3)
Yes, I fully agree that *BSD has numerous merits and that this is something that could easially be flamebait. However, Linux is just a bit ahead of the game (most likely due to the ATT crap), and it has caught the media attention. Its one thing when something comes out of a university, but when "the young finnish student created his own operating system because he didn't like what was out there" grabs peoples' attention, it seems to be a more heartwarming story.
Ok, now let's look at this part about the "heartwarming". Yes, we as techies like to look at things for their technical merit, not their popularity. As I said above, they are both quite good and nitpicking is justified, but almost pointless. Wall Street knows about BSD, but they just don't really care. There are no Red Hats or VA Linux companies for *BSD, and Microsoft doesn't acknowledge *BSD (from what I've seen; tell me otherwise, please). I remember a few months back reading in the Wall Street Journal an article on how "If you thought Linux was the underdog, BSD is underground". People have read about it. They don't care.
I guess I could rant about this for a while, and I'm sure people will flame and argue with this. The point I'm getting to is that Linux just has the head start on the public eye, and it is simply the center of a lot of attention. *BSD may be better than Linux. Linux may be better than *BSD. However, they're both quite good and certainly much better than that software from Redmond. RedHat and VA have both brought Linux to the public attention. I fear, however, that if there is a 'Red Hat BSD', it will just confuse people; it could turn out to be a good thing, but it could also just bring us back to the 80s when there were 20 different platforms and little in the way of 'cross platform' standards.
Rant, rant, rant. I better stop before I talk in circles
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Re:Two factors (Score:2)
People find acronyms inscrutible. Imagine if RMS had not named it POSIX, and the original "IEEEIX" name was chosen.
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I noticed
Linux=Easy; BSD=Difficult (Score:3)
Initially Linux is decipherable with IRC help, mailing lists and on-line docs. Whereas, BSD takes some previous understanding and the man pages on BSD assume Unix know-how. The LDP HOWTOs are written for the uninitiated and that is a major reason why Linux appeals to people more.
This whole Unix rebirth is very new. So people new to Unix will choose Linux first. Once they realize there is something objectively more mature for advanced purposes, they may consider a switch.
I started out learning Unix by trying out the various Linuxes. Now I've settled on OpenBSD b/c security a huge issue for my business. And my level of security must be high. That is not so for other people. While I'm a huge proponent of security and privacy I feel most people can be by with their Windows computers if they have a good firewall/ip-masquerading gateway installed that runs either Debian (most secure Linux), FreeBSD or OpenBSD. With the growth of the home LAN, such a configuration is a no-brainer and you can install it on some relic of a PC that you thought could only have been used as a door stop.
If people want to try a more stable desktop system; I usually will configure a system with KDE and FreeBSD or Debian for them. In terms of application capability they are about the same so it boils down to the person's taste in licencing features.
But for someone who wants to go it alone and install and learn as one goes, I recommend something easy to install like Corel Linux or Caldera Linux (no not Red Hat which I recommend for the corporate environment).
If a company came along that made a BSD easy to install and use it would be a truly awesome product; that is what Darwin and MacOS X is all about and they are awesome but expensive. If you have the money for Apple's new OS, the advantages for using a BSD based system speak for themselves after you've used them for a while. Unix gurus don't need convincing. They either only run BSD because it's 'real' Unix or they only run Linux because the GPL is preferrable. The arguments about Linux having more applications and better hardware support are, of course, silly because if that is the basis for an argument then we'd all be using Windows instead.
The bottom line for new users is documentation that's easy to access and meant for them and an install process that people perceive as easy (i.e., it has a GUI). Linux has it and BSD doesn't.
Popularity be damned (Score:2)
Shrug. I could really care less if it's more popular or not. It works wonderfully for me, and at the time that I switched from Linux, it worked much better. Popularity be damned.
I've contributed a few ports [freebsd.org] to FreeBSD [freebsd.org]. I contribute in the little ways that I can because I believe in BSD and know that if no-one contributed at all, BSD would indeed die. (In the BSD-kernelled Debian threads, someone seemed to think that BSD was dying ``because of its license''. I would challenge that by asking them if ``not dying'' means ``growing to an unmanageable size''.) By the same token, if contributions to Linux stopped, Linux would die.
I believe in BSD because it works, and because the source code is open (though some seem to think that anything non-GPL'd is not ``open'' -- we need not rehash those arguments here.) I can do with it what I want.
The community spirit of BSD ensures -- without encumbrance of license -- that BSD will be around as long as there are still people working on it.
Sophistication? (Score:3)
I also like BSD (I was a huge fan of 4.2, back when Ultrix was 4.2 with the serial numbers filed off). BSD has a tradition of stability and innovation that is hard to match, and look forward to a world where BSD and Linux are equal participants in the operating system development community. But can we stop pretending that one OS is "better" than another, and focus on which OS is right for a given task/environment?
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
This is disgusting to read. It was nearly ten years ago that Scott McNealy, president/CEO of Sun Microsystems, spent a full half hour radio broadcast of the Commonwealth Club meeting beating on the government. The reason? He was insisting that it was ludicrous and short-sighted to spend money on closed systems. He further insisted that it shouldn't even be allowed, pushing a move such as the one the government of Brazil may enact [slashdot.org].
FreeBSD vs. Linux (Score:2)
1)FreeBSD aims to be a stable production exnviroment while Linux is more "Bleeding Edge" development enviroment.
2)FreeBSD is still relatively unknown , since its distrobution was restricted for a long time due to the AT&T lawsuits. Linux did not have any lawsuits to contend with. So for a long time it was only free UNIX-type system available
3)As a result of lack of knowledge about FreeBSD not much commercial software is available for it. Linux has a growing amount of commercial software for it.
4)As a result of a smaller user base, FreeBSD is less likely to have drivers for brand-new boards than linux.
some of these points may not help this discussion at all but I sure hope some do
Some thoughts of my own (Score:3)
The thing to understand. (Score:5)
And all of these things will run, mostly without modification, on BSD.
Who cares which kernel is used! That's a small (but very important) part of the whole picture. The important thing is that we are rapidly developing more and more user-space stuff that will run on any modern UNIXy platform -- whether its Linux, FreeBSD, or the Hurd.
Linux's success helps to insure BSD's long term viability. Don't forget it. From some stuff I've seen, I gather that the core *BSD teams are well aware of it.
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
You can expect to get flamed if you ask one of the current BSDs to switch to the GPL; you won't get flamed if you simply fork off your own and GPL it (or, rather, GPL the bits that don't have a clause 3 in the licence; UCB is only one of hundreds of contributors to the kernel code).
As for `resent[ing] the fairness [you] insist on,' well, yes, because a) it's certainly not fair to anyone who wants to incorporate ten lines of GPL'd code into ten thousand of his own, b) I don't believe it's fair to anyone to tell him what he can do with the code he writes, which is what the GPL does, and c) the FUD that Linux folks love to spread about how all non-GPL'd software is being taken proprietary and disappearing forever from public view is getting a bit old.
cjs
Re:Mostly cause BSD is harder to say than Linux (Score:2)
Spiff it up, give it a new name, a plush toy that won't poke kid's eyes out, and you've got marketing acceptance. Stick to the computerese and it loses points.
Sigh.
People frequently mistake my descriptions of reality for my personal opinion as to How Things Should Be - this is what I'm saying, not What Should Be.
Re:Moderation this ARTICLE redundant (Score:2)
Re:Two factors (Score:3)
McNealy was ahead of the curve on networking and open standards, but he is very much behind the curve on Open source. He was truly commited to "open" he would not have withdrawn Java from the standards process. He still wants control. He hasn't picked up that last piece of the puzzle...
Don't be disgusted. McNealy does not embrace Open source.
To me, there's a heirarchy of technology worlds I want to work in:
1) Open source -- the software is free, programmers are not.
2) Open systems -- the standards are free, the software is not, and programmers are the drudges of the business world.
3) Proprietary systems -- there are only de facto standards, software is expensive, and programmers are serfs of the dominant technology company. This was IBM in the past. This is Microsoft today.
McNealy had the vision to aim at level 2. In the early 80's, this was radical indeed. He has not figured out the advantages of level 1. He's partway there, but he has missed the last step -- that the code belongs to the world, not to the originator. That assurance, that the code is yours, that the benefit you get for giving away your mods is the absolute assurance that anyone else who improves it must share his/her mods with you is the payment you receive for giving away your mods. It works. McNealy doesn't see this yet. He thinks programmers will give their mods to him, with no assurance that Sun's further improvements will go back to those programmers. The Sun version is a one way street.
No, I do not weep for Scott McNealy.
Re:Linux=Easy; BSD=Difficult (Score:2)
Re:V/S (Score:2)
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
One influential person I know still thinks that Open Source is a subset of the field of Open Systems, and we are constantly in argument about this because I think that Open Source means so much more, and he thinks I am not seeing the forest for the trees.
Thanks
Bruce
Its the license,s****d! (Score:2)
No offense, but didnt you read the article? The point was not that BSD is superior or inferior to Linux. It was that fewer people are contributing to it.
Yes, applications written for Linux may run on BSD and vice-versa. But the catch really is the license. If NT were as stable as *BSD or Linux, do you think that the development community would switch over to NT? No way - and this is because of the license.
Note that the user community might switch over - but that isnt the point. When we talk of contributions, its the development community that we are talking about.Now, if the BSD license was changed to make a closed source distribution impossible, then you would see contributions increasing tremendously.
PS : The story to which we are commenting is a bit confused in that the writer is unable to distinguish between the development community and the user community. Linux achieved a bigger user community because of features provided by a bigger development community.
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
Thanks
Bruce
Third Factor, and Addendum (Score:3)
3. Linux supported IDE long before *BSD did, and these were the inexpensive drives that the masses had.
To that, I would add, now that Linux is way ahead,
4. Linux is way ahead in market share, and just like the internal combustion engine, the incandescent bulb, Microsoft OSes, and other less than optimal technologies, once a product is entrenched with sales networks, R&D networks, customer support networks, etc., it takes a vast improvement in the underlying technology to overturn the economic advantage of sticking with the status quo.
Any open sourced kernel offered just that sort of advantage over windows (to developers) and with the internet paradigm shift to vastly increase the numbers of servers, open source (especially of unix) on the commodity platform offered a compelling enough functionality jump to create the new market/new standard. But since Linux won the initial sprint, expect it to continue its hegemony. The BSDs have a chance of gaining share by being very compatible and utilizing highly transferable skills, so all is not lost for them, but things are often the way they are for many small good reasons, not by random chance, nor for one reason.
*BSD, various distributions of Linux(TM), etc. (Score:2)
I'm still primarily a NT user. Why? Better IDE, more game support and more robust (not to mention widespread) hardware support. However, many, many moons ago I began the Slackware trek. Its simplicity and stability (courtesy of Linus's kernel, of course) really impressed me. I installed a few servers out of curiosity and promptly forgot about them. Four or five months later I realized that they were still running strong (given the requisite `kill ` that one must force on some runaway thread). This was utterly positive; I was used to checking my computers daily to ensure they were still running. Additionally, I noticed that performance wasn't hampered as much as under NT when more users connected or accessed the mounts. Thus, Linux became the fileserver OS.
A few short months later I installed my first copy of FreeBSD (2.7?), again, just out of curiosity. I setup ircd, nfsd, a few other daemons and went on vacation. When I returned, needless to say, ircd (known for its uncanny ability to split) was still running. Of course the other parts of the installation were doing just fine. So when I was called to do a security-apparent job, I tried OpenBSD. Perhaps I was entrigued by the entire "secure by default" mentality (or was it the line-by-line auditing?
Linux has never failed me, nor has *BSD. My limited experience does not qualify me to say that *BSD is any more able to handle mission-critical jobs than Linux, but I will say this: the degree of success that surrounds Walnut Creek is simply amazing. If a site that handles unimaginable daily traffic can withstand attacks and impatient ftp'ers, then I can trust its mission-critical status.
I now use two primary machines: a FreeBSD 3.4 (just made world a few nights ago!
Re:maybe... (Score:2)
Waah!!! The links to the graphics are broken. I can't see it.... :)
-BrentCommon misconception (Score:2)
Thanks
Bruce
Why I use Linux instead of *BSD (Score:2)
In the early 1990's I spent a lot of time with various SVR3 derived commercial UNIXes including Motorola's SVR3 on 88000 machines and AIX on RT's and RS/6000's. While still *nix, I pined for a lot of things that were missing compared to BSD. By late 1992 I was back to SunOS 4.1.x on Sparc which was more to my liking.
The main reason I chose Linux over *BSD is back in 1993 when *BSD and Linux were first coming to my attention and I was able to scrape together enough cast-off parts and $$$ to hack together a decent enough box (a 386DX-20) to run them, I couldn't get *BSD to run on the junk hardware I had. Linux, on the other hand worked. With the olvwm window manager I was astounded how well it made a clunky PC look and act like a SparcStation running SunOS.
Nowdays I use Solaris on Sparc at work (and some at home, although my primary home platform is Linux and my home SparcStations are all old and slow models) and I could afford to run *BSD as well as Linux at home (I've got dozens of machines), and I do occasionally load one of the *BSDs onto a box to see how things are coming along. I really have nothing against *BSD. If Linux didn't exist, or if it ever somehow falls apart, I will certainly look at switching to one of the *BSDs.
But I have to say that Linux for me has the comfort level now, after six years, I've spent more time with it than any other *nix family. Every time I have tried the *BSDs lately, I just haven't been able to find a compelling reason that would lead me to pick one of them over Linux. Linux still seems to have a better combination of hardware support, easier installation and wider software availability. Mind that the *BSDs aren't really that far behind, but without any real compelling advantage, it is just enough of a subtle turnoff to keep me complacent.
Well, there it is, just one person's opinion. Take it for what it's worth and with a grain or three of salt.
Re:Its the license,s****d! (Score:2)
While the issue of the licence is important for kernel development, I don't see how that matters for those who will write applications that, by my estimation, should run happily on both systems.
For open source applications it often isn't a problem -- in most cases I should be able to compile on either system with minor modification. However, for applications that are either closed-source (and thus binary only), or those which are open source, but have complex library and other environmental issues (such as something like KDE or Gnat -- the GNU Ada compiler), I hope that the makers of such software will take the time to put out a BSD version. I just don't see any reason that they shouldn't.
Timeline (Score:2)
1977: 1BSD (based on UNIX time-sharing system sixth edition from Bell)
1978: 2BSD (based on 1BSD)
1979: 3BSD (based on 2BSD and 32V which itself was derived from unix seventh edition)
mid-79: 4.0BSD (derived from 3BSD)
1981: 4.1BSD (derived from 4.0BSD)
1982: 4.1aBSD
1983: 4.1cBSD (not based on System V)
1984: 4.2BSD (not based on System V release 2); SunOS is based on it.
1986: 4.3BSD
1988: 4.3BSD-Tahoe
1990: 4.3BSD-Reno
1991: NET/2 (386BSD spun from it)
mid-1992: NetBSD 0.8 spawns from NET/2
1993: FreeBSD 1.0 spins from 386BSD as well
mid-1993: 4.4BSD
1994: 4.4BSD lite 1
1995: FreeBSD 2.0, 4.4BSD Lite-2, BSDI 2.0 spin from 4.4BSD lite 1
Note that I'm a linux person, so don't hold me accountable for those dates
Linux of course appeared in 1991.
Re:Third Factor, and Addendum (Score:2)
Thanks
Bruce
Life _is_ fair (Score:2)
You missed out the most important reason : the BSD licence.
Think about it : the Linux developers are just as smart as the BSD developers. The BSD movement also had the advantage that they were a mature operating system at the time Linux was a blip on the horizon. So why didnt the BSD movement gain as many developers as Linux did? Simply because the license was unattractive to them.
Some people also say that the centralized committee nature of BSD is a detractment. Bosh! Linux also has the same committee nature where a patch doesnt appear in a distribution unless it has been blessed by the core developers and / or Linus. The only difference is that this committee is not as formalized as the *BSD committees.
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
What is "true"? The claim that "all non-GPL'd software is being taken proprietary and disappearing forever from public view", as per the statement of the person to whom you're responding:
or the claim that said noise is, in fact, getting a bit old?
If you're asserting that the first claim is "true", then this is a use of "true" to which I was previously unacquainted; the use of "true" with which I'm familiar has connotations such as "in accordance with reality". It is NOT true that "all non-GPL'd software is being taken proprietary and disappearing forever from public view" (unless this is a use of "all" with which I was previously unacquainted, e.g. "all" meaning "some"); the code to FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and X11 are not "proprietary", and are still in public view. Proprietary derivatives of said code have been made, but that doesn't mean the code from which they're derived has been taken public; the attempt of The Open Group to impose restrictions on the redistribution of X11R6.4 source was, fortunately, beaten back - yes, there is the risk that this might happen with other software, and, yes, the GPL would make that more difficult, although note that XFree86's response was to say "we're not upgrading to X11R6.4", as the existing X source releases were still free. Even were one of the BSD groups to decide to impose those sorts of restrictions on the distribution of their OSes - something I consider unlikely, given that, unlike The Open Group, which was composed largely of commercial organizations, they're just collections of developers working on free OSes - earlier releases would continue to be available.
Re:bsd didn't capture new users' interest (Score:5)
Re:Source model? License model? User model! (Score:2)
Fortunately, the people who get the most work done are least interested in raising a blue ribbon ego, or "op" status on the IRC channel, or guru of the mailing list. Unfortunately, these people rarely get the recognition they deserve, but are still recipients of any derision towards the group.
If the high school mentality ended at the so-called "development" level, problems would be confined to the results of that group, but it doesn't. Users do occasionally come into contact with "developers," and when they're told to bugger off unless they've got a patch, that's when the BSD bit in the user's brain flips to 0.
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Re:Two factors (Score:2)
No shit; I've spent half the day responding to those people over in another story.
Dare to say that the PC architecture is prevalent because of it's "Openness", and you'll get flamed for not knowing your history.
Dare to suggest, in fact, that IBM makes money off the PC world, and you'll get flamed.
Careful, Bruce, there are piranhas in the pool.
(Thankfully, with a little moderation they'll go from piranha to pariah. Just set your threshold to 2 and you can swim freely.)
So, I have a question; why has no one released a "mainstream" GPL'ed BSD? Is it just because everybody inclined to do so is working on Linux instead?
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
No, he's arguing that it is not the case that it always happens and that all non-GPL'd software "is being taken proprietary and disappearing forever from public view". It is, in fact, not the case - {Free,Net,Open}BSD are still in public view, and there is no sign that they are being taken proprietary, and there's plenty of other non-GPLed software that's non-proprietary and publicly available (heck, even if The Open Group hadn't abandoned their restrictions on the distribution of X11R6.4 source, previous releases wouldn't have "disappeared forever from public view").
Yes, there is perhaps a greater risk of non-GPLed software "being taken proprietary and disappearing from public view" - although it may just be future versions that disappear from public view, allowing a fork to preserve the public version - but the mere existence of a risk doesn't amount to a certainty that the risked outcome will happen.
Re:Some thoughts of my own (Score:2)
Seriously, the *BSD distro I'm most familiar with is OpenBSD, which might as well use the original Jolitz' installation method. If FreeBSD is better, I'll give that a go and try it out. Though maybe the BSD folk should get it more widely known that some dialects of BSD have good installers.
As for FTP install, you can do that with Linux, and grab stuff from other distros (via Alien) at the same time. What does it matter where it came from? The real advantage of multiple distros, though, is that you can focus on certain stuff. If speed is the name of the game, Stampede is going to save you a -lot- of time! If you want a low-cost embedded router, go for The Router Project's distro. And so on. With Special Interest Groups, there's not such a big demand for "other" software, it's more a case of getting the SIG software running optimally for that group.
Re:BSD vs. Linux (Score:2)
I also am a kernel programmer, and like getting the source code to all components of my system.
The OS most often running on my home machine is FreeBSD. I have full source code to the kernel and to all components of my system.
Liking the idea of getting the source code to every app on your system is not a reason to prefer a Linux distribution to {Free,Net,Open}BSD; it's a reason to prefer an open-source OS - such as a Linux distribution or {Free,Net,Open}BSD - to a closed-source OS.
(Note also that having Linux is not only not necessary if you want source to every app on your system, it's not sufficient, either - you have to avoid installing third-party apps that aren't open-source, which are available for Linux and {Free,Net,Open}BSD as well as for closed-source OSes.)
Re:*BSD File System (Score:2)
I haven't seen to much of an explanation of softupdates, only on McKusick's page [www.mckusick.com].
We don't need another flamewar! (Score:4)
I've browsed the first few comments and found that, unsurprisingly, they say nothing that hasn't already been repeated ad nauseum. I'd like to ask
Luck,
Daniel
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
Daniel
Re:Some thoughts of my own (Score:2)
Joe newbie isn't going to set up their machine to download an OS for hours on end via their questionable MODEM connection. They want it quick and easy. A CD from a local store provides that. It also provides mindshare as they see "Linux" plastered on different shrinkwrap boxes sitting on the shelf.
Having said that, it could be argued that this kind of user isn't BSD's target. That's probably a subject for another thread.
The point is... you like FTP installs. I like FTP installs. But the person who's curiosity is piqued by alternative OS' is more likely to want the quick fix a credit card and a CD they pick up at the store can give them.
support, support, SUPPORT! (Score:2)
Licensing is not the cause. Linux runs lots of software using BSD-type licenses (Apache has a similar license, IIRC), and that hasn't driven anyone away except for the die-hard zealots (who are in the minority). The real cause is a lack of support, and that needs to be addressed before BSD starts garnering popularity.
Perhaps it can be addressed with commercial *BSD distributions, more *BSD web sites, or maybe just a new mindset in the community - perhaps the *BSD users don't want popularity. But the conditions won't change until the support arrives.
Re:bsd didn't capture new users' interest (Score:3)
the linux community is more helpful to newbies, where the BSD community is more guru focused - RTFM!
This is a common concern I hear from the pro-Linux community. Admitably, the BSD guru's willing to help are lesser in number than those on the Linux side (and thus perhaps the underlying message of the article), but they're still out there, and are still willing to help the newbies.
For example, check the following mailing lists for great support for those new to BSD:
Free-BSD-newbies@FreeBSD.org [mailto]*
FreeBSD-questions@FreeBSD.org [mailto]*
-newbies is a discussion group for people new to FreeBSD, it's not intended for technical questions. Likewise, -questions is for technical questions, and not for discussions by new people. You WILL see a lot of "RTFM" on that list, and deservedly so...
Also, of course, check out the support page at FreeBSD.org [freebsd.org] for more help.
*=note: SlashDot is inapropriately parsing the extended info in the mailto's. You should be able to get the gist of it if you click on the mailto links. It should be addressed to majordomo@FreeBSD.org, and have the text subscribe FreeBSD-newbies or subscribe FreeBSD-questions
---------
Question: How do I leverage the power of the internet?
Re:1 million vs. 10 million (Score:2)
No, not particularly. I know a number of people who've been using various Linux distributions for quite a while - i.e., they haven't "graduated from Linux to *BSD" - and people who've been using BSD for a while, but haven't personally seen a significant amount of movement in either direction.
I'd like to see a very broad survey before I drew any conclusions about people moving from Linux to *BSD. The evidence people have presented seems largely anecdotal....
Re:Follow the Money (Score:2)
Ultimately, what's it matter? (Score:2)
They don't say the GPL is the reason (Score:2)
At most, they quote somebody from Novell India as saying that "The reason why it is not as popular as Linux is the lack of commercial support".
There's no place I can see where they attribute the difference in popularity to the license. I see a place where they make the factual statement that the BSDL and GPL are different, but I see nowhere anything in the article claiming that this is the reason for a difference in popularity - the sentence after the one about the license difference might, at most, be suggesting that, as a result of the license difference, "the BSD operating system" (although they don't say which particular flavor of BSD - one of the free ones, or BSD/OS) is inside some firewalls (however, there are plenty of "appliances" with Linux Inside, as well; some even have, I think, proprietary code in them, even if it's not in the kernel).
Re:Follow the Money (Score:2)
1) There is a billion dollar BSD IPO.
Uhhmmmm... billion dollar IPOs are a result of hype, not the cause of it...
Seems like you're getting the cart before the horse.
-Jordan Henderson
Re:Follow the Money (Score:2)
That Pat must be a pretty sharp fellow!
-Jordan Henderson
Re:*BSD File System (Score:2)
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
Re:Tehcnical Superiority != hype != popularity (Score:2)
Well, first of all, Network Appliance doesn't run BSD on their boxes (I joined the software engineering group at NetApp when there were about 7 or 8 people in the group, and I'm still there, so I know what I'm talking about here) - we use the BSD networking stack, and various BSD commands, but it took a fair bit of work with a chainsaw to fit them into our environment (which is a kernel-mode-only, single-address-space OS that would probably not be completely unfamiliar in its innards to a BSD developer, but which is very much not a BSD kernel).
Second of all, there are also embedded boxes that use Linux, e.g. Cobalt's boxes, and, I'm sure, plenty of others.
As for whether Linux is "flakey and not meant for real world use", there are Web sites using it, there are places (including, err, umm, Network Appliance, Inc.) where people use it on their desktops and on their compute servers (most of our compute servers are running Solaris or Digital UNIX, but there is one Linux PC, and there will probably be more over time), and so on. People seem to manage to use it in "the real world" even if it's "not meant for real world use".
Re:Some thoughts of my own (Score:2)
- A potential source of inspiration. Even the most mindless of morons CAN come up with delightful and original ideas.
- A potential source of bug-reports. Nobody finds bugs faster than a clueless newbie, except maybe a clueless newbie fool.
- A potential source of bug-fixes. Every pair of eyes looking at the code is another chance at finding where the semi-colon should be. They don't need to be technicians, any more than you need to be a professional director, in order to spot where a continuity error is, in a film. It's not much different.
- A potential source of suggestions. Is the OS missing some feature that the techs have grown used to coding round? Is coding round the lack a good thing, or is it a waste? If nobody asks, then nobody answers.
- A potential source of demand. Development takes money and resources. But if all your users are also developers, you're not going to get any of that green paper circulating, to fuel the fire.
Discrimination is an Unnecessary Evil, and should be the only thing ever burned at the stake. Nobody should be compelled to use a tech system, but if someone wants to, they should have the means to do so. If BSD is a "free" system, then it's free for all. NOWHERE in the licence does it say that BSD folk should believe in freedom for some.BSD, like Linux, can only survive when people truly know that it's Freedom For ALL, Regardless.
Re:Third Factor, and Addendum (Score:2)
I suspect you called it exactly there, but it should be pointed out that even with the availability of IDE disk and a network, the answer would still be "disk".
Re:one little prob. (Score:2)
A very cynical view not born out by fact. Examples:
STAC vs. Microsoft - Microsoft loses.
Apple Records vs. Apple Computer - Apple Computer Loses.
Dow Corning vs. various private parties. Dow Corning now bankrupt.
Phillip-Morris vs. various private parties - Phillip Morris loses.
Johns-Manville vs. various private parties - Johns Manville bankrupt.
McDonald's vs. old lady who spills coffee - McDonalds loses.
Exxon Corp (Oil Spill) vs. various parties - Exxon loses.
Hooker Chem vs. Love Canal residents - Hooker Chem no longer exists.
GAF vs. Woburn MA residents. - GAF loses.
man who invents intermittant wipers vs. Ford. Ford loses.
A number of these cases are quite questionable as to whether the large company did anything really wrong.
While money allows you to buy a lot of nice fancy lawyers, jurys have a heavy bias against large corporations. If you go into a lawsuit against somebody like the Free Software Foundation you are in trouble right from the beginning.
Re:Linux has one major advantage. (Score:2)
...which would also be true of {Free,Open,Net}BSD, as you have the source code.
...which is also often true of {Free,Net,Open}BSD as well.
Umm, how quickly do things happen in, say, the 2.2[.x] Linux kernel tree, as opposed to the 2.3[.x] tree? You appear to get at least some choice of "bleeding-edge" vs. "stable" there...
...and you also do with FreeBSD (and possibly the other BSDs), by going with the "-current" tree if you want to be on the bleeding edge or going with a "-stable" release if you don't.
That has nothing to do with adopting features, it has to do with whether they're available for the open-source BSDs to adopt - and there appear to be people contributing stuff back to the BSDs, e.g. Whistle have contributed a number of things to FreeBSD.
Well, maybe. Perhaps the ISA PnP tools, or the ISA PnP kernel patch, for Linux can be made tow work as well as the ISA PnP support has worked for me on my box (it handles my PnP ISA sound card just fine - no, I do not want a PCI sound card, I'd rather leave my PCI slots available for cards such as networking and SCSI cards), but the PnP ISA patch didn't work very well on the 2.0[.x] kernel on my Debian partition (I could've debugged it, but didn't particularly have any interest in doing so, as it Just Worked on FreeBSD), and it wasn't clear whether I'd have to update some config file to use the ISA PnP tools (I could've dug into that, but didn't particularly have any interest in doing so, as it Just Worked on FreeBSD).
I.e., I don't think it's as clear-cut as you describe - you can do bleeding-edge stuff with FreeBSD (and perhaps the other ones) if you want, and you can do trailing-edge stable stuff with Linux if you want. (Note: "trailing-edge" is not being used as a pejorative here; heck, I don't run "-current" on my home machine, as I'm primarily using it for development of stuff for the Ethereal network analyzer [zing.org], and for surfing/reading mail/etc., so I'm reasonably happy to be somewhat on the trailing edge.)
Re:bsd didn't capture new users' interest (Score:2)
Linux played catchup with BSD for quite a while. They clearly run neck and neck now. But lots of people like one camp over the other. I think both the BSD and Linux camps have lots of good developers working them both, and it will be intersting to see hat will happen in the next two or three years, neither is going away, but will industry embrace the GPL? It does seem unlikely to me.
Personally since I learned about BSD OS's when I was in school I like them better than Linux ones. But I guess if I had to choose today which one I was going to install on a machine I could pretty much pick and choose. Lots of schools now teach Linux instead of BSD, in the OS classes. Some of them still teach Minix (if you want to read something entertaining you should try to find the thread of Torvalds and Tannenbaum discussing the merits of a monolithic vs a micro kernel.)
I think overall the major difference in BSD vs Linux is Torvalds. One intelligent, well spoken, until recently, accessable individual has made all the difference in the world. Even now he remains a powerful voice in support of it, and he plays well in the papers. He is less important now than he was earlier, but don't discount his influence, there were a LOT of good alternative OS's out at about the same time.
Jer,
Re:"Berkeley Software Design" (Score:2)
The distributions of software from the University of California at Berkeley were called "Berkeley Software Distribution"(s).
A company named Berkeley Software Design, Inc. [bsdi.com] sells a commercial OS - called "BSD/OS", not "BSDI" - based on the BSD 4.4-Lite source.
Re:what are you talking about? (Score:2)
I think he's trying to imply that they may have adopted it now, but rejected it originally.
The CVS tree [freebsd.org] seems to imply that it may have been in FreeBSD at least as far back as 2.0, however; the comment from the initial checkin, with a date of Mon Sep 19 15:41:43 1994 UTC, says "Obtained from: NetBSD", so NetBSD may have had it even longer.
I was there (Score:2)
Bill Joy didn't write free UNIX. He wrote a lot of code, but Sam Leffler, Kirk McKusick, Keith Bostic et al. are not exactly slouches either. Not to mention the whole effort was overseen on a continuing basis by a design board of academics chosen by DARPA. You like the socket interface? Thank DARPA's board. They pounded Bill Joy really hard (probably for the first time in his career) until he "got it" that most of the brilliant things CSRG came up with originally had been tried and rejected by them severally at their own institutions. The Berkeley socket mechanism was the result of several go-rounds of this sort of thing.
Here's another. "When Berkeley stopped funding the project..." Hoo-hah. Berkeley never funded the project. DARPA did. They did it because they got tired of paying all of their research institutions in parallel just to support their computing environments: they wanted a stable base of Internet code that would be used by everybody, and they figured they'd pay for it just until commercial versions became viable. When the Internet took off the funding stopped. CSRG hung on for a year or two looking for other funding, didn't find any, and folded. There was a tag end of work there, by the way: 30,000 lines of OSI networking code (think X.25 & Co.) was inserted. I think it's probably gone by now, but it left its mark in the data structures, at least.
Then there's that amazing quotation: "In terms of sophistication, the BSD operating system is better than Linux. What flame-bait. This was definitely true in earlier days, but these days it's probably a push, for most applications. I believe that BSD may be better for truly huge server installations, but in comparison with the total installed base, this isn't a very high percentage.
Looking back, I think the history of Linux and BSD can be compared with current theories of the early universe. Very small things result in huge differences later on. Frankly, I don't think the preponderance of Linux over BSD has squat to do with licenses. The BSD system was designed in an encumbered environment, with everyone under license. It took two years in court to get out from under the AT&T license, which was the exact opposite of free software ("You can exchange software freely!
I grew up in a BSD world. (Truth in advertising: I was on that DARPA board.) I recommend FreeBSD for really large server applications. For smaller outfits, and for desktops, I recommend Linux enthusiastically. Not for the GPL, on which I'm neutral (now THAT makes me a rarity, I think!), but for the ease of acquisition, the base of available software, and the size of the support community. (My understanding is that ease of installation for many of the Linux distributions has a ways to go yet, at least compared to FreeBSD.)
Those actively involved in development know that GPL or not, Linux and the BSD movement trade software back and forth all the time, freely, openly, and in an atmosphere of mutual support. The bigots for one side or the other are, in the main, out of the loop. I hope it stays that way.
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
So, I have a question; why has no one released a "mainstream" GPL'ed BSD? Is it just because everybody inclined to do so is working on Linux instead?
Two reasons, first, until very very recently, the BSD license was not compatible with the GPL. The advertising clause of the BSD license prevented such a thing from happening. Secondly, some of the people most loyal to the BSD way of doing things have very anti-GPL feelings. Typically, such people are more concerned with their code being widely used (in Free or non-Free systems) than encouraging Free software, and the GPL gets in the way of that.
We probably will see a GPLed BSD at some point, but there's no pressing need I see for someone to jump on the opportunity. The flaming that such a project would likely receive makes it even less worth it. In general, a developer picks a license because it matches how they want the software to be used; changing the license, even while legal, would be bad form without a very good reason.
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Re:Two factors (Score:2)
I reject the notion that View Source in a web browser is Open anything.
Well, on most systems it's an open window
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Re:Life _is_ fair (Score:2)
Does anybody have any data from a careful study of both the open-source BSD kernels and of the Linux kernel, or of both the open-source BSD OSes and the open-source components of Linux distributions, to indicate that "new ideas and innovations" are present in Linux to an extent significantly greater than the extent to which they're present in the open-source BSDs?
Could you please justify that assertion with facts? When I log onto a Linux system, it sure as hell looks as much like a "Unix system" to me as do FreeBSD or Solaris or HP-UX or Digital UNIX or....
Re:Source model? License model? User model! (Score:5)
Can you back this up with references to actual incidents, as opposed to rumours? It do not match my impression at all, with the exception of #freebsd on efnet, which is an has always been a cesspool (from what I hear, #unix and #linux are very similar.)
As a developer, unless you're a 20 year BSD veteran, suggest an idea or ask where you can begin to help and you should be prepared to be stomped on. Hard and repeatedly. Largely by many of the project principals.
This is not true. It match the rumours I hear from the the Linux community, but they do not match the reality I've experienced.
I entered the FreeBSD community without having much Unix experience; I'd run Linux for a few months (on a machine somebody else set up for me), and had had a login on a couple of other machines (SGIs and Suns). I was welcomed as a mailing list participant without having done any hacking on Unix itself, and as a short time Unix user. I got commit privileges after having been active on the lists for a couple of months, continously feeling them as friendly and welcoming of suggestions.
I am now regarded as one of the 'project principals' (to use your term); I have never seen anybody being flamed for asking where to help. If I ever see a developer flame somebody for that, that developer will need to defend his commit privileges. I do not consider that kind of behaviour acceptable, and neither does (as far as I can tell) the community as a whole.
When it comes to ideas, I agree that there can sometimes come a backlash. This is usually in the form of 'Show me the patches' when somebody is suggesting someting that is a lot of work, but we do have people in the community that will pounce rather hard on proposals that are bad, and where the person proposing it could have found that out by spending a small amount of time.
Review some of Matt Dillon's contributions to FreeBSD in the mailing lists. He's repeatedly helped to pull large portions of FreeBSD up to and even past their Linux equivalents.
LOL! Matt has contributed a lot, sure, but he's not "pulled things beyond their Linux equivalents" - the things he has been working on has always been further ahead in FreeBSD than in Linux. They are some of our strongest pieces.
Then consider the rationale behind the community's treatment of him.
The treatment has mainly been to not accept that he should, on his own authority, refuse to accept advice from the rest of the community, and that he would not keep direct write access to the source tree (commit privileges) unless he learned to work with the community.
Would you want to have somebody that was contiually at war with Linus write to the Linux source tree, in opposition to what Linus said was OK? One that also fought with the rest of the Linux users? I suspect not - and the FreeBSD core team felt they could not accept that situation, either.
Note: I cooperate with Matt on FreeBSD development, and consider him a brilliant programmer. I also think that he should have commit privileges (which he has now). However, I don't think he has been mistreated - he has been behaving in a way that brought him repeatedly into conflicts with people, and that had to be handled.
Eivind.
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
Two things:
First, it's more than a little unfair to lump the present FreeBSD license in with the historic commercial BSD license. Due to the AT&T concerns and other issues, they are really completely different animals.
As you no doubt know, Sun and the other workstation OEMs were under the old commercial BSD license, which does not require or even encourage reincorporation of code from the licensees. It's my understanding that even so, many (but not all) Sun improvements made it back into BSD up through the SunOS 3 & 4 days - which ended a geological epoch ago in Internet time.
(You're right about there being more Sys V code than BSD in most modern commercial Unixes - although I'm personally more comfortable with Berkeley Unix practices, when the father of BSD (Bill Joy, for the newbies) decided that the SVR3-based Solaris was the only way to provide for future needs, that sent a message!)
Sun went further than they had to in giving back any changes at all - as you corectly point out, almost no one else has given anything! I'm not sure what you're beef with either Sun or BSD is here other than, "the world isn't like it'd be if *I* were king!"
Second, although I have not taken the time to seriously try FreeBSD (I should, I know), it's probably quite premature to either declare Linux' victory or the failure of the BSD license model. In fact, it's quite possible that BSD could have the last laugh - Both Linux and FreeBSD user bases are comparatively small, and big numbers will likly come from big promoters. (Of your two factors, I think time is the big one.)
It's no secret that many commercial developers are more comfortable with the BSD license - if that ultimately translates into more commercial support for the BSDs rather than the Linuxes, then we could see a real shift in "popularity". Remember the communities are sparse enough that there's only about a 4 or 5:1 edge for Linux now, and most of the big guys are still straddling the fence. (e.g.: IBM both supporting Red Hat and buying BSD-based Whistle.)
Some people will always abuse the system, and there's no good way to stop it. (I think most of us suspect GPL'ed code has been "privatized" a time or two!) License purity is not a cure for human greed.
And no, I don't think "poisoning" the BSD waterhole with GPL would do either camp (or open/free software in general) any good at all. In reality, I think the town is more than big enough for both Linux and FreeBSD, and it appears there are things both camps could learn from one another.
Re:FreeBSD vs. Linux stability. (Score:3)
Oh, you mean the discussion that includes
i.e., that Linux later accepted the change:
As for "others can be found elsewhere", please give references - perhaps they're also not bad implementations.
Re:FreeBSD vs. Linux (Score:2)
No, not necessarily. {FreeBSD,Linux,Solaris x86,Unixware,...} ELF binaries for the platform in question expect the shared library routines they call to have particular calling sequences, with data structures having the layout of the OS on that platform, with various #defines, etc. having particular values, and so on. The mere fact that those OSes all use ELF is insufficient to arrange that binaries for a given CPU will run on all of them.
Now, there are Linux-ABI implementations for all of those OSes (Linux implements it by definition; FreeBSD has support for Linux binaries; lxrun runs on Solaris and, I think, Unixware - it may originally have been an SCO program), so some commercial Linux binaries may be able to run on all of them.
I've heard that to be the case for USB, and plug-and-play ISA seems to work better on FreeBSD than on Linux right now as well.
Both of those will, I think, change with the 2.4 Linux kernel - but there may, in the future, be other places where FreeBSD does better than Linux, just as there are places where Linux does better than FreeBSD, when it comes to supporting hardware.
The relative state of OSes X and Y at time T doesn't necessarily indicate that the relative state will be the same at time T plus delta T; some of the Microsoft anti-Linux marketing literature may well make correct points now about stuff that NT does better than Linux, but that doesn't mean it'll always do better - and the same applies to stuff Linux does better. Of course, marketing literature is generally intended to persuade, rather than inform, so if somebody says "XXX does better than YYY at ZZZ", be careful that you don't necessarily implicitly infer from that statement that XXX will always be better than YYY at ZZZ....
Re:Its the license,s****d! (Score:2)
Because, for the commercial software, it's Another Platform To Support, and they have to build it for the platform, test it on the platform, take support calls for the platform, etc.?
Some vendors do have FreeBSD ports - Applix [applix.com] and Perforce [perforce.com], for example. Linux binaries of commercial products may run on FreeBSD, as well - I seem to remember Jordan Hubbard suggesting to vendors that they port to Linux first.
As for the open-source applications, well, check out the BSD ports collection - my desktop is KDE 1.1.2, from the FreeBSD ports collection....
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
Are either of those due to the GPL? It seems silly to reject a license merely because some code released under that license doesn't meet your standards, unless you have solid evidence that the license somehow caused the code not to meet your standards and will cause a lot of other code not to meet your standards....
Re:The problem is definitely the BSD license... (Score:2)
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
And of course the argument is different for X, that's been under a BSD-like license for much longer.
I wouldn't suggest the GPL as a means of "poisoning the BSD water-hole" - that's pejorative. I would suggest the GPL as a means of providing a path for people who prefer to have a license protecting the free-ness of their efforts.
Thanks
Bruce
2,000,000 users is some kind of failure? (Score:2)
Frankly I'm stunned by the swift rise of FreeBSD - I thought nothing would ever touch the success of the Linux movement. Being a relatively new Linux convert I'm willing to admit that I suffered from a kind of parochialism with respect to FreeBSD - when I heard news of it I kind of wanted not to hear it because, hey, I've already found the answer and it's Linux, right?
I think I'm probably not alone in that: many of you probably have the same feelings (you know who you are:) Recently though my attitude towards the BSDs has changed from a kind of jealousy to admiration and respect. A lot of that has been due to the sympathetic and interesting coverage on Slashdot. A larger part of it is the obvious truth that there's a lot to respect technically in the BSD's - look at the security audits just for one thing. I now see the BSD's as another tool in the toolbox - it's what I'll do when I need a slimmer, tighter box that doesn't necessarily have to get all dressed up to kill.
Now, I don't seriously believe that the BSD's will ever pass Linux in popularity, for reasons that are set out nicely in your article and are beaten to death elsewhere in this thread. But neither do I believe that there is room in this world for only one open OS, especially when they are interoperable. The BSD's will help us achieve world domination. They are but one more division in the open source army.
Re:Sophistication? (Score:2)
As I've said, I don't think there's much value in this sort of "my OS is better than your OS" discussion. Anything that I point out that Linux has been audacious enough to do alone is an easy target, but the bottom line is that BSD and Linux are both more stable, feature-rich and supported than any commercial OS that I've ever seen.
Linux is taking a bold step with khttpd, and perhaps it will turn out to be a mistake, or perhaps it will be succesful, and the BSDs will adopt it in order to maintain a competitive Web server position. Either way, we're watching the power of open source, and when journalists cite bogus comparisons like "In terms of sophistication, the BSD operating system is better than Linux", I just have to hang my head and sigh.
Re:Third Factor, and Addendum (Score:2)
I'm not sure when "then" was, but Linux had TCP/IP by early 1993. Trying to remember why we chose to go with Linux over 386BSD, it's a bit hazy. It wouldn't have been the IDE issue, as the systems we were looking to use with an affordable alternative to SCO initially all had SCSI drives. It wasn't failure to know about 386BSD, as Dave Burgess was right down the hall, gently evangelizing. The only thing that I can think of was the uncertainty of the USL vs BSDI lawsuit. I suppose that by the time that was settled, we had already invested enough into Linux, and showed enough progress with it, that there wasn't any reason at that point to switch horses to one of the BSD branches.
Re:FreeBSD vs. Linux stability. (Score:2)
That part showed up after that issue of KT came out; I don't know whether it showed up after I checked it earlier today or not (I'd assumed that issues of KT are invariant after publication, and I saw that issue before the note was added).
Some stuff in the FreeBSD archive indicates that they may have decided that the unlock optimization couldn't be done that way, either, although I'd have to plow through a ton of -current code and, perhaps, CVS logs to see exactly what they did do - see this message [freebsd.org], for example, and this message [freebsd.org].
(And, the hypothesis in, as I remember, one of the linux-kernel messages nonwithstanding, the FreeBSD folk do have P6 machines - some of Matt's timing experiments were, as I remember, done on a Pentium III.)
The comment in the code also suggests that it might be useful to have a way of building a kernel without the lock, if it truly can be removed on all but the early PPro's to which the comment refers.
Re:Source model? License model? User model! (Score:2)
If I remember correctly, you said you had very little experience with FreeBSD. In other words, you have no idea what you are talking about and are using blind and misappropriated speculation.
BSD is not a cult. You are just full of shit.
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
The fact that it is not imperative to return code is irrelevant. There are many corporate users who have returned portions of their code who would not have used the GPL in the first place because they can not pick and choose.
Re:Third Factor, and Addendum (Score:2)
6) a less divergent path where supporting anything and everything isn't a top priority
7) lower key users who are less likely to advocate their OS choice
Re:Source model? License model? User model! (Score:2)
The one and only thing I did notice that was not working was the computer info page which is based on the linux proc setup which is not similar at all to the BSD equivalent.
Request for Slashdot Poll (Score:2)
I would really like to see such a Slashdot poll
I bought BSD/Linux because
My personal guess is that only those who actually program might rank the type of open source license so high that it influenced their decision. And these are a minority, I believe, maybe ranking in the ten thousands but not in the millions.
Re:Follow the Money (Score:2)
I was merely stating that Linux is currently more popular then BSD, and this popularity is NOT based on marketing hype..
BSD? (Score:2)
1) PR. Not that BSD has bad PR. It just doesn't get as much of it as Linux does. Most people have at least heard of Linux, but you don't hear about BSD in the media very often. You can't use what you don't know exists.
2) The license. Say what you will, but the non-quid-pro-quo has a lot of disadvantages, not the least of which is that it discourages development by independent authors. Look at it this way: a commercial company can do whatever it wants with BSD-licensed software, make it proprietary, and make a ton of money off the stuff (witness Solaris). Corporations have nothing to fear from BSD, the way they do GPL. An independent author could theoretically do this, but it's not practical; one person simply doesn't have the marketing power of a corporation and thus isn't going to be able to profit. Therefore, the independent author has no real choice but to keep his code free and Open-Source. This tips the balance of power, and means that independent authors usually end up working, in effect, as unpaid coders for the companies that leech off of BSD's work.
3) Fragmentation. The fragmentation of BSD really isn't that bad. But it is there; you have three major versions (FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD) and a few others (Darwin could, in a way, be considered one, though it's hardly a major variant at this point in time). Is this a Bad Thing? No. It's not good, but it's not bad. But it does scare most bosses. It scares them enough so that it doesn't take much extra FUD to sway their decisions (unless the bosses know what they're talking about, in which case it takes considerably more effort).
Is BSD a bad system? Hardly; I don't have very much experience with BSD but I like what I've seen so far (though I think I'll stick with Linux all the same). But it does have a few issues. Linux does too; don't get me wrong, no OS is perfect, and they both have some way to go. It just happens that, for now, Linux is farther ahead. That might change, or it might not. Either way, it keeps things from being dull.
Re:Source model? License model? User model! (Score:2)
If i have time tommorow or thursday, I may look into this problem and submit a patch for the port or just give a heads up to the maintainer..
Re:Two factors (Score:2)
Yes, the GPL is strongly connected to the FSF, given that it was originally, I think, the idea of the FSF's founder.
And, yes, the GNU utilities are, not surprisingly, licenced under the GPL.
However, what I was trying to get across is that this does not, in and of itself, demonstrate that the GPL is connected to "the creeping featurism and code bloat in GNU utils"; somebody could write, say, a GPLed cat that lacked such creeping featurism and code bloat as the -v flag (-v being, by the way, Berkeley creeping featurism, not GNU creeping featurism...)
Cool! (Score:2)
While I really enjoy using Linux and have no inclination to "jump" to BSD myself... I'm also of the opinion that BSD deserves some attention. Great to see it hit the shelves too.
Re:Some thoughts of my own (Score:2)
If I were into the flame fest thing (as opposed to lame attempts at humor), I'd point out all this "red scare" stuff that comes from BSD fanatics (note the play on mascot color). Ahh well. Maybe we can herd all the Linux zealots and aim them at the BSD zealots and cancel them all out - or point the whole lot at Microsoft. :)
Re:Some thoughts of my own (Score:2)
Doing a network install over a slow connection requires a good deal of dedication (both to investment of time and tying up other resources). Someone who is curious about your favorite alternative OS may not be inclined to make that investment just out of curiosity. Again, going down to the store and transfering the entire OS via a payment, sneakers, and a CD is much quicker and gets them to trying out the new environment quicker. That's good.
It's great to see Linux enjoying this advantage. It'd be great to see BSD too.
Re:Request for Slashdot Poll (Score:2)
The world is littered with non-free forks of free BSDs -- if hte original had been GPL'd, we'd all have got to share those changes.
For example -- I remember a BSD based Internet gateway for novell networks. That will be a kernel hack, but the BSD world did not get to see the source.
A couple of recent Linux examples are the Tivo kernel changes and the port to IBM System 390. It's unlikely that either of those sets of code would have been released as source if the GPL didn't force it.
That said, we're seeing a lot of Apache code gifted from commerce (although there's a lot of proprietary stuff I'd also like to see freed). I'd say that Linux has proved to many large companies that freeing the source is not necessarily an act of selflessness. Now they've been forced to try it, they can go on to free source even when the licence says they don't have to.
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Re:Common misconception (Score:2)
This makes the GPL different from other free software licenses in that the GPL is a weapon: its purpose is to help Stallman in his fight to purge the world of all non-GNU software. (Yes, all, including other free software. Read his disucssion of the readline library and the LGPL if you don't believe me.)
I don't mind the GNU license otherwise, but the stance against pluralism really disturbs me. And even if I accepted the argument some people make that Stallman's really only out to get proprietary software, his willingness for free software to be collateral damage in that war is just as bad.
cjs