BSDmall and Wasabi Systems today announced a collaboration to support the NetBSD user community by publishing regular distributions of the open source NetBSD operating system, beginning with the long-anticipated NetBSD 2.0 due early next year.
Wasabi Systems & BSDmall to Collaborate on NetBSD CD Distribution
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I think Wasabi Systems CD packages for NetBSD is very appealing. I wish it was available for free download (just like RedHat is).
wow… I have seen some many ” it needs to be free” comments on osnews lately… kind of dipressing that everyone is slowly turning in to a community of cheap skates.. hey! maybe thats why linux users dont use MS… its not as costly..
is this like an enhanced version with extra packages compared to what is available from the iso directory on http://ftp.netbsd.org ?
or is 1.6.1 going to be the last one they offer that way or something?
lol went and read the article … /me slaps myself i should know better
I kinda agree. There have been two effects of “commercial” software. The first was shrinkwrapping stuff that formarly was freely shared…before the 80’s most utility software wasn’t “pay-per-seat” like it is now. Note RMS though things were so bad in 1984 he started GNU! After that the Mega-corps rose up and copyrighted/patented/trademarked everything in site–trying to make it seem “normal”. Until MS got so determined to be a monopoly that they started “giving” stuff away again–but trying to keep draconian rights attached.
Right now most people don’t really “pay” for software. They get Windows and Office pre-installed with the price of the machine and MS keeps the IE/WMP/ etc updates comming to keep the competition out of business. But, when the #2 OS is Win98 MS has to start charging…nickle and diming again… to keep making more money!
Also, people have been Paying for windows for nearly 20 years! that’s longer than original copyrights were for. That’s like paying over and over for copies of the alphabet. It’s just a bunch of bits and bytes…Billy G has made more than enough money to compensate him for his “innovation” and it’s time for the basics of computing to be truly free.
Not wanting to pay is another “corperatist” problem. After all, the corps & govt have such deep pockets. You can sue them, tax them, fine them, fee them, and they just keep trucking. You are right that there is a growing reliance on corp money to fund things…the “little” people don’t really want to pay fair price for most things anymore…and the corps keep getting bigger and bigger by feeding the monster. Of course it’s all going to POP soon! When like you said, nobody wants to pay fair price for fair work…
Will the price be comparable with a SuSe or Red Hat Professional [~$100] or will it be “Enterprise” priced [>$1000]? I always thought that was the downfall of the other BSD distro that was way out of reach of most small users. [Pro-sumers, SMBs, ect] But hey, the source is always available for free [from the base project] if you’re willing to do the work & support, so I guess it doesn’t matter.
I have only used Free and when my c.d.’s get here OpenBSD, but this does sound like good news for NetBSD. I agree in hoping that the price is competitive.
What BSD distro are you speaking of? FreeBSD is 35$ the full distro (on BSDmall), and you can download the isos for nothing. Same for OpenBSD.
not sure what people are saying here.. i’m sure i’ve got isos for free from the net… all 8 of them. (install and packages).
anyway this is very good news if distribution is icreased – CDs were still available from their website links.
does anyone know if the netbsd 2.0 has a much improved kernel … like O(1) scheduling, socket strcu allocation, etc like the linux 2.6…. i read the very very interesting article on osnews earlier which compared *bsd with linux 2.x and the results were very revealing. and not very pleasant for openbsd!
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“And you can download the isos for nothing. Same for OpenBSD.”
Ah-ah! You cannot download the OpenBSD ISO9660’s for free. Those are copyrighted by Theo. You are, however, allowed to make your own, and to distribute it. That’s NP. But the official CD’s *ARE* copyrighted so ripping an official CD and spreading isn’t legal either.
I wouldn’t even *want* an ISO9660. Regarding multiple boxes i would create my own at best (an image, saves a lot time), but for now, i prefer a network install over CD install since ages (regarding 1 box only). I don’t like CD’s much, cause i tend to mix those up and i only use them once. Rescue you say? Floppy i say! All my boxes have one. Network install *IS* possible with all the 3 major BSD’s (Free, Net, Open).
But the nice thing with such a CD packet is that you get nice goodies with it. And instead of buying a CD you can buy a poster or a t-shirt
Hmm the regular NetBSD ISOs are different than Wasabi Systems’ ISO’s AFAIK. Wasabi Systems’ one is more polished.
I guess making it available for free download, and charging for service seems like a reasonable choice given that NetBSD is developed voluntarily by many people. Also I don’t think anyone would want to pay for those Unices because most of them are free. You would only pay if your company needs support, which is how RedHat mainly makes money.
NetBSD, unlike OpenBSD for example, *does* offer free ISOs for ftp. “Like Red Hat”, as you said.
What Wasabi also offers are some additional programs that aren’t in it’s download edition. “Like Red Hat”, which has an “Advanced Server” edition that is not available for download. Unless you are doing embedded system development, however, most of the Wasabi tools aren’t useful for you anyway.
Please quit posting FUD about NetBSD, it’s obvious that you haven’t even done so much as look at their website; much less looked for ISOs, which it offers for many architectures – they have more ISOs on their ftp site because of that than most Linux distros. 😉