When comparing the evolution in market share of Linux and OpenBSD, two operating systems that were born around the same time, a question comes to mind: why is there such a difference in market penetration? Linux, on one side of the spectrum, with a license that supposedly impairs commercial venues, has enticed companies and organizations to adopt and support it under varying commercial models, while the BSD derivatives (FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD), with a larger history and an allegedly more commercial friendly license haven't been as successful to gather a large installed base and widespread adoption.
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Member since:2007-11-09
It is challenging to get into the big three BSD projects, especially FreeBSD. There is a steep mentoring period and it ends up making their average committer's age much higher. They attract mature developers instead of college students. The downside to that is that there are much less people interested in contributing as the bar is higher to start.
I think Google's Summer of Code program has helped interest in several BSD projects over the last few years. DragonFly and FreeBSD have gained developers from it.
The real difference is that linux is quite commercial these days. Many of the developers work for a large company and get paid to work on Linux part of the time. That makes a big difference in what gets done and how quickly. It also balances out the immature developers from college that also work on linux. People talk about the GPL but at the end of the day the IBM, Novell (who knows with attachmate), Intel and Ciscos of the world fund Linux development.
I can tell you it's quite hard to attract new developers to my project. It was much easier when I was in college and had a lot of time to contribute as well as many contacts with free time.
Another hurdle is that people can just do things on linux that aren't possible on other operating systems like use flash, java, etc. Sure there are ports to some of the BSDs but they are buggy or outdated. Eventually you hit people who want to get real work done and it's hard to get them to run your OS that's designed for servers. There is movement in this area in the BSD world. PC-BSD has started to attract interest in desktop development and my project is specifically about making BSD desktop ready.
I don't think it has anything to do with the license. Most people I've met don't care that much.
Member since:2007-03-26
Why not?
People are naturally going to develop for the platform that already has the most support. The early adoption to Linux meant that it gained critical mass quicker so naturally corporations and developers would more likely be drawn to Linux over the lesser supported BSD.
This is still true. You can have a fully functional FreeBSD desktop however when things go wrong there's less sources for help. So most people who want an open source desktop turn to Linux due to the significantly larger number of support forums, mailing lists, and developers on hand.
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
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And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Member since:
2006-01-11
The USL vs Berkeley lawsuit was settled in 1994, 17 years ago. Certainly the legal cloud had an impact at the beginning, but it can't be blamed anymore.
I think that there's a good argument that the GPL helped rather than hurt, but it's also true that other projects with more permissive licenses have been successful. The cultural differences and leadership of the projects also made a big difference; Linus welcomed contributors, gave them real power, and set a blistering development pace (the rate of change is amazing), while the leaders of the various BSDs were far more exclusive and hard to work with.