It’s been a week since FreeBSD 5.0 got released. Many argue that this release is the most important and most technically advanced, ever, for FreeBSD. I am truly disapointed though on the way the media have responded to this release.Except the *BSD news sites, OSNews, Slashdot, a few Mac news sites (mostly because of the OSX-BSD connection) and a small number of Linux news sites, none of the big “pro” news sites reported on the release. It was a negative surprise to not see eWeek or ZDNews and News.com report on the release. BusinessWeek, InfoWorld and the rest of the “high-end pro” news sites didn’t report about it either.
This situation really saddens me, and I am not particularly a FreeBSD user (I don’t claim to reboot to it more than once or twice a month on my personal box – however our home router/server box does run happily FreeBSD). But no matter how I look at it, this release was really important, FreeBSD 5.0 features SMP and MT technology not found on other OSes.
Instead, we see Linux making headlines for every little thing that’s happening to it. And if you think that “FreeBSD is not as popular”, then think again. FreeBSD is as important as other Unices out there, which do make headlines from time to time, plus it has more userbase/installbase than Lindows, Lycoris (and even BeOS back in the day). Heck, even Bitstream donating 10 puny fonts made headlines around the web, while the 5.0 release didn’t.
The difference here is the PR/marketing people. There is no doubt in my mind that the news regarding FreeBSD should have been big on all these tech sites, just because FreeBSD does have the required installbase to look important. The problem, I believe, does not only lie in the editors of these news sites who aren’t able to distinguish the important news from hype. The blame is also on the FreeBSD project which didn’t release a registered press release via newswire. At least I didn’t see one (no, this is not a PR). Even the KDE, Gnome and other OSS projects have “PR people” who roll out press releases. In fact, KDE is issuing press releases even for betas, because this greatly help with the project looking responsible to the media and to its users.
I remember that in the past the FreeBSD project had a warmer reception from the media, I believe that the project needs to work on their communication skills a bit. The fact that “people work for free, for fun” doesn’t excuse the fact that they could do better and ask for some exposure. More exposure, means more users and developers, which eventually means more life and evolution for the project itself (more explanation here regarding this).
Since Jordan Hubbard left to work for Apple, the project seems to many people a bit isolated. FreeBSD has lost its “leader” and its main spokeperson. I believe that this is also one of the reasons behind this “black out of FreeBSD news”.
No, FreeBSD is not dead (TM). It just needs to work on its communication skills and get the word out. And of course, it also needs to overturn somehow the whole Linux hype engine, which could be blocking it from “looking as important” in the eyes of the net population. And these editors at these news sites, should re-evaluate as to “what sells and what not”.
The first CDROM (and general net-wide) distribution was FreeBSD 1.0, released in December of 1993. This was based on the 4.3 BSD Lite (“Net/2”) tape from U.C. Berkeley, with many components also provided by 386BSD and the Free Software Foundation. It was a fairly reasonable success for a first offering, and we followed it with the highly successful FreeBSD 1.1 release in May of 1994.
Around this time, some rather unexpected storm clouds formed on our horizon as Novell and U.C. Berkeley settled their long-running lawsuit over the legal status of the Berkeley Net/2 tape. A condition of that settlement was U.C. Berkeley’s concession that large parts of Net/2 were “encumbered” code and the property of Novell, who had in turn acquired it from AT&T some time previously. What Berkeley got in return was Novell’s “blessing” that the 4.4 Lite release, when it was finally released, would be declared unencumbered and all existing Net/2 users would be strongly encouraged to switch. This included us, and we were given until the end of July 1994 to stop shipping our own Net/2 based product. Under the terms of that agreement, we were allowed one last release before the deadline and that became FreeBSD 1.1.5.1, the culmination of our year’s work with Net/2 and generally considered by many to be a significant project milestone for stability and general performance..
We then set about the arduous task of literally re-inventing ourselves with a completely new and rather incomplete set of 4.4 Lite bits. The “Lite” releases were light in part because Berkeley’s CSRG had removed large chunks of code required for actually constructing a bootable running system (due to various legal requirements) and the fact that the Intel port of 4.4 was highly incomplete. It took us until December of 1994 to make this transition, and in January of 1995 we released FreeBSD 2.0 to the net and on CDROM. Despite being still more than a little rough around the edges, the release was a significant success and has since been followed by the more robust and easier to install FreeBSD 2.0.5 release in June of 1995.
http://www.infran.ru/TechInfo/BSD/handbook3.html
That is something less than a year of delay. I still don’t think that explains the reason why Linux was hyped and BSD wasn’t.
I can’t help but wonder if the media pick up more
on Linux purely because of sensationalism.. i.e
Linux is seen as the little guy taking on the
goliath of the computing industry, which can go back
further and be seen as the unknown university student
taking on the billionair…
Linux has Linus, their “figurehead” who they elevate
to heroism, MS zealots have their Bill Gates (hate it or love it, Bill G. does have his own loyal following),
but FreeBSD doesn’t really have anyone in the media’s
eye to elevate… Lets be honest, the media love it when
things get “personal”, and with BSD, thats hard to make news
from
Just another 2 cents worth of flamebait
“If there isn’t a port, the NetBSD codebase is without any doubt the best place to start. It’s more modular and proven than any other OS when it comes to porting across architectures.”
As an example http://www.wasabisystems.com/
I am very disappointed in some of my fellow BSDers who actually TAKE PRIDE in the poor lack of PR that is sent out by the BSD community. They dismiss it with, “BSD has never been about hype.” or “Linux users migrate to BSD.” Sorry guys, that’s ASS BACKWARDS.
That’s a great excuse, but it is a cannibalizing, defeatist attitude. Whether you like it or not, companies install stuff based on reputation. Oracle, IBM, and SAP can sell their stuff on “Linux” to IT Departments because IT Departments have heard of it. Say “BSD” and you get a blank stare, and good freakin’ luck justifiying it in your systems proposal.
We need to get the word out. I have have been in so many situations already where I would have preferred to use BSD over Linux but the fact of the matter was that I couldn’t install the damn application I wanted onto a BSD machine. And no, the Linux compatability layer does NOT cut it. We need native released apps, bottom line.
It’s one thing to be complacent towards PR, but to actively discourage its value, and incorporate that discouragement into the culture of the project, is not only counterproductive, it’s INEXCUSABLE.
Sorry, thinking some more here
…
When FreeBSD decides to do some PR exercises, maybe
a new icon would be appropriate.. I mean, the Linux
penguin is cute, the media love it.. BSD has a demon,
erm, since when are demons cute ( OK, you can make it
LOOK cute ) but if I knew nothing about computers
and daemons and their association etc. i’d be pretty iffy
about my IT staff installing something thats icon
symbolizes something to do with evil and mayhem… Lets
be honest here, the Linux penguin is probably mentioned
more in the media then Linus, but noone mentions that
little demon
I vote for a change =)
“One does not link to the Linux kernel the way one links to a library. One runs stuff on top of it. Apple could have used Linux without any legal problems, easily.”
OS X IS NOT running on top of FreeBSD! Just like it would NOT be running on top of the Linux kernel! That’s the point I can’t seem to get through to you.
I never said that OS X ran on top of FreeBSD. You were saying that “Aqua isn’t running on top of the UNIX subsystem like X Windows does,” and I pointed out signs that indicated that Aqua probably was in fact a separate subsystem running on top of a kernel. (Big hint for the day, Simba. Apple releases Darwin, an OS that is basically OS X minus Aqua. If Aqua were heavily enmeshed with the underlying Darwin layer, releasing and maintaining Darwin would be a maintainance nightmare. Thus Aqua probably is a layer on top of the BSD/Mach stuff that can be easily separated.)
Bsd license sucks. Plain and simple.
They talk about how it allows you to charge for your code.
Is MS paying anyone in BSD for the TCP/IP stack?
Is Apole paying anyone in BSC for the OSX stuff?
No. But they ( Apple and MS are charging everyone else for
it.
I usually say that BSD is the Bendover Screw Deep license.
but there is a better image. The shmoos from little Abner.
Remember those little while critters that were so helpful
they could turn into anything, including food that you could eat?
That is BSD license. The Big Shmoo Distro.
Food for Softy and Apple, free of charge.
Everyone does understand that FreeBSD does ship with GNU software right??
Partial list
Gcc bc binutils cpio cvs dc dialog diff diff3 gperf
grep groff gzip man patch rcs sdiff send-pr sort texinfo
I think most people who use FreeBSD don’t do it to spite the GNU license however, I wonder how many linux guy have put off trying BSD because of the license.
FreeBSD never claimed or wanted to be a desktop OS, only a very good, featureful server OS. And it delivered on the promise, time and time again. The fact that it’s able to execute Linux binaries faster than Linux itself should tell us at least that FreeBSD has something goo in it. It also appears that the FreeBSD kernel is more advanced than Linux, and yet Linus doesn’t think there’s anything for him to learn, there. But I’m digressing.
Since FreeBSD is mostly presented and behaves as a great server/network OS, there are much less people who know about it. After all, for every server there are a hundred desktops, and very few people at home have a server.
End result: Linux is more popular. The same was with Windows NT vs. NetWare: no matter how much more stable and responsive NetWare was (and still is), since it’s a purely server OS, it had much less visibility than Windows, and people assumed it’s easier to use as a server, than NetWare. If they ever tried to administer a large network and many users, using both WindowsNT and NetWare, they would have noticed how much easier this is done with NetWare. You’re 30 times more productive, and the network has better uptime and a more granular control over groups, users, printers and all sorts of other network-attached objects. Yet, NetWare got really clobbered in the market. I am glad that in the end it survived, and it’s future seems to be assured at this point, but with a small marketshare.
The same thing will be with FreeBSD. A good technology can’t be completely killed off. Oh year, and the same goes for UNIX vs Linux (which was also UNIX vs NT).
They talk about how it allows you to charge for your code.
Is MS paying anyone in BSD for the TCP/IP stack?
Is Apole paying anyone in BSC for the OSX stuff?
No. But they ( Apple and MS are charging everyone else for
it.
Wow, you really missed the boat on that one. The BSD license simply says that you may do what you want with the source, as long as you maintain the copyrights. Go read it for your self. Nothing about being able to, or not to charge money for it. This has the side effect of letting someone charge money for OTHER people’s code, which maybe you misinterpreted. The rest of your post is just as ridiculous. I really people would refrain from posting if they have zero knowledge on a subject.
“””Bsd license sucks. Plain and simple.
They talk about how it allows you to charge for your code.
Is MS paying anyone in BSD for the TCP/IP stack?
Is Apole paying anyone in BSC (sic) for the OSX stuff?
No. But they ( Apple and MS are charging everyone else for
it.”””
Umm, I don’t really see the problem with this. It lowered Apple’s development cost (which I _assume_ was passed somewhat onto the consumer), if they [the consumer] really want the code they can cruise on over to the cvs archive to get it.
” The rest of your post is just as ridiculous. I really people would refrain from posting if they have zero knowledge on a subject. ”
Hardly.
BSD advaocates who bash gnu always bemoan that no one
can commercialize gpl software, despite the fact that
gpl allows for a lgpl license for this. There is a clear case of misunderstanding a license , if you want one.
I don’t see anyone from the BSD team gettting paid for
their code by MS, yet they are crying don’t gpl or you wwon’t make a dime.
you’ll make the same dime they are already making from
MS and apple, ie 0 dimes.
lgpl will give you just as many dimes, but doesn’t let
someone like MS freeload.
Linux has the better licenses. Copyleft is a profound
innovation. Deal with it.
As far the shmoo metaphor goes it is perfect.
Here you go MS, use my code and give me nothing back.
Just like the shmoo who turns into a turkey dinner.
“(Big hint for the day, Simba. Apple releases Darwin, an OS that is basically OS X minus Aqua. If Aqua were heavily
enmeshed with the underlying Darwin layer, releasing and maintaining Darwin would be a maintainance nightmare. Thus Aqu is probably layer on top of the BSD/Mach stuff that can be easily separated.)”
Second big hint for the day… OS X apps will not run on Darwin. And no, it is not just because the Aqua libraries are missing. Darwin apps will run on OS X. The reverse is not true.
“Linux has the better licenses. Copyleft is a profound innovation. Deal with it.”
Since when is socialism a profound innovation? Deal with it. That’s what your darling GPL is. It is the software version of socialism.
History has proven that socialism sounds good in theory, but doesn’t work in reality. Richard Dawkins provided a sound biological and genetic argument for why it doesn’t work. Deal with it. The GPL stifles software innovation by not allowing programmers to capitalize on their ideas.
“Is MS paying anyone in BSD for the TCP/IP stack?”
Why don’t you get a clue before you post? MS is not using the BSD TCP/IP stack. They are using a commercial stack that they purchased a license too.
Apple on the other hand is using the BSD stack. And like another poster pointed out, it saved Apple a lot of money in development costs… And oh look! They passed it on to the consumer! I can buy a retail copy of OS X brand new for about $100. How much is a retial copy of Windows XP Professional? Somewhere around $300?
History has proven that socialism sounds good in theory, but doesn’t work in reality. Richard Dawkins provided a sound biological and genetic argument for why it doesn’t work.
Socialism? that word has been “used with a great variety of meaning”…
anyway…
Can you really find a parallel between the biologoical and the technological?… After all isn’t it said that bumble bees should not be able to fly? Just because it won’t work in one area, doesn’t mean it can’t work in others.
Since when is socialism a profound innovation? Deal with it. That’s what your darling GPL is. It is the software version of socialism.
No it is not socialism! I get so sick of the GPL being compared to socialism or communism by those who either don’t know what these terms mean, or don’t understand the GPL and the ideals and concepts behind copyleft.
Socialism is a point in Marxist-Leninist ideals between captialism and communism. It is a point on the trail to communism where the collective ownership of the economy by a dictatorship hasn’t quite been achieved. Socialism, and eventually communism, are both evil in that they force an individual to work for “the common good”; which usually means the government or dictatorship. Socialism and communism are forced upon individuals whether they like it or not.
The GPL, on the other hand is not forced on individuals, but is rather a personal choice. It is about freedom and liberty. You can donate code freely for the benefit of society, and can be assured that nobody will hijack your code and use it to get gain for themselves off of your work.
Let’s say you owned a cow. Under Communism (and socialism to a lesser degree) the cow belongs to the government. The government makes you milk the cow and “donate” the milk to those who have been deemed needy by the government. You do not own the cow and cannot control how its milk is used. Under the GPL, you would set your cow free and anyone who was hungry and needed milk could obtain milk free of charge any time they wanted. In a GPL society, no individual would be able to take your cow (since you still own it) and begin charging others for milk; although they could put the milk in a bucket and charge people a fee for carrying the milk from the cow to their home (a bucket and carrying fee). Also, you, as the owner of the cow, are free to charge this service fee as well.
I think it is sad that people such as yourself cannot see a difference between an individual being generous and socialism; which is NOT about common good and is ALL about government control. It is the difference between bondage and freedom.
That is something less than a year of delay. I still don’t think that explains the reason why Linux was hyped and BSD wasn’t.
1) AT&T lawsuit
2) BSD development structure kept alot of hackers wanting to contribute away and drew accusations of being “elitist”
3) Driver support, especially in the early 90’s, when BSD didn’t support IDE hard drives
>There are people who use FreeBSD on their desktops. Would that be possible if not for Linux? Not really. Which companies have funded the development of KDE, GNOME, XFree, gcc and more. A hint: none connected with FreeBSD.
I think you’ll find people were using unix on their desktops long before KDE and Gnome. Many years ago I was quite happily using twm and getting work done.
>I always think it’s laughable that FreeBSD is supposed to be more commercially friendly, yet all the free software companies out there today are basically Linux based. Redhat, Ximian, theKompany, CodeWeavers.
Since linux itself is just a kernel, it *needs* a distribution to do anything useful. FreeBSD is complete distribution by default.
>FreeBSD is full of contradictions – it’s supposed to be more “open” than Linux, yet they have private core teams, invitiation only.
They have *democratically* *elected* core teams, along with a large number of commiters who gain comit status by writing good code. Unlike Linux, where Linus decides what goes into the tree and what doesn’t.
> It’s supposed to be more commercial friendly, yet the only company that’s used it is Apple,
*BSD derived code has been used in a number of projects, eg. Windows used to use the Tcp/Ip stack, Nokia use it in their CheckPoint firewalls, there was a laser printer that used it as its embedded OS…
> Linux is good enough for me,
Maybe it is 😉
–Jon
You’ll find that all licenses on code you write cannot be changed afterwards. You simply cannot retroactively change the license of some code, even MS can’t do that. If you write some code that’s BSD licensed, that code is always BSD licensed.
Now you can dual-license it. So you can make it GPLd, but you can also release that code under another license if you want (because you hold the copyright). Again though, if you dual license it once somebody has used the code under that license you can’t simply change the terms afterwards.
You can change the license just fine if you’re the only author of it. You can’t take back code you released, but if you released 1.0 under license X then you can release 1.1 under license Y unless you have used someone elses code that is also licensed under X.
btw, what “novice” users need is concistency and not eye candy. FreeBSD is consistent because it’s not a loose collection of scrap, The installer is easy to use and WORKS (which is more than you can say about the installers from RedHat and Mandrake (yes I’ve tried them))
I never said to rewrite the library… Just rewrite the function. There’s a huge difference. You can make that function part of your application, and then there’s no dependency hell!
I’d like to know whihc books you have gotten published and also whihc of Dawkins books you quoted him from about socialism.
since ive written about him in my senior thesis.
and ive also read every book he has gotten published.
“The GPL, on the other hand is not forced on individuals, but is rather a personal choice. It is about freedom and liberty. You can donate code freely for the benefit of society, and can be assured that nobody will hijack your code and use it to get gain for themselves off of your work. ”
If you read some of the comments made by Richard Stallman, who is after all the guy who started the GPL, you will realize that as far as he is concerned programmers SHOULD be forced to use the GPL, or some other “Free” license.
“However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the “freedom to choose any license you want for software you write”. We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom. ” … from http://www.gnu.org
You are right that the GPL is not forced on individuals, but that is only because the guy who invented it has not been able to find a way to do so.
I’ve seen a number of posts referring to the idea that FreeBSD is a good server OS, but is not good on the desktop.
I was wondering why this is felt to be the case? I can understand that perhaps the FreeBSD guys themselves don’t bother with desktop features, but when there are dozens of desktop linux distributions are there not also any desktop distributions built on top of a FreeBSD core?
If not, why not? Is there something about FreeBSD that makes it a bad choice (relative to linux) as the base for a desktop system?
The BSD-license is a standard license on any software coming out of the university of Berkeley. The BSD-license makes software completely free (beer/speech) because it was made using tax payers’ money. Same as the tons and tons of pictures up on NASA’s website. The GPL was invented by mr. Stallman and friends with the express purpose of keeping free software free. These are two wholly different starting positions. GPL has a clear business model in mind (or rather, a dislike for a closed-source/proprietary business model) whereas BSD is simply a mandatory license for academically developed software or at least it was back then. Any fitness or advantage for commercial implementation by virtue of the BSD license in favor of the GPL is solely collateral benefit/damage to the main goal: release for unencumbered use to any and all comers.
“I never said to rewrite the library… Just rewrite the function. There’s a huge difference. You can make that function part of your application, and then there’s no dependency hell!”
Obviously, “one function” was a slightly contrived example. But it was being used to illustrate a point about how assanine the GPL is when used on a library.
“Can you really find a parallel between the biologoical and the technological?… After all isn’t it said that bumble bees should not be able to fly? Just because it won’t work in one area, doesn’t mean it can’t work in others.”
You are confusing the issue. Like I said, pick up a copy of Richard Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene. Biological is related to everything because ultimately it has a huge effect on our behavior. Socialism doesn’t work because humans are naturally selfish.
…as well as several smaller German IT news portals.
Seems journalists in the states didn’t do their job properly.
“No it is not socialism! I get so sick of the GPL being compared to socialism or communism by those who either don’t know what these terms mean, or don’t understand the GPL and the ideals and concepts behind copyleft.”
It is socialism. You are attempting to spin the issue by muddling comunism and socialism.
In a nutshell, socialism is the idea that everyone works for the good of the community as a whole. People have tried it throughout history. Even in the United States in the 60s, the hippy communes were based on the principles of socialism.
Socialism sounds great in theory. It would be great if it actually worked. But it doesn’t.
The GPL is the software version of socialism. It is based on the socialist ideal that everyone works for the good of the community as whole. Unfortuantely, things jsut don’t work that way.
You are right that the GPL is not forced on individuals, but that is only because the guy who invented it has not been able to find a way to do so.
That’s like saying Dave Thomas was bad because he wanted everyone to eat at Wendy’s but hasn’t found a way to force everyone to eat there yet.
It is socialism. You are attempting to spin the issue by muddling comunism and socialism.
Socialism is a roadsign you pass along the way to your comunist destination. If you don’t understand that, I am sorry for you.
In a nutshell, socialism is the idea that everyone works for the good of the community as a whole. People have tried it throughout history. Even in the United States in the 60s, the hippy communes were based on the principles of socialism.
The difference between Socialism and GPL, and it is an extremely important one, is that Socialism is forced upon individuals and the GPL is not. The GPL protects the rights and intentions of the original author of source code. You are free to use the GPL, just as you are free to use a closed license. It is up to each individual, not a dictating body. As I said before, it is the difference between bondage and freedom; which is a pretty important difference as far as I’m concerned.
Socialism sounds great in theory. It would be great if it actually worked. But it doesn’t.
True. I’ve lived in socialist countries before and it sucks; which is why I cannot fathom retards in the US who keep pushing for a socialist government by voting for the US’ socialist block, the democrats.
The GPL is the software version of socialism. It is based on the socialist ideal that everyone works for the good of the community as whole. Unfortuantely, things jsut don’t work that way.
Again, socialism is a step towards the bondage of communism. The GPL is not. Socialism is putting people in bondage and forcing them to work for the common good via higher taxes, government sponsored programs, etc., the GPL is simply protecting the rights and intents of the original author of anything GPL’d and it is free for anyone to use or not to use. If you cannot see that, it is your problem. Hopefully, more insightful people will be able to see a radical difference.
Also, if you hate the GPL so badly, I’m interested to know which particular code you are lusting after but can’t have. But for this, there is no reason to hate the GPL since it is simply a license and not a way of life.
that can’t be embraced and extended.
It is the last best hope to get out from MS’s thumb.
That is why Linux has the momentum and beos or bsd doesn’t.
Remember the Alamo.
Remeber the Kereboros.
Wasn’t it MS that in good part killed Beos?
Wasn’t beos another baby to be knifed?
And yet some beos supporters regularily tout XP.
I guess they go by the Keep your freinds close, but your
enemies closer “dictum.
If it ever got it, it wouldn’t want it and neither would
you.
To Hong Kong the US is a Socialist Country.
There are few pure Socialist or Capitalist economies.
Instead the mix varies, some having more elements of one
than the other. Each has it’s upsides and downsides.
When you trade systems you are just trading a different set of upsides and downsides.
One can argue that Capitalism works better than Socialism that does not mean that Socialism doesn’t work.
“The difference between Socialism and GPL, and it is an extremely important one, is that Socialism is forced upon individuals and the GPL is not.”
What? If you base your argument on this fact then you have already failed. Socialism is socialism. Where do you get the idea that soicialism has to be forced? Communism or socialism does not have to be forced upon an individual to qualify itself as such.
`”You are right that the GPL is not forced on individuals, but that is only because the guy who invented it has not been able to find a way to do so. ”
That’s like saying Dave Thomas was bad because he wanted everyone to eat at Wendy’s but hasn’t found a way to force everyone to eat there yet.’
Except that whilst Dave Thomas might think it would be great if everyone did eat at Wendy’s, I doubt that you’d hear him expressing the opinion that it would be morally correct to force everyone to do so. Richard Stallman on the other hand thinks it would be morally correct to oblige all programmers to use the GPL or a similar license.
It comes down to what you consider to be the most important right and freedom, the right of everyone to use the work of a developer (Stallman’s view) , or the right of the developer to come to whatever licensing agreement he and his customers are willing to agree to between themselves (which is what you do when you purchase software, you agree to the license proposed by the supplier).
I don’t think Stallman is bad, I think that he is wrong. His ideas of freedom, if carried to the extremes he would like to see, would remove the freedoms that I consider more important.
As for the GPL itself, I don’t think it’s good or bad inherently, I think it’s a good solution in some situations, a bad one in others, I think it should be up to the developers to choose if and when they want to use it.
From the press perspective this story is “3rd blind man climbs Everest”, the 1st person to climb Everest was a big story, the 1st blind man, a slightly smaller story, and now it’s the 3rd blind man, no-one cares.
The press don’t distinguish one Free Unix from another. So as soon as they find out that Linux did all this already (“So, you’re the 1st blind man to climb Everest?” “No, a couple of other guys did it last year too”) this becomes strictly a minor item, a footnote if you will.
I’ve seen a number of posts referring to the idea that FreeBSD is a good server OS, but is not good on the desktop.
That’s 1/4 lie.. Right now, I am using Gnome 2.2rc1 in FreeBSD 5.0 with very smooth fonts, Bluecurve & Lighthouseblue themes, they work great. There’s very very few missing such as Crossover and etc. I don’t need them, so it’s not a problem to me. MPlayer, Xine, Nvidia driver, Tux racer, Quake3, Opera and many more same as what’s in Linux work great in FreeBSD.
I was wondering why this is felt to be the case? I can understand that perhaps the FreeBSD guys themselves don’t bother with desktop features, but when there are dozens of desktop linux distributions are there not also any desktop distributions built on top of a FreeBSD core?
Sure, configure/install stuff from CLI first. There’s no GUI to configure XF86Config and etc. So, it doesn’t bother to most of us.
If not, why not? Is there something about FreeBSD that makes it a bad choice (relative to linux) as the base for a desktop system?
All I can say good question. Why does Apple choice FreeBSD? In fact, FreeBSD’s Linux emulator runs faster than most of native Linux. I never understand why most Linux users hate BSD so much when they haven’t tried it.
The most main reason is that… Linux has the better hardwares and commerical support than FreeBSD does. But, FreeBSD is getting there so far.
FreeBSD has more or less the same problems than linux on the desktop. If you feel Linux can make a perfect desktop for you, there are chances you feel FreeBSD can do the same.
There is a guy trying to make a desktop oriented FreeBSD distro. Very quiet project. I even thought it was dead! See here: http://lainos.sourceforge.net/ or here http://sourceforge.net/projects/lainos/
“Socialism is a roadsign you pass along the way to your comunist destination. If you don’t understand that, I am sorry for you.”
Socialism and communism are seperate. Granted, socialism often doesn’t work because it leads to communism. Why? Because people are greedy. It goes back to the point I was trying to make.
“…As I said before, it is the difference between bondage and freedom; which is a pretty important difference as far as I’m concerned.”
This is true NOW. But if FSF had their way, all software patents woulld be illegal. FSF has a very socialist agenda. Sure, not all open source programmers or GPL advocates are as radical as the FSF, but unfortunately, the FSF is probably the most vocal and most influencial.
“True. I’ve lived in socialist countries before and it sucks; which is why I cannot fathom retards in the US who keep pushing for a socialist government by voting for the US’ socialist block, the democrats.”
As an ecologist, I vote democratic for environmental reasons. Democrats are a lot more friendly towards science and the environment than republicans are. I don’t agree with all of the democractic views, but the environment is the most important to me.
“Again, socialism is a step towards the bondage of communism.”
Socialism and communism are not the same thing. As I said, socialism can lead to communism because of the selfish nature of human beings. But it doesn’t have to. They are not the same thing.
“Also, if you hate the GPL so badly, I’m interested to know which particular code you are lusting after but can’t have. But for this, there is no reason to hate the GPL since it is simply a license and not a way of life.”
None. Because for reasons I have already stated, there is really nothing spectacular in GPL land. It’s all just clones of pre-existing products.
There are a few reasons I don’t like the GPL though. For one, college age GPL programmers of today are programming themselves out of a job tomorrow. That is one consequence of the GPL. It is going to greatly reduce the number of programming jobs available.
There are a few reasons I don’t like the GPL though. For one, college age GPL programmers of today are programming themselves out of a job tomorrow. That is one consequence of the GPL. It is going to greatly reduce the number of programming jobs available.
It’s not possible to program yourself out of a job if all you are programming is clones of other software. Somebody is being paid to create the original from which GPL clones are being created.
This is not a problem with the GPL, but rather computer goons in general. If your neighbor’s furnace goes out, does the neighborhood’s plumbing and heating guy rush over, donate spare parts, and fix it for free? No. The computer goon will though anytime somebody has a computer problem. I’ve come to the concusion that computer geeks are either kind of dumb or have something against money.
Anyway, I respect your opinions and hope you will allow me mine. Thanks for the conversation.
The GPL as applied to a library basically tells me what I can and cannot do with my own intelectual property that I wrote. That’s legally dubious and may not fly in a court of law.
What a load of crap. It doesn’t tell you what you can do with your own IP. It tells you what you can do with someone elses GPLed IP. Either you willingly accepted the code, and therefore the GPL, or you didn’t accept the code. No one is forcing you to do a damn thing.
Adam
There are a few reasons I don’t like the GPL though. For one, college age GPL programmers of today are programming themselves out of a job tomorrow. That is one consequence of the GPL. It is going to greatly reduce the number of programming jobs available.
There are ways to get paid for writing GPLd code. I for one have some ideas on how we can all get paid to do so, and intend to try it out once I’ve left uni.
All the things that Linux has been doing in the enterprise markets could have been done with Freebsd a couple of years ago. Why weren’t they? I think the answer is the BSD license. The GPL is the reason that pundits used to say that Linux could never succeed, no company would waste its time customizing Linux just to give all that work away, or that was the theory.
In reality many companies were looking for an OS they could customize to their needs, without taking on the burden of branching it off into a perpetual product. This could be achieved with BSD licensed but there was a catch. If they released the code changes they made under the BSD license a competitor could roll those changes into a proprietary product and profit from that work with little or no acknowledgement. If a company does the same thing with GPL’d code at least they know that other companies can only use and/or alter it if they release their own changes. Granted this does destroy the commercial value of the code but it does force everything out into the open where instead of using ideas to compete for profit companies can collaborate without worrying about giving a competitor a leg up.
IBM could have put its weight behind FreeBSD anytime, HP could have release FreeBSD servers. They didn’t because every change they made to FreeBSD they would have to decide, should we keep this to ourselves and branch off a fully supported product, or should we give or developments to our competitors and give them the chance to make a product out of it?
With the GPL every company can pick up the ball and play with it they just can’t decide that it is their ball now and walk off with it.
FreeBSD’s isolation is born out of the fact that no company has an interest in advertising it.
/* Second big hint for the day… OS X apps will not run on Darwin.
* And no, it is not just because the Aqua libraries are missing.
* Darwin apps will run on OS X. The reverse is not true.
*/
I can recompile and replace my kernel in OS X and it will still run fine. The GUI is not linked directly to the kernel as you seem to think. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t kexts that WindowServer and friends require to run. The point is that they are separable. You can easily disable the GUI in OS X. Editing /etc/ttys and moving some bundles in /System/Library/StartupItems should be sufficient. You also seem to be inferring that the binary formats are different between Darwin and “OS X”, this is untrue.
when I say ‘easily’, that’s subjective. I’ll just say that you can do it without modifying any code
“””This could be achieved with BSD licensed but there was a catch. If they released the code changes they made under the BSD license a competitor could roll those changes into a proprietary product and profit from that work with little or no acknowledgement.”””
Erm, then they shouldn’t license it with the BSD license, they could license it with the GPL or something more akin to Apple’s public license and still link against the kernel. Ext2fs (at least in 5.0) is GPL’d and handled this way (you get this nice message if you compile support for it in that says the kernel is now GPL contaminated and should be treated accordingly).
I’ve seen a number of posts referring to the idea that FreeBSD is a good server OS, but is not good on the desktop.
I was wondering why this is felt to be the case? I can understand that perhaps the FreeBSD guys themselves don’t bother with desktop features, but when there are dozens of desktop linux distributions are there not also any desktop distributions built on top of a FreeBSD core?
If not, why not? Is there something about FreeBSD that makes it a bad choice (relative to linux) as the base for a desktop system?
This is a common misunderstanding. One of the major desktop OSes out there, MacOS X, is based on Free- and NetBSD.
Little known is also that Atari did the very same thing ten years ago. Just like Apple they had an OS severely lacking in basal kernel features, so they took a BSD kernel and re-implemented their OS on top of that. Very desktop, built on BSD (though this was before Free, Net and OpenBSD).
Simba wrote:
There are a few reasons I don’t like the GPL though. For one, college age GPL programmers of today are programming themselves out of a job tomorrow. That is one consequence of the GPL. It is going to greatly reduce the number of programming jobs available.
To which Iconoclast replied:
It’s not possible to program yourself out of a job if all you are programming is clones of other software. Somebody is being paid to create the original from which GPL clones are being created.
Which means that GPL goons (no harm intended) do not necessarily program themselves out of a job, but perhaps others. Look at the “Linux will push UNIX out of the market” headline of last week, for example.
By cloning a piece of software and giving it away for free (for whatever intents and purposes), you may in fact make the original unsupportable.
No big problem, some might say. If you drive the innovators out of business, it might become a problem, though.
To many coders, development consists just of writing code. But isn’t that only one half thereof? Designing a program, coming up with an idea – that, too, is development. Cloning a program is effectively stealing that half of the development, in today’s environment perhaps the part that sets a program apart.
An ingenious program can only be created once. Clones contain about as much innovation as something fed through photocopier. All the praise should still befall the creator of the original.
OTOH, “creator” is an ugly word according to the FSF and should be used with care, presumably since it assumes that there is such a thing as originality or ingenuity.
Simba wrote:
There are a few reasons I don’t like the GPL though. For one, college age GPL programmers of today are programming themselves out of a job tomorrow. That is one consequence of the GPL. It is going to greatly reduce the number of programming jobs available.
To which Iconoclast replied:
It’s not possible to program yourself out of a job if all you are programming is clones of other software. Somebody is being paid to create the original from which GPL clones are being created.
Which means that GPL goons (no harm intended) do not necessarily program themselves out of a job, but perhaps others. Look at the “Linux will push UNIX out of the market” headline of last week, for example.
By cloning a piece of software and giving it away for free (for whatever intents and purposes), you may in fact make the original unsupportable.
No big problem, some might say. If you drive the innovators out of business, it might become a problem, though.
To many coders, development consists just of writing code. But isn’t that only one half thereof? Designing a program, coming up with an idea – that, too, is development. Cloning a program is effectively stealing that half of the development, in today’s environment perhaps the part that sets a program apart.
An ingenious program can only be created once. Clones contain about as much innovation as something fed through photocopier. All the praise should still befall the creator of the original.
OTOH, “creator” is an ugly word according to the FSF and should be used with care, presumably since it assumes that there is such a thing as originality or ingenuity.
I have tried *many* linux distros and for a change I installed FreeBSD 4.6. End of story. That is why it is not hyped by users. They find it. It works. They go on about their lives.
Sorry about the double post. Our gateway died while I was writing, so I didn’t know that it had already been sent.
FreeBSD is full of contradictions – it’s supposed to be more “open” than Linux, yet they have private core teams, invitiation only.
Huh? Why do so many people think that? The BSD development process is much more “open” and democratic than Linux.
Take the Linux kernel, for example. If you want something in the kernel, it has to go through Linus. Period. It’s a dictatorship. How “open” is that? Sure, you can fork the kernel, but then it’s not “Linux”, now is it?
In *BSD, the core team == Linus (sort of). Then you have the committers. These people have the power to change the code, and often do so without Core’s direct approval. Core only gets involved in matters of policy and setting future direction, or if there’s a dispute. The core team is elected from the committers on a regular basis. The third level is known as the contributors. That’s everyone (the masses). Any random person can submit code to a committer, and if it’s well-written and does something useful, it will probably get put in. Just like people can submit patches to Linus and they may or may not get included.
And yes, anyone who contributes a large amount of code can be made a committer (and thus, have a chance to be elected to the core team). In the Linux world, nobody but Linus ever can make changes to the master copy.
That’s just for the kernel. The Linux userland is packaged by commercial entities. How “open” is that? That’s the main reason that there are so many different Linux distributions.
Linux == dictatorship. BSD == representative democracy
I’m wadding in here and it’s already a bit deeper then I’d like. I believe this is mostly fueled by emotion but what good computer debat isn’t. I’ve found some errors in assumtions. Linux and what it is and isn’t is one point. BSD and why there are almost no distro’s is the second and along the way I’m going to talk about the lic’s they both use.
Linux is basicly the kernel which everything else runs. That’s why there is for example only Red Hat version X with kernel 2.x or what ever. The Red hat version number is the distro number and the revisions made to that. It includes the red hat installer and what ever else Red Hat chooses to include. Most of the stuff in the distro’s are GPL/Gnu code. There are other custom code in there to. Because of the GPL. The companies that sell Linux aren’t selling you an OS they’re selling you the pakeaging of the tools that they add to the os.
FreeBSD doesn’t refer to a kernel but a complete OS. All the tools and everything with it. FreeBSD does include a kernel and many of the same GPL/GNU tools. Actually if tuned correctly you’d not see a differnce in userland. Companies can do as they choose with the OS. I read one post where someone was talking about Wasabi corp. They sell there own packaging of NETBSD. BSDMALL sells a packaging of FreeBSD as well. Due to the fact that there are no packages to add or changes of the os, FreeBSD and the other BSD’s are with out alot of Distro’s.
Linux’s hype comes from the time when it came of age. Everyone wanted to get this great thing up and running. They created the older distro’s out there the Slackwares and Red Hats. I can point out that there where times when I was playing with linux that one command really wasn’t used everywhere because it was a slightly differnt package or version of the same program. FreeBSD is going to be the same where ever you go.
That’s my 2 cents.
mmm, tried freebsd today, the installer is still from the stoneage, it did work but to get a desktop up and running
is just broken.
Three different X configuration programs and none of them works.
At least with some linux distro’s this seems to work better.