Being freely available, easy to develop for, secure, and stable made FreeBSD the operating system of choice for Adelaide company Genesis Software’s radar systems which are now being exported around the world. Genesis software and network engineer Daniel O’Connor said FreeBSD was the best choice when research and development on the radars began eight years ago.
Local company develops FreeBSD-based radars
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Good for FreeBSD!
Good for them!
Chalk one up for FreeBSD!
GO BEASTIE. YES, It makes me glad to see one of the best OS’s in the world getting some time in the spotlight.
I know the title of the article is local company, but shouldn’t the OSNews version fill in the real location? C’mon.
This is a perfect example of the kind of place FreeBSD can fit, and which would be a real pain to deal with for most other operating systems: remotely managed, black-box style devices. I believe there are a lot more companies doing this with FreeBSD than most people realize (ditto with NetBSD and OpenBSD, I’m sure).
Local to Adelaïde, Australia.
If I were to start a company using embedded PC type machinery, would FreeBSD not be a better choice than Linux simply because I would not be forced to release my code to the world. If true, then I would be guessing that many other companies are also using FreeBSD but they’re just not saying.
would FreeBSD not be a better choice than Linux simply because I would not be forced to release my code to the world
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even when they have to distribute the code it doesnt make a significant difference because their profit lies in the hardware. examples of this include linksys, cisco and others who include kernel with drivers and firewall modifications.
cool, like this, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD also should be increased in developments in companies.
Linksys won’t release the source to its WiFi drivers for the cards it uses in its gateway/router/APs, they just released source that is widely available online anyway. Not saying its good or bad, I couldn’t care less, but just clarifying the fact.
Where can I get one of their radars? Been looking for one for quite some time now
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FreeBSD developer Greg Lehey said it’s a system that is somewhat conservative in design, but has repeatedly shown superior performance, stability and documentation.
“Of Netcraft’s list of the top 50 web sites 47 run BSD and the number 1 place is held by a FreeBSD system which has been up for 1726 days,” Lehey said.
From Netcraft’s uptime FAQ: “Linux, NetApp NetCache, Solaris and recent releases of FreeBSD cycle back to zero after 497 days, exactly as if the machine had been rebooted at that precise point. Thus it is not possible to see a HP-UX, Linux or Solaris system with an uptime measurement above 497 days.”
Having a server up for almost 5 years is certainly impressive, but don’t mislead people into thinking that FreeBSD is the *only* type of OS that can do that.
My system never makes it that far. About the longest uptime I’ve ever had is around 8 months. I have 3 UPS systems in my office, but the darned power always goes out for 10 minutes longer than the life of the battery! 😉
Linksys won’t release the source to its WiFi drivers for the cards it uses in its gateway/router/APs, they just released source that is widely available online anyway. Not saying its good or bad, I couldn’t care less, but just clarifying the fact.
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Nope. they did actually add new code. thats why linksys wifi stuff have a new hobbyist hackers market now.
>>If I were to start a company using embedded PC type machinery, would FreeBSD not be a better choice than Linux simply because I would not be forced to release my code to the world. If true, then I would be guessing that many other companies are also using FreeBSD but they’re just not saying.
Developing on Linux does ///not/// mean you must release your code under the GPL. Closed-source software can and is widely developed on Linux for Linux, the largest example being Oracle. They weren’t forced to open source Oracle. Only changes to already GPLed software, like the Linux kernel, has to be released. If you wanted to highly modify Linux (the kernel) without releasing the changes, then yes FreeBSD would be a better choice. The BSD license allows that. But I think Linux suits most people just fine.
They only count to 497 days of uptime because it uses a 32-bit counter and counts hundredths of a second. After 497.1023 days, it rolls over.