BSD on death bed?

[digitalgadfly]

I have been reading more and more about BSD taking turns for the worst. Ultimately leading to its demise. Between interal conflicts and a diminishing code base what is the fate the once flourshing open project. I have toyed with netBSD and freeBSD and was impressed.I am just looking for opinions wether the project will halt or if someone will come and pick up the ball. Can the Open Source Community learn from BSDs mistakes?

[alittlebitnumb]

Where did you read about this? I would like to read it. Give us a link or links please.

Thanks in advance.

[ammo]

Where did you read that indeed!? AFAIK, bsd is still going strong, OpenBSD for example is getting better everyday..

IMHO, it's the rest of the opensource community that's got to learn from (Open)BSD!

Ammo

[prodikal]

i would like to know the link as well ?
as for any BSD i think they are as popular as ever for ppl who like power in there system just my 0.02p
edit and i dont think they will go bankrupt and shut down IMO

[digitalgadfly]

Actual Article:

What We Can Learn From BSD
By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT [mit.edu] found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.

[prodikal]

but what site did u read that from? did u get it in an email ? plz provide a link or an explanation to where the article came from
p,s im not flaming you just like to read it from the horses mouth

[digitalgadfly]

That was an email from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
There are many interesting articles that come across their wires. This is just one I would like to share with the community. It is just that this topic is coming up more and more.

[prodikal]

thanks for replying with a source at least ppl know where it comes from know

[digitalgadfly]

Not a problem, in the future I will remember to site the source on the first time 'round.

[ammo]

All right, take the time to re-read the article...

NO WHERE in there are actuall indications that BSD is going sour...
Half the article is a historical recount of BSD's creation... screwed by an obviously biased editorial style.

The other half is a mix of personal attacks and one-wayed quotes that aren't debated at all, just taken for granted as is..

BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress

"Don't believe their hype"!!?!? And what's to say that this isn't hype??? Oh of course, I forgot, Eric Raymond, is the all knowing god of computer technologies so he must be right...
Besides, go read some Linux source codes and some OpenBSD source, then decide for yourself if the code is indeed cleaner...

Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source.

"Nullified"?? How could an achievement be nullified by letting other people use it freely, without holding them to any other legal blah blah? Besides, knowing that your well written code is used by others (your TCP/IP stack being used by millions of windows users for example) is all the aknowledgment those developpers need.

Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

Ha! Hi think this is proof enough that this article is just some ill-faithed "PR bull".
<biased comment>It's funny how you don't see this coming from the BSD side...</biased comment>

They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality

Says who?


Anyways, sorry if I got a little carried away... it's just that those kind of disguised flames just piss me off.

Ammo