BSD on death bed?

[Rev Jazzman]

I have to agree with ammo...

I'm hearing of more and more people (friends and the like) changing from windows and/or Linux to FreeBSD (or OpenBSD) because of the stability, security, and strong development community. BSD is not going away (at least not for a very long time).

I figure this comes from one of two directions:

1. Perhaps the author of that "article" was upset over the depreciated pace of the improvments for NetBSD, but to put that in a correct perspective, the development community of NetBSD is MUCH smaller than that of OpenBSD or FreeBSD and so getting the code reworked takes more time. Even then, NetBSD isn't going to go away anytime soon either.

2. Either parties from the Microsoft side or the Linux side are waging "verbal warfare" in an attempt to scare people who would be interested in spending their time on one of the BSD projects. Even though this may sound foolish even to mention, you'd be surprised what "fans" will do for their teams (even MS )...

Garbage in, garbage out. Don't believe everything you read. Pull out the scales and weigh it in the balance. On my scale, that article weighs in at a whopping "absurd."

Mayhaps you should grab a copy of one of the lastest -stables and play with it to see for yourself whether or not the BSD communities are really "falling apart."

IMHO, the rest of the OS development world (not only just the open source world) will still be learning from the BSD projects for a long time to come.

Best!

Rev.

[digitalgadfly]

I am not stating that I support that article in anyway, I just thought of it as an interesting POV. And yes it needs to be debated. I feel that BSD developers are holding strong and advancing. I mean the BSD community has doubled in the last few years and I don't see signs of demise, but still had to inquire because there are more and more of these articles surfacing. It seems like the general feeling is that just because user base goes up doesn't mean that quality code goes with it. I also feel that BSD isn't getting the props it deserves. But then again what else is new in the open source world. Linux is finally getting some share of the market and people throw it into the crosshairs. Thanks for the acknowledgement of the TCP/IP stack code. Mr. Gates has had his hands in open source time and time again. That is just IMHO

[problemchild]

I think that article was pretty clearly written by someone with an axe to grind..... the facts are mostly correct, but the interpretation of them is totally twisted and the conclusions are wholly unsupportable.

I think Ammo is 100% correct in his assessment. Although the majority of the open-source community doesn't fall into this category, there are a few people out there who see Linux and the BSDs as rivals instead of partners working toward a common goal, and will try to spread FUD at every turn. That's what this sounds like to me.

BSD isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

[Jabberwocky]

i think that artical is talking about 4.4BSD, the os actually written at berkeley. they ran out of money, so they released the source code as "FreeBSD" with a licence to let anybody do whatever they want with it, except for sue berkeley (of course everyone did anyway).

so BSD and FreeBSD aren't technically the same thing, even though they are.

[draziw]

Originally posted here by Jabberwocky
i think that artical is talking about 4.4BSD, the os actually written at berkeley. they ran out of money, so they released the source code as "FreeBSD" with a licence to let anybody do whatever they want with it, except for sue berkeley (of course everyone did anyway).

so BSD and FreeBSD aren't technically the same thing, even though they are.

Yes, I think this was just one of the "common misconceptions" that "FreeBSD is BSD" and yet another person(s) that is upset with the current direction/ideas/whatever with the FreeBSD crowd/movement. Remember, imminent demise of FreeBSD was predicted by some when the great Theo de Raadt was ousted from the project. Well, Theo went on to create OpenBSD and the FreeBSD project continued to go on just fine...

Seemingly atypically, "BSD" actually refers to the common system/kernel architecture on a UN*X system... FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and BSDi are all branches of code off the 4.3BSD Reno kernel (if memory serves correctly). Similiarly, people like Sun have taken some of the original code (anyone remember Solaris 1, AKA Sun 4.3x -- and the still lingering /usr/ucb tree?).

In any case, I think that things are "just fine" and it's some other sensationalist a**hole that doesn't realize that things will just go on based solely on the nature of the project... someone else will step up to the plate and fill the voids and life will go on... people have way-too-much invested in things like *BSD to let many of the top three slip too far off the radar.

[ammo]

Draziw, you're confusing FreeBSD with NetBSD... Theo a founder of NetBSD and OpenBSD branched from NetBSD, not FreeBSD...

Ammo

[draziw]

Originally posted here by ammo
Draziw, you're confusing FreeBSD with NetBSD... Theo a founder of NetBSD and OpenBSD branched from NetBSD, not FreeBSD...

Ammo

Doh! You are right - my bad, I stand corrected. OpenBSD and FreeBSD seem to share bug fixes in their respective source trees, but yes... Theo was kind of "pushed out of" the NetBSD project. Thanks for catching that and setting me/us straight - greenies for you!

[gamemaster6502]

I serioulsy doubt that any BSD is gonna croak. I agree with Ammo.