[Techtalk] Linux and *BSD

[jas at spamcop.net]

Quoting Caitlyn Martin <caitlynmaire at earthlink.net>:

> HI, Rasjid,
> 
> On Wed, 1 Oct 2003 00:31:51 +1000
> Rasjid Wilcox <rasjidw at openminddev.net> wrote:
> >
> > I've often wondered why the *BSD's (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD) seem
> > less popular (and are certainly less well known) than Linux.  Couldn't
> > think of somewhere to post the question without risking starting a
> > flame war, but this seems like a safe enough place.  :-)
> 
> I think you did, in fact, pick a safe place.  I doubt any of us see
> Linux as a religion or are zealous enough about Linux to dismiss *BSD.

Not only that, there's supposed to be a BSDChix list around here somewhere...
(Hosted on Yahoo IIRC, but I haven't seen any mention of it recently.)

> > b) license - those in favour in GPL style free software might favour
> > Linux over the *BSD's.
> 
> I think this is *part* of it.  The license differences have affected how
> the two are developed.  The BSDs are all centrally controlled.  There
> aren't different distributions and you can't take FreeBSD, add some
> packages, and call it RasjidBSD and sell it, as I understand it.

Other way round, in fact; the more recent of the two BSD licenses basically says
"do whatever you want with this software, as long as you don't misrepresent it".
So if you wanted to make CaitlynBSD, you could - even if you wanted it to be
entirely closed source, with binary copies costing $1000 per CPU. Indeed, this
is more or less what Apple did, although they added a huge amount of their own
code (and contributed a lot back to the FreeBSD team).

The original BSD license said "do whatever you want, provided whenever you refer
to a product based on this one you say it's based on this product" - a clause
Stallman objects to.

> Linux, other than the kernel, is decentralized.  Indeed, anything other
> than the kernel really isn't Linux.  It is Distribution X, which
> incorporates the Linux kernel, GNU tools, and whatever else the
> distributor wants.  The way the GPL is written you can alter, for
> example, RedHat Linux 9, and call it Rasjid Linux all you want and sell
> it.  This is how Mandrake and Caldera (now SCO) got started.  Vector
> Linux is a slimmed down, optimized Slackware.

Also true of the various BSDs, although there's more cross-pollination than just
the kernel; OpenBSD and NetBSD, for example.

> I think the GPL model is, perhaps, more free and allows more
> cross-pollenation of code and ideas and more input.  It also allows for
> commercial ventures to profit from the Linux code base independently of
> a central authority.  There is (or was) only one BSDi.  There are many
> commercial Linux distributions.

You missed Apple, who now distribute a rather well known FreeBSD based OS. (For
that matter, IIRC SunOS was also BSD derived..)

> I may not have this exactly right, but I think I'm at least close.
> 
> I also believe the FreeBSD has somewhat less hardware supported and less
> software compiled and available as binaries.  The latter may be
> unimportant to you or to me, but it is very important to a newbie who is
> uncomfortable compiling code or editing a makefile.

It can also run Linux binaries, which makes a big difference ;-)

The ports system (as copied by Gentoo) makes installing from source extremely
easy - I've installed Squid (transparent proxy patched), bash and an NTP server
that way in the last few days, with a single line command for each. Slower, but
no harder than an RPM installation.

> The heardware issue is huge.  One of my Toshiba Libretto SS1010s had
> FreeBSD on it at one point but the PCMCIA slot, which isn't quite
> standard, wasn't supported at the time.  That was unacceptable to me.
> Linux handled it just fine.  I'm not sure if the current version of
> FreeBSD would work on my laptops or not.  I am very sure about Vector
> Linux and RedHat.

I installed my new OpenBSD firewall about three days ago, on an old Compaq (if
anything has awkward proprietary hardware, that would be it!) and it was fine:
easier, in fact, than any Linux installation I've yet seen (apart from the
partitioning.)

It's true they lag behind a little; the proprietary nVidia drivers, for example,
are only supported on Linux and FreeBSD for now, not any other BSD flavors. On
the other hand, Linux still has a few driver problems too...


James.