Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 22:46:02 -0500 From: Scott W <wegster@mindcore.net> To: Scott W <wegster@mindcore.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Commercial Distribution? Message-ID: <3FFB80FA.90703@mindcore.net> In-Reply-To: <3FFB7F8F.3010101@mindcore.net> References: <44wu84bk7v.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> <E1Ae3DE-0007QZ-00@smtp.perfora.net> <20040107032103.GA19107@seekingfire.com> <3FFB7F8F.3010101@mindcore.net>
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Scott W wrote: > Tillman Hodgson wrote: > >> On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 09:14:41PM -0500, David D.W. Downey wrote: >> >> >>> And how is that different from Linux? FreeBSD is an Operating >>> System, so is >>> Red Hat, Debian, Stampede, SLS, Slackware, and on and on. FreeBSD >>> does the >>> same thing. FreeBSD didn't develop OpenSSL but it includes it, nor >>> did it >>> develop SSH or swat, but it includes them. Just as linux >>> distributions do. >> >> >> That's somewhat incorrect in my view. See >> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/explaining-bsd/index.html >> >> for details. >> >> My attempt at a summary: >> >> RedHat et al may /distribute/ an operating system, but they did not >> write it. An analogy in the motorcycle world are the custom bike shops >> (some of which make extremely nice motorcycles!) versus Harley-Davidson. >> The custom bike shops carefully (one hopes) select components from the >> open market and put the polish on the resulting product. H-D may also >> use open market products (electrics *cough*, carbs *cough*) but are >> considered a /manufacturer/. >> >> Both sell motorcycles (operating systems). There is a distinction, >> however. >> >> -T >> > I know this one may be seen as sacrilege to some, but think about this: > > 1. *BSD uses a fairly significant amount of GNU and GPL licensed > (opposed to the BSD license) code in it. gcc, Perl, XFree86, Apache, > GNU Make, autoconf, mysql, PostgreSQL, etc etc. While it can be > argued many/most of these are not part of the core OS, what about: > gcc, objective c, libreadline, cvs, diff, tar, sort, patch and > friends? (from /usr/src/gnu and /usr/src/usr.bin ) > > 2. It can be argued that the 'core OS' (kernel and _required_ system > tools) in *BSD are mostly BSD licensed versus GPL (Linux), but I'd > wager a significant number of driver developments, kernel code (or > perhaps design), as well as many programs required by most systems > running either OS(insert distro here if you're offended), at least > share bug fixes and new developments to some respect. If I'm not > entirely wrong (which is certainly possible) I thought Alan Cox of > Linux kernel fame has also done some work on the BSD kernel(s?)? > > Note that I don't entirely disagree with the response- IMHO, RedHat > and SuSe are in fact merely distributions, but Linux as a collection > of kernel + core programs is certainly an OS, in the same manner as > *BSD is. Even RH AS/ES 2.1 is little more than a RH tweaked kernel + > a few 'commercial' apps (stronghold, not sure of others offhand, > haven't ever needed them!), on top of RH 7.3, which is really a Linux > kernel + tools snapshot (many of which programs are at least heavily > driven by Linux development in the first place), + RedHat or SuSe > 'themes' and defaults, some customized rc/init scripts, and an installer. > Anyways, I realized I may now be totally missing the point here so am > going to now shut my mouth/keyboard...my comments still apply, but I'm > not sure whom I'm disagreeing/agreeing with right now.. ;-) > > Scott > Ok, sorry for following up to myself- below is in fact what my above comments are directed at: ls, while certainly useful, and part of the core OS (as are many others), could not in fact be built without the use of gcc, and GNU/GPL'ed compiler (and associated friends, ld, nm, gas, etc), so I really believe the below to be basically propogated and repeated without much thought, but incorrectly...not in that FreeBSD (and Net/OpenBSD) have a higher content of 'pure' (meaning written explicity for the specific OS) code in the core OS, but in that the distinction/differences in reality qualify FreeBSD to be an 'OS' while Linux (not RH, SuSe, other distros) is not... Scott David D.W. Downey wrote: >> > You're touching on a big difference between Linux and FreeBSD; FreeBSD >> > is an operating system, whereas Linux is a kernel which can be packaged >> > with different programs. You can make do anything you want with >> > FreeBSD, modify it all you want, release it (or not) along with the >> > source code (or not), but you can't claim it''s FreeBSD any more... > >
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