Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 23:55:47 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "David Johnson" <djohnson@acuson.com>, "C. McArdle" <cmca@cmcardle.net> Cc: <freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: FreeBSD & GNU Message-ID: <001301c0b437$d60f45e0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <3ABBBD01.713C030@acuson.com>
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This is rather inaccurate! For starters, there were more than 3 projects. For example, Minix, that was a Unix-line operating system. And, as far as creating from scratch, no way! The overall BSD-ported-from-the-mainframe project was never to build from scratch. It has always been to re-use as much as possible the original free code that was pretty much given to AT&T for free, and AT&T then went out and sold. (often without changing anything or fixing bugs) The big issue today, though, is the "snowball" effect. FreeBSD and Linux have emerged as the most widely used Open Source UNIX-like operating systems in the world. They each feed on each other, because people that don't like one but still want to participate can always choose the other. As a result, more and more people that at one time would have been working on these other UNIX-like variants have given up and jumped on either the FreeBSD or Linux variants. In short, the popularity of these 2 has starved the other projects of talent. Worse, the big reason that people use Linux or FreeBSD instead of, say, a commercial OS like Windows, is because the open source ones have not only implemented all of the "gotta-have" features of the commercial OS's, but they have their own "gotta-have" features that the commercial ones don't have. For example, FreeBSD implemented Network Address Translation for 3 years before Windows NT ever got it. This effect also works against the other projects like HURD (GNU's effort) The reason is that if Stallman goes out and implements some cool, gotta-have feature in Hurd, the second that people decide that it's better than what's already in FreeBSD or Linux, they will then incorporate that feature into those OS's. So, the momentum today is such that those alternative systems will never even have a chance to keep a feature that will attract people for very long. GNU would love to finish it's UNIX effort. So would the founders of the other efforts. But, they are rapidly being left behind in the dust of FreeBSD and Linux and soon are going to be marginalized. If some major commercial software organization was to step in and, say, choose GNU's effort as a base for their code, then it might possibly rejuvinate those projects. But, that's not going to happen now. The last chance for anything like that to happen was when Apple chose the codebase to jumpstart their MacOS X/Darwin effort, and they chose FreeBSD. We are rapidly seeing the institutionalizing of the Open Source software market. Linux has embraced the commercial software houses and their markets and as a result is the furthest along in this process. FreeBSD has kind of held the commercial people at arm's length, but they haven't been actively hostile and our code is so good that the commercial folks are coming in the door in droves anyway. But, the rest of the projects have never embraced the commercial people, in fact been actively hostile at times. (Read Minix's software license to see what I mean) As a result, they are now non-players. It's sad in a way, because FreeBSD and Linux are going down the same road that MS-DOS and Windows went down. We may possibly see people in 10 years writing various treatises like The Cathedral and The Bazzar, only then it's going to be the FreeBSD and Linux people in the Cathedral, and some yet-unknown rising star OS that will be The Bazzar. But, we are years away from that now so it's still a fun game to be in. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of David Johnson >Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 1:16 PM >To: C. McArdle >Cc: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: FreeBSD & GNU > > >> What is the connection / disconnection between GNU and BSD UNIX? > >To my knowledge, there were only three projects (not counting spurs and >variants) to create free Unix-like operating systems from scratch, GNU, >BSD and Linux. Only BSD finished their task. GNU is almost done, but has >not finished the key component, the kernel. Linux took the easy route >and used components from both the GNU and BSD projects. GNU sees no need >to complete the integration of their system, since they say Linux is >really GNU in disguise. And the need to complete Linux disappeared once >the components from the other projects were integrated. > >BSD tends to be "pure" in its approach to Unix. GNU seems to be obsessed >with adding extensions to Unix, though they try to keep compatibility >with the basic Unix command set. Linux does whatever strikes the >distributors' fancy. > >The philosophies behind the three are the greatest differences. BSD just >wants to create a quality work. GNU wants to "free" people from the >evils of proprietary software. Linux wants to have fun hacking on code. > >In actuality, all three projects have used pieces from the other two. >But beyond that, all three have used components for other non-OS >projects, like XFree86, Perl, Apache, etc. > >David > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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