From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Dec 14 14:42:12 2000 From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Dec 14 14:42:09 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from envy.geekhouse.net (envy.geekhouse.net [64.81.6.50]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4AFF137B402 for ; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:42:08 -0800 (PST) Received: (from jim@localhost) by envy.geekhouse.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) id eBEMg4i14005; Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:42:04 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jim) Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 14:42:04 -0800 From: Jim Mock To: jquinada@worldnet.att.net Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: If you don't mind me asking . . . Message-ID: <20001214144204.A13808@envy.geekhouse.net> Reply-To: jim@osd.bsdi.com References: <20001214090433.ZJWX2234.mtiwmhc27.worldnet.att.net@[192.168.1.2]> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.12i In-Reply-To: <20001214090433.ZJWX2234.mtiwmhc27.worldnet.att.net@[192.168.1.2]>; from jquinada@worldnet.att.net on Thu, Dec 14, 2000 at 01:05:58AM -0800 Sender: jim@envy.geekhouse.net Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, 14 Dec 2000 at 01:05:58 -0800, jquinada@worldnet.att.net wrote: > I'm an intermediate-knowledge user of Linux and a curious, general > observer of the Unix world, and I've recently stumbled upon a lot of > BSD stuff (and have even recently read "The Design and Implementation > of the BSD 4.4 Operating System"), but I'm really dying to know > something, and was wondering if you could take just a minute to answer > my question: What the heck is the difference between FreeBSD, OpenBSD, > BSDi and NetBSD???? Are these more-or-less the same operating systems > with similar goals, but for various reason the different groups didn't > want to work together? Or, are each of these BSD "flavors" actually > geared toward different markets and different uses? Or something else? In a nutshell.. o FreeBSD is aimed at stability and high performance on x86 and Alpha architectures. o OpenBSD is aimed at being the "most secure" BSD, which really doesn't mean much because security is the job of the admin. Being secure out-of-the-box is good, but it's still up to the admin to take care of the system security. o BSDi is a company, not an operating system. I'm assuming you're talking about BSD/OS. BSD/OS is aimed at commercial organizations who don't really need source (they can buy it if they do want it), want commercial support available (even though it's also available for FreeBSD), etc. It's basically for companies who are "afraid" of open source software (as far as not understanding that they can buy support, etc. for FreeBSD too -- the "Free" in FreeBSD scares a lot of them) and feel the need to use proprietary software and spend money. o NetBSD is aimed at multi-platform use (check out their web site for a list of platforms they run on -- there are a *ton*) - jim -- jim mock work: jim@osd.bsdi.com | jim@FreeBSD.org http://soupnazi.org/ BSDi Open Source Div | http://bsdi.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message