Date: Sun, 20 May 2007 17:19:17 -0500 From: Kevin Kinsey <kdk@daleco.biz> To: Anton Galitch <anton.galitch@gmail.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: just general questions about fbsd Message-ID: <20070520221917.GA91736@ezekiel.daleco.biz>
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Anton Galitch wrote: > Hi > Im writing an article about FreeBSD and want to ask some few question: > > - Do the FBSD developers work for free? Heh, you mean, at what job? Most of them work somewhere for money, I'm pretty sure. ;-) Occasionally companies will "grant" money to a certain developer to remain "unemployed" by others and spend more time on FreeBSD. IIRC, Poul Henning-Kamp got a good portion of a year's salary in a fund-raising campaign last year, mostly from some of the larger companies listed below. Some companies pay an employee a regular salary, but allow or even encourage them to work on FreeBSD as part of their job. However, the majority of developers work on FreeBSD in their free time, for the love of the system, without much more compensation than the satisfaction of a job well done. At least, that is what I think/hope/sincerely want to believe.... :-) > - What advanced features it has that for example Windows, or MacOS dont > have? "advanced features" should be defined. Stability and security are apparently "advanced features", judging by my 10 years experience with those products from Redmond. FBSD's got a truckload of stuff Windows doesn't see the need for that should be standard issue on any operating system where Real Work needs to be done; starting with "cat" and "grep" and ending who knows where ... Windows uses *BSD code in their network stack ... IANAE, but maybe ACLs, MAC, software RAID (I guess Win has that now?), multiple virtual terminals, real shells are just a few things that come to mind. And, Mac OS X uses a non-BSD kernel, but most of the userland programs were taken from FreeBSD 4.X. some time back. The GUI stuff is original Apple, I believe.... The real issue, though, is that FreeBSD is about as modern a "Unix[like]" as you can get, and Windows and "Unix like" aren't apples and apples. With a BSD you get historically sound, useful software, along with other stuff. With other systems, you get sexy GUI apps that do some stuff, but doesn't jive with most of the UNIX paradigm, and, really, was mostly developed for reasons no one knows anymore and marketed in order that some executive could buy another house in Tuscany or on the Riviera. Or, something like that. > - What well knows companies use FreeBSD as servers? (I know that Hotmails > used fbsd servers like 5 years ago). Well, you missed Yahoo!, for certain. Pair Networks, New York Internet, Verio, are big in hosting, also serverpath.com, inetu.com, velcom.com, existhosting.com and lots more, as a Google search would show you. Check www.netcraft.com for more on the hosting business, including some reports on FreeBSD's stature as a top-notch hosting platform and record-setting high-availability leader. Some ISP's are listed at: http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/isp.html --- along with lots of other companies in software development, systems integration, and lots more underneath the "/commercial/" folder. Then there's a lot of little companies. And probably some people who don't want you to know about them, with black helicopters and big white trucks and hidden laboratories under mountains or cactus or something. > Thanks for help. It's not much, but you're welcome to it, of course. Oh, and "Google is your friend." ;-) Kevin Kinsey
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