Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 06:52:32 +0000 From: Anatoly Vorobey <mellon@pobox.com> To: esr@thyrsus.com Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Open Source Products Message-ID: <19980414065232.07017@doriath.org> In-Reply-To: <19980413215647.37918@snark.thyrsus.com>; from Eric S. Raymond on Mon, Apr 13, 1998 at 09:56:47PM -0400 References: <199804131719.LAA21122@narnia.plutotech.com> <35326353.4E30451B@xylan.com> <19980413201541.65522@snark.thyrsus.com> <3532AD36.2968F8B6@xylan.com> <19980413215647.37918@snark.thyrsus.com>
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Eric,
You, Eric S. Raymond, were spotted writing this on Mon, Apr 13, 1998 at 09:56:47PM -0400:
> Wes Peters <wpeters@xylan.com>:
> > A third scenario that is less likely but would still help would be
> > convergence of the disparate groups back into one organization. It's
> > really too bad we have to have three web sites, three ftp server
> > organizations, three differing (and more or less successful) CD-ROM
> > programs, etc., for what are very similar products.
>
> That's the key thing, IMO. The fact that the BSD crowd is split into
> squabbling spinoff-group-of-the-week factions, while Linux looks
> pretty much like one big happy family united under benign Daddy
> Torvalds, negates every single technical advantage you guys have.
As others in this thread have tried to explain at length, the split
is not nearly as damaging _technically_ as one might think, though
this, alas, has no direct relevance to how the split is _perceived_
by people who have never tried {Free,Net,Open}BSD.
Another thing you neglect to mention (if you are aware of it) is that
Linux is united only in the kernel part. In fact, _to a user_, there
are many more differences (IMHO) between Slackware and Red Hat than
between FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Standartised userland as part of the OS
is a huge benefit of the BSD crowd. The overall structure of the system -
especially the source tree and the ports system - is much better in
the BSD camp. In which Linux distributions you can 'make world' to
build _all_ of the OS (with compiler, make, etc. used for building
being built as part of the process)? What about 'make install' in
a port directory for retreiving a tarball off one of many distribution
sites, extracting, patching to build on FreeBSD if needed,
configuring, building, and installing, all with one command?
But the more interesting thing about your question seems to be
your belief that BSD is doomed to oblivion. Before you ask us to
convince you you're wrong, how about spelling out exactly _how_ it
will die? Let us focus on FreeBSD. What we have here is a system
with a huge number of users (25,000 registered ones, and you know
very well how rarely people bother to), but more importantly, with
very large number of dedicated developers, many of whom not only
like to play with the system, but use it as a primary OS on their
software/ISP/whatever business. They are, as a rule, not fanatical
about it, but will calmly and intelligently explain why FreeBSD is,
for many reasons, the most stable, advanced, fast and in other ways
best OS for them. In their opinion Linux is quite inferior to
FreeBSD in technical excellence, which is what they _need_ from an OS.
Why would they cease improving and advancing FreeBSD in the next 3
years?
To play a devil's advocate and assume your part, I can imagine 2
possible answers (please bring more if you have them; I'm quoting
what I heard from other people propheting BSD death):
a) BSD won't really die, but Linux will grow so
much noone will notice BSD or know what it is; b) Linux will
quickly support all the hardware/be supported by software companies,
so everyone will have to either use Microsoft OSes or Linux.
What's interesting about both these possible answers (and note, by
the way, that FreeBSD has excellent binary-level Linux compatibility
support and we run e.g. StarOffice just fine) is not whether they
are right or wrong. They simply remind me so much the situation of,
say, 4 years ago, with Microsoft-Linux instead of Linux-BSD.
What I used to hear back then from friends of mine who were
sympathetic to Linux but certain it would fail were exactly these
things. Microsoft is everywhere, they were saying, and Linux won't
be able to keep up even with new hardware on the PC market. And
what about Word or Excel? And even if Linux manages to survive
on some hackers' desks, NT (or 95) will be everywhere in 3 years,
you just won't notice Linux, it'll be so insignificant. What a
striking similarity to what I hear today from some Linux advocates!
Linux did _not_ fail, however; and one of the main reasons it didn't,
was simply because it was technically superior to Windows and had
many supporters who cared about this superiority. Also, the average
Linux user was much much more mature and knowledgable than an average
Windows 95 user. But that is more
or less the situation with Linux vs. FreeBSD today; the BSD people
are feeling very strongly that their OS is technically superior
for many reasons, and, in most of the cases, they succeed in
demonstrating that simply by urging their opponent to actually work
with FreeBSD and see with his/her own eyes that it's faster/more
stable/much more mature/etc. The same goes for the user culture
of the two OSes, and average cluelessness of a user - this is quite
easily seen even by comparing BSD mailing lists/newsgroups with
their Linux equivalents. There are much less users of FreeBSD than
of Linux who always work as root, and know only the -l option of
ls because they have it aliased to dir ;-)
So what I'm saying, essentially, is that BSD won't die for some of
the same reasons Linux didn't. By the way, why don't _you_ try
FreeBSD for yourself if you haven't yet? It's one thing to agree
with us on technical merits of BSD vs. Linux and quite another
to experience them for yourself ;).
--
Anatoly Vorobey,
mellon@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton
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