Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2015 23:41:09 -0700 From: Russell Haley <russ.haley@gmail.com> To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: advocacy/myths.html Message-ID: <CABx9NuQ5GDvWqQ3EcSxAFQwZ6fpQiW1AQPVzq=b0-RMvjTstmA@mail.gmail.com>
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[-- Attachment #1 --] Hi there, As per bug 178190, I have updated the myths page to be a little more relevant. Some tongue-in-cheek my have slipped in accidentally. I have included the raw html output and the xml file. I have not checked all the links yet or completed spell checking; I will do that after others give input. Please comment on the content and let me know if/when I should submit a patch to bugzilla. Thanks, Russ [-- Attachment #2 --] [-- Attachment #3 --] <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional-Based Extension//EN" "http://www.FreeBSD.org/XML/share/xml/xhtml10-freebsd.dtd" [ <!ENTITY title "FreeBSD Advocacy Project"> <!ENTITY url.articles "../doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles"> ]> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">; <head> <title>&title;</title> <cvs:keyword xmlns:cvs="http://www.FreeBSD.org/XML/CVS">$FreeBSD: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/myths.xml 46967 2015-07-14 11:44:59Z brueffer $</cvs:keyword> </head> <body class="navinclude.about"> <p>As the BSD projects (DragonFlyBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD) have grown in size, a number of persistent myths have grown up around them. Some of these are perpetuated by well meaning but misguided individuals, others by people pursuing their own agendas.</p> <p>This page aims to dispel those myths while remaining as <strike>defensive</strike> dispassionate as possible.</p> <blockquote><b>Note:</b> Throughout this page, ``*BSD'' refers to all four of the BSD Projects. Where a myth or response is specific to a particular project it is indicated as such.</blockquote> <blockquote>If you are aware of an omission or error on this page, please let the <a href="mailto:doc@freebsd.org">FreeBSD documentation project mailing list</a> know.</blockquote> <h2>Index</h2> <ul> <li><a href="#closed-model">*BSD has a closed development model, it's more ``Cathedral'' than ``Bazaar''</a></li> <li><a href="#own-distro">You can't make your own distributions or derivative works of *BSD</a></li> <li><a href="#server">*BSD makes a great server, but a poor desktop</a></li> <li><a href="#old-codebase">The *BSD codebase is old, outdated, and dying</a></li> <li><a href="#bsd-war">The *BSD projects are at war with one another, splinter groups form each week</a></li> <li><a href="#clustering">You can't cluster *BSD systems (parallel computing)</a></li> <li><a href="#support">There's no commercial support for *BSD</a></li> <li><a href="#applications">There are no applications for *BSD</a></li> <li><a href="#nobody-using">Nobody is using *BSD</a></li> <li><a href="#no-cloud">There is no Cloud support for *BSD</a></li> <li><a href="#no-arm">*BSD doesn't support ARM</a></li> <li><a href="#beats">*BSD is better than (some other system)</a></li> <li><a href="#beaten">(some other system) is better than *BSD</a></li> </ul> <h2>Myths</h2> <h3><a name="closed-model">*BSD</a> has a closed development model, it's more ``Cathedral'' than ``Bazaar''</h3> <p>Eric Raymond wrote an influential paper, ``<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/">The Cathedral and the Bazaar</a>'' in which the GNU/Linux development model (and the model Eric used for <tt>fetchmail</tt>) is held up as an example of how to do ``open'' development. By contrast, the model employed by *BSD is often characterized as closed.</p> <p>The implicit value judgment is that ``bazaar'' (open) is good, and ``cathedral'' (closed) is bad.</p> <p>If anything, *BSD's development model is probably <strong>more</strong> akin to the ``bazaar'' that Eric describes than either GNU/Linux or <tt>fetchmail</tt>.</p> <p>Consider the following;</p> <ul> <li><p><b>All the *BSD projects:</b> The current, bleeding edge source code for FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD is available for anyone to download from the Internet, 24 hours a day. You don't need to wait for someone else to roll a release.</p> <p><b>FreeBSD:</b> An installable snapshot of the current progress is made weekly. These snapshots can be installed exactly like an ordinary release, and do not require installation over an existing system.</p> <p><b>OpenBSD:</b> Installable snapshots are generated daily and if Theo thinks they are good enough, he uploads them to the mirrors.</p> <p>Contrast this with GNU/Linux, where new kernel distributions are made available on an ad-hoc basis, and where the frequency of each GNU/Linux distribution release is at the whim of the individual vendor.</p> <p>There's none of the GNU/Linux fanfare every time a new kernel is released, simply because for most *BSD users it is an every day event.</p></li> <li><p>Anyone can submit patches, bug reports, documentation, and other contributions. They can do this by using a web based interface.</p> <p>Pointers to this system litter the documentation.</p></li> <li><p>Not everyone can commit code changes to the *BSD code. You need to be a <em>committer</em> first. Typically, people are offered ``commit privs'' after they have made a few well-thought out submissions to the project using Bugzilla or similar.</p> <p>This is identical to the GNU/Linux mechanism. Only one person is (notionally) allowed to change the Kernel, Linus. But specific areas (such as the networking code) are delegated to other people.</p> <p><i>Aside: Nik (nik@FreeBSD.org) is a case in point. After making several submissions to the FreeBSD Documentation Project and web pages, he was offered ``commit privs'' so that he did not have to keep bothering other committers to commit the changes. He never had to ask for them, they were freely given.</i></p></li> </ul> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="own-distro">You</a> cannot make your own distributions or derivative works of *BSD</h3> <p>You can. In fact, the BSD license is more permissive in terms of what you can do with the source code than the GNU Public License. The only stipulations are you need to state that the source files are derived from *BSD and promise not to sue us. The following is a list of FreeBSD derivatives:</p> <ul> <li><p><a href="http://www.dragonflybsd.org/">DragonflyBSD</a>; started as a code fork from FreeBSD 4.X, but it has since its own user community and development goals.</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://freenas.org/">FreeNAS</a>; is an open source Network Attached Storage (NAS) based on FreeBSD. The NAS software provides advanced features that are usually only available on expensive commercial products. FreeNAS has an easy to use web interface and delivers the robustness of the ZFS file system to non-technical users. </p></li> <li><p><a href="https://www.pfsense.org">pfSense</a>; is an open source firewall based on a heavily customized FreeBSD installation. pfSense has a powerful web GUI that allows users to quickly configure a network router or firewall without the need to understand the underlying FreeBSD systems. The project has a renewed focus on high speed packet filtering and streamlining the build system.</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://www.pcbsd.org/">PC-BSD</a>; is a desktop oriented FreeBSD derivative. It is intended to be easy to install and has a strong set of GUI system management tools that work across most desktop systems. PC-BSD is well-supported by its community and tracks to the most current FreeBSD releases.</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://bsdrp.net">BSD Router Project (BSDRP)</a> is an embedded free and open source router distribution based on FreeBSD with Quagga and Bird.</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://hardenedbsd.org/">HardenedBSD</a>; was founded in 2014 by Oliver Pinter and Shawn Webb, HardenedBSD is a security-enhanced fork of FreeBSD. </p></li> <li><p><a href="http://www.NextBSD.org/">NextBSD</a>; ia an experimental branch/fork of FreeBSD and HardenedBSD that has been modified to run the Apple OSX launchd init system. This project is driven by FreeBSD co-founder Jordan Hubbard. </p></li> <li><p><a href="http://http://www.midnightbsd.org/">MidnightBSD</a>; is a desktop operating system forked from FreeBSD 6.1 beta and customized for user experience, and desktop features. "Scheduling, allocation of resources, security settings, and available application support should be tailored to desktop users."</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://www.desktopbsd.net/">DesktopBSD</a>; is a recently restarted project with a goal of creating a desktop variant of NextBSD.</p></li> <li><p><a href="&url.articles;/nanobsd/index.html">NanoBSD</a> is a set of scripts to produce reduced versions of FreeBSD to put it on a Compact Flash card or other mass storage. It is also a part of the FreeBSD source tree, see /usr/src/tools/tools/nanobsd.</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=picobsd">PicoBSD</a>(unmaintained) is a tailored distribution of FreeBSD that fits on a floppy. It is great for turning diskless 386 PC into a router or a network print server. It is a part of the FreeBSD source tree, see /usr/src/release/picobsd.</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://code.google.com/p/tinybsd/">TinyBSD</a>; (unmaintained) is a set of tools made up of shell scripts designed to allow easy development of Embedded Systems based on FreeBSD.</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://frenzy.org.ua/eng/">Frenzy</a>; (unmaintained) is another live-CD distribution, but customized for administering tasks. It contains software for hardware tests, file system checks, security checks, network setup and analysis.</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://www.hybrid-cluster.com/">Hybrid Cluster</a> (unmaintained) is a web cluster, based on FreeBSD and ZFS, which provides data redundancy and automated load balancing of standard LAMP websites and applications.</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://www.trustedbsd.org/">TrustedBSD</a>; (unmaintained) provides a set of trusted operating system extensions to the FreeBSD operating system, targeting the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (CC). This project is still under development, and much of the code is destined to make its way back into the base FreeBSD operating system, but the development takes place separately.</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/bsd/fbsd/index.xml">Gentoo/FreeBSD</a>; (unmaintained) is an effort by the Gentoo Project to port their complete administration facilities to take advantage of the reliable FreeBSD kernel and userland. This project is purely incomplete and experimental.</p></li> <li><p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/Debian_GNU/kFreeBSD">Debian GNU/kFreeBSD</a> (unmaintained) is a port of the Debian GNU userland tools to the &os; kernel. It takes advantage of the devfs(8) implementation (versus three discordant GNU/Linux interfaces), security features (like jails, ipfw, and pf), and ZFS, among other things.</p></li> <li><p><a href="http://www.m0n0.ch/wall/">m0n0wall</a>; (defunct) was a FreeBSD based firewall system that has many of the features of expensive firewalls like web interface, reset to factory defaults, stateful packet filtering, NAT/PAT redirection, DHCP client and server, caching DNS forwarder and more.</p></li> </ul> <p>There are also a number of commercial closed source products based on FreeBSD, including Sony PlayStation 3 and 4, EMC:Isilon Systems OneFS (storage nodes), and the Junos operating system on Juniper Networks routers. The BSD license allows companies to create performant products and also protect intellectual property.</p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="server">*BSD</a> makes a great server, but a poor (&unix;) desktop</h3> <p>*BSD makes a great server. It also makes a great desktop. Many of the requirements for a server (responsiveness under load, stability, effective use of system resources) are the same requirements as for a desktop machine.</p> <p>The *BSDs all run the X Display Manager and have access to the same desktop tools as GNU/Linux such as KDE, GNOME, XFCE and many more. Office productivity applications such as LibreOffice and OpenOffice work under *BSD too.</p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="old-codebase">The</a> *BSD code base is old, outdated, and dying</h3> <p>While the *BSD code base may be more than 20 years old, it is neither outdated nor dying. </p> <p><a href="../features.html">Quite contrary, </a> the *BSDs have strong technical communities and tend to be more focused that GNU/Linux distributions. This focus has brought FreeBSD top-of-the-line features such as DTrace, ZFS, Jails and KQueues. Due to the maturity of the community and the source code, FreeBSD has strong release engineering processes and provides long term, stable, and bleeding edge releases on a regular schedule. Many improvements continue to be added to *BSD such as virtualization (byhve, Xen Dom0) and high speed networking (netmap).</p> <p>Many professional users and companies like the stability that years of testing has provided FreeBSD. Other operating systems are only now catching up on some features widely enjoyed by BSD users such as containers (Jails) and unified package managers.</p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="bsd-war">The</a> *BSD projects are at war with one another, splinter groups form each week</h3> <p>No. The FreeBSD and NetBSD projects separated more than twenty years ago. OpenBSD has been around for 19 years. While occasional advocacy may get a touch heated, the *BSD flavors share expertise and source code regularly. FreeBSD's Alpha port was initially heavily based on the work done by the NetBSD team. Both NetBSD and OpenBSD used the FreeBSD ports collection to bootstrap their own port sets. FreeBSD and NetBSD both integrate security fixes first discovered by the OpenBSD team.You will also find that many BSDers work with multiple distributions.</p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="clustering">You</a> can't cluster *BSD systems (parallel computing)</h3> <p>The following URLs should disprove this;</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.epm.ornl.gov/pvm/">http://www.epm.ornl.gov/pvm/</a>; The Parallel Virtual Machine is nothing more than a software package that makes setting up a Cluster simple. The source code is freely available, and will run on FreeBSD without much problem.</li> <li><a href="http://people.freebsd.org/~brooks/papers/bsdcon2003/fbsdcluster/">; http://people.freebsd.org/~brooks/papers/bsdcon2003/fbsdcluster/</a>; Brooks Davis's paper about the implementation of a FreeBSD cluster with more than 300 CPU's</li> <li><a href="http://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/carp.html">; http://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/carp.html</a>; OpenBSD's Common Address Redundancy Protocol (CARP) to build redundant clusters at the level of the firewall</li> <li><a href="http://www.countersiege.com/doc/pfsync-carp">; http://www.countersiege.com/doc/pfsync-carp</a>; A good explanation of CARP</li> <li><a href="http://pf4freebsd.love2party.net/carp.html">; http://pf4freebsd.love2party.net/carp.html</a>; OpenBSD's CARP ported to FreeBSD</li> </ul> <p>Note, that <a href="mailto:freebsd-cluster@FreeBSD.org">freebsd-cluster</a> mailing list is available for further discussion about clustering of FreeBSD.</p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="support">There's no commercial support for *BSD</a></h3> <p><b>pfSense and Netgate:</b>Commercial support for pfSense is offered through <a href="http://www.pfSense.org">pfSense</a>; and <a href="http://www.Netgate.com">Netgate</a>. </p> <p><b>TruNAS:</b> The <a href="ixSystems.com">TruNAS</a> is a commercially supported product based on FreeNAS. Likewise, ixSystems offers commercial support for FreeNAS storage solutions.</p> <p><b>FreeBSD:</b> The <a href="../commercial/consult_bycat.html">FreeBSD Commercial Vendors Page</a> lists companies that offer commercial support for FreeBSD.</p> <p>The <a href="http://www.freebsdmall.com">FreeBSD Mall</a> also offer commercial support, along with shirts, hats, books, software, and promotional items.</p> <p>For training, one might try <a href="http://www.bsdmall.com/">BSDMall.com</a>, but they sell other items too, like shirts, hats, books and software! Definitely worth a look.</p> <p><b>OpenBSD:</b> The <a href="http://www.openbsd.org/support.html">OpenBSD Commercial Consulting Page</a> lists companies that offer commercial support for OpenBSD.</p> <p><a href="http://www.bsdcertification.org/"><b>*BSD Certification</b></a> is available through BSDCertification.org.</p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="applications">There are no applications for *BSD</a></h3> <p>While GNU/Linux is different from *BSD, there is enough shared comminality through Posix compliance, back porting of libraries, and common tools that a wide range of GNU and FOSS software packages run on *BSD. Each *BSD project uses a central software repository to make the binary downloads or building of ported software much easier.</p> <p><b>FreeBSD:</b> FreeBSD has the pkgng for binary distribution of applications, as well as the ports tree for those wishing to build the applications themselves and needing more customization. Packages and Ports all use the same database to track, so can work interchangeably with each other.</p> <p>There are currently more than 25,000 applications ready to download and install in the <a href="http://www.freshports.org">FreeBSD ports</a> collection. On top of this, the GNU/Linux emulation layer will also run the vast majority of GNU/Linux applications without need to re-compile.</p> <p><b>PC-BSD:</b> The PC-BSD AppCafe provides graphical tools for managing and maintaining software packages. It can search, install and update packages provided through pkgng as well as the PC-BSD "Push Button Installer" (PBI) system. Most users will never even need to dip into the command line to get their favorite X based software applications running.</p> <p><b>NetBSD:</b> NetBSD has the pkgsrc system. It's so good, it's been ported to Minix3 and QNX!</p> <p><b>OpenBSD:</b> There are currently more than 3700 applications ready to download and install in the OpenBSD ports collection. The GNU/Linux emulation layer will also run the vast majority of i386 GNU/Linux applications, and the majority of SunOS4 applications can be run on a SPARCStation.</p> <p>Both NetBSD and OpenBSD are able to use applications in FreeBSD's ports collection with minimal effort. Their lower number of ported applications reflects this.</p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="nobody-using">Nobody is using *BSD</a></h3> <p>While GNU/Linux maintains the most popularity in terms of raw installations, FreeBSD is powering some of the largest workloads on the internet such as Netflix, WhatsApp, Norse and Yahoo!. FreeBSD supports all of the most popular web stacks including nginx, Node.js, MariaDB, Postgresql, MongoDB and many more. </p> <p> Oh, and did we mention that th 18+ million Playstation4 consoles sold all run a FreeBSD derivative?</p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="no-cloud"> BSD Isn't available in the Cloud</a></h3> <p>There are a number of great Cloud providers such as <a href="http://www.rootbsd.net">RootBSD</a>; and <a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/">Digital Ocean</a> that provide BSD based systems.</p> <p>FreeBSD also has a well maintained <a href="http://www.daemonology.net/freebsd-on-ec2/">Amazon AMI</a> that is produced by prior FreeBSD Core Team member and Security Officer, Colin Percival.</p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="no-arm">*BSD doesn't support ARM</a></h3> <p> Many of the *BSDs have support for multiple hardware platforms. NetBSDs slogan is "Of Course It Runs NetBSD". ARM is well supported and each *BSD states clearly which manufacturers, processors and development boards they support on their respective websites. </p> <p> FreeBSD will move ARM to a Tier 1 architecture as of RELEASE-11 and supports boards such as the Rasberry Pi, Pi2, Beaglebone, and Cubox. A full list of CPU manufacturers and boards supported can be found on the<a href="https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm">; FreeBSD Wiki ARM Page.</a> </p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="beats">*BSD</a> is better than (insert other system)</h3> <p>We'd like to think so, but perhaps it's just our opinion.</p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h3><a name="beaten">(insert some</a> other system) is better than *BSD</h3> <p>I'm sure the people that worked really hard on their OS thinks it's better, and it probably has some nice features, but perhaps that's just their opinion too?</p> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1"/> <h2>Contributors</h2> <p>Members of the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD projects have contributed to this page;</p> <table width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td>Nik Clayton <<a href="mailto:nik@FreeBSD.org">nik@FreeBSD.org</a>></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Jordan Hubbard <<a href="mailto:jkh@FreeBSD.org">jkh@FreeBSD.org</a>></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ian F. Darwin <<a href="mailto:ian@DarwinSys.com">ian@DarwinSys.com</a>></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Adrian Filipi-Martin <<a href="mailto:adrian@ubergeeks.com">adrian@ubergeeks.com</a>></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Tom Rhodes <<a href="mailto:trhodes@FreeBSD.org">trhodes@FreeBSD.org</a>></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </body> </html>home | help
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