Slashdot Mirror

David writes "According to an article on Bsdnewsletter.com, OS company Wind River has said it will be stopping sales of BSD/OS on this December 31st, and product support exactly one year thereafter. Only 15 more weeks to grab the final 5.1 update before this piece of history might be gone forever..."

BSD Today reports that embedded RTLinux company, FSM Labs has decided to move into NetBSD as a general purpose OS layer to RTLinux APIs. This is following Wind River's acquisition of the software assets of BSDi. Makes one wonder whether the competition in the BSD arena is about to begin.

Major Grubert writes "BSDi Europe, Middle East and Africa has closed operations. I found out after not getting any news from our local rep (in Barcelona) after I'd sent him some feedback about a new server they'd let us test. Nothing about this on their website... We adore FreeBSD, and this doesn't inspire much confidence in BSDi (soon to be known as iX Systems) as a *BSD supporting company - they were actually making some inroads in the Spanish market. I hope at least our support contracts with them will be honoured..."

big knife writes: "Check here for the official press release." Wind River is the company that puts out vxWorks, the embedded OS that runs our great Arrowpoint Web Content Switch we have here at OSDN. Evidently, BSDi will become iXsystems, dealing with BSD product solutions, and hardware (essentially a beefed up Telenet Systems). The status of FreeBSD and their commitment to Open Source, and FreeBSD in specific is mentioned, definitely a good thing.

Newsforge, Slashdot, Freshmeat, and all Mediabuilder sites are moving to FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT for its increased SMP capabilities, this move should be completed by Beltaine (May 1st), leaving enough preparation time before the festival to sacrifice a goat to the SCSI gods.

CmdrTaco seems to be excited about the move, knowing there are several BSD experts on the network staff now.

"Linux's disorganization, and the fact it seems like a a bunch of unconnected developers tried to write an OS with no prior planning or agreements has been hard for us at Slashdot who have to work with the Operating System. To the users, there will be no difference, the upgrade will be seamless. Trish and Jim will be happy and they will stop their complaining about Linux," he said.

John Baldwin, a kernel hacker working on SMPng at BSDI's Open Source Division, said that "it should be able to handle Slashdot just fine, Are we done yet? I have things to code."

This also reflects a shift in focus for OSDN, as we are starting to move away from the politically charged Linux in favor of more reasonable, stable OSes.

You're sure to hear more about this transition in the coming weeks, along with some other important announcements.

howardjp writes "Today, Feb. 7, Tucows announced they would bring back the BSD section. Apparently a number of users sent mail encouraging the Tucows/BSD group and with the help of both Wasabi Systems and BSDi, it will be back."

BSD Today carried an announcement today that BSDi has released BSD/OS 4.2. The press release says that BSD/OS now has XFree 4.0 support, robust SMP, VPN/IPSec, Linux binary compatibility through the Linux Application Platform, and Java 2 Runtime and Development environments on both SPARC and Intel platforms.

Daemon News reports that the Software Development Times names BSDi a 'survivor' in the software industry. A must-read story for those interested in the financial growth of this BSD company.

Again, from Daily Daemon News, it looks like the Japanese ISP, Livin' On The Edge has infused BSDi with a 5 million dollar strategic investment to keep developing the iExtreme line of servers and provide backing to the FreeBSD project. The actual press release is here.

Again, from Daily Daemon News, it looks like the Japanese ISP, Livin' On The Edge has infused BSDi with a 5 million dollar strategic investment to keep developing the iExtreme line of servers and provide backing to the FreeBSD project. The actual press release is here.

Again, from Daily Daemon News, it looks like the Japanese ISP, Livin' On The Edge has infused BSDi with a 5 million dollar strategic investment to keep developing the iExtreme line of servers and provide backing to the FreeBSD project. The actual press release is here.

OSDNs favorite BSD zealot BSD-Pat Lynch was on the scene at the latest BSDCon, and took the time to send us in a report. Lots of links to stuff for you BSD folks to share and enjoy.

Well I just got back from BSDCon, and spent some time catching up with old friends, new core team members, and cool new products. The highlight of the event was the reception and dinner at the Monterey Bay State Aquarium, which in my opinion is a must-see. All five BSDs were represented this year: MacOS X, BSD/OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.

There were some really neat talks at BSDCon, three tracks in all: general, security, and development. The highlights of the security talks were Bill Fumerola's talk on DoS attacks and the new ipfw which uses compiled rulesets for better performance, Robert Watson's TrustedBSD presentation, and Mark Murray's explanation of the /dev/urandom work he has done with FreeBSD using Yarrow. In the development track, Greg Lehey and Jason Evans presented a paper on FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT's new SMP model.

The exhibit hall itself was small, lending to a larger focus on technical issues, but there were several exhibitors that caught my eye. One was RelexUS, a company with its roots in Russia. They make a relational database called Linter which I found extremely easy to use (though commercial, it was very robust) It also bills Linux and FreeBSD among its native support list, as well as almost every other OS under the sun. It supports ODBC, stored procedures, transactions, asynchronous replication, and a host of other features. Also, the EFF were there, and I finally got around to joining.

Thursday night we piled into a bus to head on over to the Monterey Bay State Aquarium for dinner, drinks, and dessert. We had to wear Daemon horns to get in and fun was had by all. The new core team wrapped up the conference on Friday afternoon, and everyone left and went into town, tired, hungry, but satisfied with this year's turnout.

More pictures can be found at Greg Sutter and Jim Mock's pages. More coverage can be found on BSD Today.

With a planned move to San Francisco next summer, last week saw San Jose's last Linux World Expo, at least for now. The future as always is stubbornly uncertain, but it's impressive that the serendipitous combination of Free tools (from GNU) and a Free kernel (from Linus) has inspired enough interest and prosperity to excite a larger group of people each year. If you've not had the chance to attend one of these expositions, we hope this article will give you a flavor of what it's like. Note: Here are a few pictures from the floor (Day 1 & Day 2) contributed by Sensei^); do you have any cool shots to link to in comments?

First, the prelude: If you've worked on the pre-show aspects of anything from a high-school play to a LAN party, you know all those booths, displays, people and computers don't materialize by themselves. For several days before the show floor opened on Tuesday, forklift crews zipped cargos of wooden, fiberglass, plastic, aluminum and steel cases from moving trucks to exhibit spaces. These contained banners, snap-together modules, computers, lighted signs -- and Yes, more gratis logo-imprinted toys than you can wave a TuxTops LED light at.

Spiderwebs of CAT-5 and electric cord (run beneath the show floor) sprouted from the centerpoints of many booths, with strands for each computer to be connected to the Net during the show. Rolls of padding and carpet came next, then the slow assembly of display booths. These ranged from no-nonsense fabric partitions that housed companies like TuxTops and Sendmail (and legions of volunteers from PerlMonks, the Simple End User Linux project, Flightgear, and many others), to elaborate constructions with motorized signs, projected lasers and huge illuminated logos. Note: Slashdot (the site) was put together last week mostly from the comfy chairs of the PerlMonks booth.

The "C" (as in conference) part of LWCE got started on Monday, and for the days that followed, attendees got instruction -- on everything from Linux security to evangelizing Free software to their bosses-- in half-day doses. Meanwhile, the setup work continued into the wee hours, as exhibitors raced the clock to make sure that at least their signs, if not their networks, were up for the next day. And at the OSDN booth (home of the red-carpeted Slashdot stage and beanbags), prep work included stacking thousands of boxed distributions of Debian, and attempted to pawn a few copies off on every passer by.

Tuesday morning, at a shade before 10:00, visitors willing to miss Michael Dell's keynote began to stream into the halls, on a quest to find new distros, old friends, and swag. It's amazing what companies will give away in order to snag a little nook in your brain. Besides the usual trinkets (keychains, T-shirts, stickers) and the distributions that a Linux show would be empty without, booth visitors were handed everything from knives (Sendmail) to cute monkeys (Helixcode) to embarrassing pictures of themselves (BSDi), as well as too many toys with embedded LEDs to bother counting. Rather than a full swag accounting (which would only annoy those unable to attend), let me just say that you won't hurt for toys when the chance presents itself. (CT:I just wanted to note that VA gave away 2300 pounds of shrink-wrapped boxed Debian. Like 5000 copies. It was beautiful)

The things on display around the LWCE floor were more interesting than the toys, though. (And unlike a museum, most were available for hands-on demonstration, not hidden behind glass.) Indrema showed a prototype player (not in the sleek black box you see on their Web site, but still sporting that cool blue LED) hooked up to a HDTV display, playing a very fast game of Quake. (CT:Actually it was an HDTV demo, they promised the real deal will be less vaporous before I have children) In the Intel booth were server clusters populated with quad Itanium processors, demonstrating failover when one system was rudely but intentionally shut down. The amazing-like-emacs-is-amazing Flightgear project showed a really nice looking demo which is enough incentive by itself to invest in a better video card for my system so I can play with it.

Both Helixcode and Eazel made their first LWCE appearance this time around, exciting for those filling their anti-FUD cannon for the perpetual "Linux is tough to use" argument. The Eazel folks showing off Nautilus seemed to be all but cackling as they showed off the smoothness of the zooming information available for documents and the cool music-integration abilities it contains. It would have been cool if they'd had some sample CDs, but they promise a developers' release soon. (CT:They also promised .deb's, but I'll believe it when I see it. The UI was awesome, I just hope that someone hacks in something like the GUI command line in EFM)

Considering that Sun was showing off the GNOME desktop on Solaris (hinting at its inclusion in stock Solaris systems sometime very soon, too) and that the GNOME project itself was not only in one of the small booths against the wall but the subject of a big announcement -- about the advent of the GNOME Foundation -- it looks it's showing up everywhere. Happily, there seems to be no shortage of room for window managers right now: the KDE folks were also there not only in their own booth, but showing up in software demonstrations all over the floor, as SuSE, Caldera and others demonstrated the very slick KDE 2.0. (Can't we all just get along, anyhow?)

SuSE, by the way, was the only distributor I noticed showing off Linux on Apple hardware, and their current distro was sweet and fast on a G4. Beyond the curious lack of Apples, and the obvious ubiquity of x86 machines, there were machines based on everything from microcontrollers to StrongArm, MIPS, Alpha, Itanium ... even the IBM S/390s which have gotten attention for the ridiculous number of concurrent Linux systems they can support.

For all the cool hardware and cusp-of-reality, bleeding-edge distros, it's interesting that the announcement which seemed to generate the most buzz of the entire show was the long-awaited release of Debian's Potato. Considering the reputation that Debian has for intelligent upgrading, stability, and diligence in guarding the license of the software which makes it up, it's not as surprising as it might otherwise be that Debian's new release made people sit up a bit more than the newest offerings from the large commercial distros.

(CT: Also extremely impressive was the Pocket Linux booth, where they actually had iPaq's running Linux. The first dude that demoed the box to me was very nice, but what I really wanted to see was X11 running on it ... oddly enough, I encountered one of his cohorts in the bar later that night who showed it to me: X, xeyes, xterm, and twm running on an iPaq. When they get the wireless action going on these things I'm totally there ... I'll just need to hack minimalist interfaces onto pronto and my MP3 player software and use the thing as a portable X terminal on the local 802.11 wireless lan. Yum.)

Oh, and there were people on the floor as well -- close to 20,000, all told. I met some folks I've known previously only through IRC, and quite a few I might never have otherwise encountered.

It's interesting to see in the space of a few hours many of the smart people who you may experience vicariously through writings, speeches, code, art or IRC chatter -- and it also belies the idea that software celebrities of the Free software world are becoming celebrities of the traditional variety, since everyone from ESR to Jon "maddog" Hall (and Linus himself) are willing to talk to anyone who catches up with them long enough to say hello. The atmosphere (especially outside the mondo corporate-castle booths) is mellow and accomodating, and suprisingly so even within most of those castles. There were undoubtably personality conflicts at work, but it seems like most people have the good grace to deal nicely with each other for these few days at least.

At the close of each day, people shuffle out to drop laptops, T-shirts and bags of stuff at their hotels, then thousands of them show up to parties sponsored by companies from AMD to Red hat to VA, which are full-blown events in themselves. Mandrake's party, for instance, had go-go dancers in cages, which may be the most bacchanal thing I have ever witnessed. Ironically, though, many coders couldn't attend even events sponsored by their own companies, or thrown in the honor of their projects, because of strict carding policies. Wouldn't a chem-free party or two be a thoughtful way to include people?

(CT: This has been a consistent problem for several years. Although I know at "Someones" party (no names *grin*) they weren't carding, and I recieved many a happy note from fellow attendees proclaiming that they were able to get in. The parties themselves weren't bad: the OSDN/Potato release party was fun, with San & Zak spinning the tunes (next time we'll force CowboyNeal to scratch for us under threat of death). They had 2 buildings: one was a pool hall, where we tormented The Pope for nearly an hour, carefully distracting him, and then returning his balls to the table. He never noticed. We also met up with Nitrozac from After Y2k, and I snuck accross the street to the Eazel party for a bit, and got to meet Dave "You might remember me from cheat codes in some first person shooter" Taylor.) Attendeees mostly filed out for flights or drives home Thursday and Friday, but some are still in San Jose for the Intel Developers Conference, or otherwise enjoying the Northern California weather. It's a strange familiarity that many of them will feel when the next big conference rolls around, to see many of the same fellow attendees or workers -- of course, by the time the next big conference happens, perhaps we'll all be too excited by the release of 2.4 to notice.

As this release announces, BSDi have just licensed the BSD/OS Parallel TCP/IP stack to Compaq for use in their Himalaya range of servers. Which is great, but I'm still trying to work out why they called them "Himalaya."

As this release announces, BSDi have just licensed the BSD/OS Parallel TCP/IP stack to Compaq for use in their Himalaya range of servers. Which is great, but I'm still trying to work out why they called them "Himalaya."

I just got word from the fine folks at LokiSoft announcing that they are partnering with BSDi to produce games for BSD. Very cool -- my hat is off to all involved. Here's the press release.

Loki and BSDI Partner for FreeBSD Games
Loki to Certify Games for Use with Linux Compatibility Features

San Jose, California -- August 15, 2000 -- Loki Software, Inc., the leading publisher of best-selling games for the Linux operating system, today announces a strategic alliance with Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDI), the foremost supporter of the FreeBSD Project.

Loki introduced fully-supported, shrink-wrapped commercial games to the Linux community in 1999. While Loki has released Alpha and PPC versions of their games whenever technically feasible, FreeBSD users had been left to their own devices to make the games function on their open-source operating system of choice.

Through this new partnership, Loki and BSDI will work together to ensure Loki's gaming titles are compatible with FreeBSD using the Linux-compatibility features. Certified games on this configuration will be fully-supported by Loki.

"Many people do not take games seriously, and this is a mistake," said Jordan Hubbard, Vice President, Open Source Solutions. "Availability of Loki's industry leading line up of Linux games is a huge win for us, as we realize full well that games drive a large part of the overall acceptance of any operating system, even a serious operating system like BSD."

"We are excited to be announcing our official support of FreeBSD's Linux compatibility libraries," said Scott Draeker, president of Loki Software. "FreeBSD users have been enjoying their Open Source operating system for years, and many of them have been playing our games."

Loki is now preparing several A-one titles for certification, including the highly-anticipated SimCity 3000 Unlimited and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri with the Alien Crossfire expansion pack. Other popular programs to be certified soon include Quake III Arena, Soldier of Fortune, and Descent3.

Specially-marked certified games will be available from The FreeBSD Mall in addition to Loki's Web site store.

qbasicprogrammer writes: "At Daily Daemon News, Josh Pennell says the Reform Party's National Primary Online Election was constantly under attack during the 72-hour election window, however IOActive (the Reform Party's hosting service)'s OpenBSD server kept the kiddies and crackers away. According to the reader comments, Ralph Nader is using BSD/OS, as is the Libertarian Party Web site. It's nice to see political parties believe in freedom of software."

We've covered the movement to get Java 1.2 ported to the BSDs for a while now. After Linux got in on the act a couple of months ago, keepper was the first to write in with a link to this BSDi press release announcing the availability of Java 2 for BSD. Looks like BSD/OS will get it first (they're beta-ing it now). Then FreeBSD gets it, at which point (I assume) it'll be open to the other BSDs to take as they want.

pestel writes: "BSDI has acquired Telenet System Solutions, a hardware supplier that sells systems built using BSD. You can see the press release over at Daily Daemon News. Good news for BSD people looking for hardware from workstations to huge servers." Built using BSD? Well, built for BSD rather. Interesting news for VA Linux; remember, competitors in the rearview mirror may be closer than they appear...

As this release explains, BSDI are about to start providing support contracts for FreeBSD. Support options will include options from per-incident to 24x7 support. Linux already has a number of high profile companies providing support contracts, such as Red Hat, and IBM. It'll be interesting to see how much of an issue the availability of BSD support turns out to be.

As this release explains, BSDI are about to start providing support contracts for FreeBSD. Support options will include options from per-incident to 24x7 support. Linux already has a number of high profile companies providing support contracts, such as Red Hat, and IBM. It'll be interesting to see how much of an issue the availability of BSD support turns out to be.

Bob Bruce writes: "There will be a BSD BOF (Birds Of a Feather meeting) at Spring Comdex, on Wednesday April 19 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The BOF is at the Essex Inn at Grant Park, Chicago. You do not need to be a Comdex attendee to come along, everyone is welcome." Read on for more details.

Bob continues: "There will be speakers from BSD/OS, Darwin, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. This is a great opportunity to meet some of the leaders in the BSD community. There will be plenty of technical information available. Whether you are a BSD expert, a newbie, or just thinking of switching over, you can get your questions answered."

"Several BSD celebrities will be attending, including Chris Coleman, an editor of Daemonnews, and cartoonist Susannah Coleman, creator of Darby Daemon, who will be signing prints."

"We will have installation CDROMs, BSD paraphernalia, and free food and beer. We will even have free Daemon horns!"

"This BOF is being co-sponsored by BSDi and Daemon News."

Earlier we announced that Walnut Creek CDROM and BSDI are merging. Obviously, this will shake up the BSD playing field considerably, and will doubtless have knock on effects with the Linux and other open source communities too, to say nothing of the various commercial organisations that already rely on FreeBSD or BSDI on their servers. Here, to answer questions about the merger, is Bob Bruce, president of Walnut Creek. Jordan Hubbard, FreeBSD core team member and release co-ordinator, and Gary Johnson, CEO of the new company, also contribute.

But first, a little bit of background.

Walnut Creek sells CDs full of freely available software, and run the world's busiest FTP server (ftp.freesoftware.com, formerly known as ftp.cdrom.com). Walnut Creek has been involved with FreeBSD since the early days, producing the first FreeBSD CD distribution, and providing gainful employment for some members of the FreeBSD development community. This article from FreeBSDzine explains some of the Walnut Creek/FreeBSD relationship.

BSDI was formed by members of the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at UC Berkeley (i.e., the same group responsible for the Unix BSD in the first place). BSDI produce, market, and provide support and training for a commercial BSD Unix (or Unix-like) OS for the Intel platform, and as such, are competing in the same space that FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux (not to mention Microsoft) all play in.

While there have been several IPOs, mergers, and acquisitions by various Linux-driven companies in the relatively recent past, this is the first in BSD space. Here Bob Bruce answers questions about the merger, some of which came from yourselves, via the earlier story.

[Disclaimer: in another xterm I'm nik@freebsd.org, which obviously gives me a greater vested interest in this event than most. Unless otherwise indicated, the answers are from Bob.]

What, exactly, is happening? The reports from DaemonNews are that the two companies are merging, the Wall Street Journal says that BSDI is "acquiring" Walnut Creek. Is this a merger of equals, or will one company be the dominant partner?

Walnut Creek CDROM and BSDI have merged into a single company. I don't think either partner will be dominant. Walnut Creek CDROM and BSDI had very similar company cultures, and both companies had a long history of involvement in the BSD community. Several BSDI people were members of UC Berkeley's Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG), and were key early contributors to the free software movement. Several of the top people in the FreeBSD project worked for Walnut Creek CDROM. So together we have an extemely talented group of people.

The two companies mesh well at the sales and marketing level, too. Walnut Creek CDROM brings online sales and retail channel expertise. Our shrink-wrap products are sold in nearly all major chains, including CompUSA, MicroCenter, Fry's, Border's, etc. BSDI brings expertise in VAR/OEM sales, embedded systems, corporate sales and infrastructure markets. For instance, UUNet runs on BSD/OS.

Why merge at all? FreeBSD and BSDI have coexisted for some years now. BSDI uses code from FreeBSD (I believe) and they have also contributed code back to FreeBSD. What benefits will merging bring?

The obvious advantage is that our development efforts will be sharing codebases. So we can make improvements faster and at lower cost. Our goal will be a single ABI for third party vendors to port to, which will mean more applications available on BSD.

People who are trying to decide whether to rely on Linux or BSD should note that the two commercial BSD-based companies are unifying at the same time that the Linux market is being divided up into smaller and smaller fragments. It seems like every few weeks another company announces a Linux distro. I just read that Motorola is producing their own. Now don't get me wrong, I really wish that Linux wasn't so fragmented. In fact, I would like to go back to the good old days when Slackware had a 90% market share ;-)

Gary adds: A merger makes a lot of sense from a promotion and funding perspective. You'll be seeing much more promotion about BSD in the future. It's often been said that we've got the superior technology, but the marketing has been nearly non-existent. That's going to change.

More money means more development funds as well. For example, an Itanium project is definitely in the pipeline. No firm details yet, but it will happen.

What's the new company going to be called?

Currently BSDI is the name of the company, but we are looking at alternatives.

Where is BSD's focus going to be? The traditional role has been servers, with some developers expressing a disdain for the desktop.

Gary says: We're committed to growing our position in the marketplace. Traditionally, the Internet Infrastructure market has been where we're strongest, and that's where we're going to focus. But not to the exclusion of promoting BSD for the desktop. FreeBSD and BSDI both have major customers in the embedded market, and among infrastructure suppliers.

What will happen to the FreeBSD codebase? Is it going to merge with the BSDI code, or vice-versa? Will there be two code trees?

There are plans for the two codebases to merge, but not immediately. FreeBSD 4.0 is scheduled for release very soon [4.0 should go gold on March 13th -- Nik] and will not contain any code from BSD/OS. Once 4.0 becomes the "stable" branch, the merging work will begin on the "current" branch. There will also be continuing improvements and enhancements to the proprietry BSD/OS.

Jordan adds: I also see us best doing this by gradual convergence, not by simply attempting to ram one group or code-base into another. It will take time for the FreeBSD developers to come up to speed on the various features in BSD/OS they may be merging and the converse is true for the BSDI developers; they've been working on BSD/OS for the last decade and will need time to familiarize themselves with the FreeBSD code base, its development methodologies and its culture.

There are a number of FreeBSD features which existing BSD/OS customers have requested just as there are a number of BSD/OS features which the FreeBSD project will be looking into merging. By doing this work in parallel, we can deal with the familiarization issues on both sides while making the eventual code merger progressively easier.

David Greenman and Mike Karels will be working together as co-architects for the new system. As features are merged in, they will be available for download at www.freebsd.org, and on "snapshot" CDROMs. The completely merged system will be released as FreeBSD 5.0.

Who 'owns' FreeBSD now? Jordan's been talking about a FreeBSD Foundation, is that going to see the light of day?

FreeBSD is "owned" by the FreeBSD Project, which is made up of the core team, the committers, and all the other people who write the code. No company can ever own FreeBSD, anymore than a company can own Linux. The FreeBSD Foundation will be an independent non-profit organization. It will be controlled by a board of directors, which will contain some members of the core team. The Foundation and the core team are still separate entities going forward.

What about the name "FreeBSD", and related tems, like the "PicoBSD" distribution? If someone wants to build the own CD-ROM release, can they call it "FreeBSD"?

The trademark "FreeBSD" was owned by Walnut Creek CDROM, so it is now a registered trademark of the merged company. But, by written agreement, the use of the trademark is controlled by the FreeBSD core team.

Roughly speaking, how many new, full time, developers is this going to bring to FreeBSD?

About twenty. But that will grow. We are hiring, so if anyone out there in Slashdot land needs a job and knows how to code, send your resume to jobs@cdrom.com.

Are there any BSDI only features that are slated for rapid integration into FreeBSD?

No. FreeBSD and BSD/OS have well deserved reputations for robustness and stability. We don't want to jeopardize that by rushing the integration process.

Are any features of the BSDI codebase going to stay proprietary?

At first much of the BSDI codebase will remain proprietary. It will only be freed as it is integrated with FreeBSD. There are some parts of the codebase that cannot be freed because the code was written under a contract that does not permit disclosure.

Jordan adds: This pertains only to the BSD/OS kernel. There is intention to merge the "userland" code as soon as is practical, since there are no issues with any of that code, according to Mike Karels.

Prompted by a question from "dcs" earlier; most of the FreeBSD developers meet through the mailing lists, and no one is "parachuted" in to a committer position without first submitting PRs, having them accepted, being proposed for committership, having a mentor, and so on. Everyone's got where they are by working with one another, and going through the peer review process.

Will the BSDI developers (those of them who will be working on the FreeBSD code) have to go through the same (or possibly accelerated) process? Or will they be dropped in as committers almost immediately?

Jordan: I think it's too early to say how each and every case will be handled, but that it'd also be reasonable to assume that a hybrid approach will be used. In each case we'll be first estabishing just what each potential new committer will be doing and what the priority for that work is, then we'll look at their track record and take prior experience into account just as we've done with many other committers.

Some committers have approached us as complete unknowns and have had to enter the project "the slow way", by submitting PRs and essentially proving themselves to us over time. In other cases, a committer has approached us (or vice-versa) and the core decision to add him has gone in a matter of hours from concept to edits to the access file ("Kirk wants a commit bit? stamp Done! Somebody go grab him before he changes his mind!"). It all really depends on just how much of a known-quantity the person is and I expect that to work in everyone's favor in a good deal of the cases for BSDI developers.

It's been suggested that some of the BSDI people would be coming in as FreeBSD core team members. Is that right?

Jordan: This really isn't clear yet and all we've talked about is the fact that we'd be willing to take some on if they expressed a direct interest. This has yet to happen as I'm sure most of the folks over at BSDI are still too busy staggering around and trying to cope with this Brave New World to think about things like joining FreeBSD-core. I would also expect to be able to spend a little time explaining just what this means in reality to any prospective candidate in advance, such being only fair.

Are there any changes planned for the BSD license?

That is up to the University of California. We have no control over the BSD license. UC removed the advertising clause last year, which was the right thing to do. I can't think of anything else that should be changed. The BSD license is about as free as you can get short of public domain, and its "business friendly" nature is one of the reasons that BSD is so widely used in commercial applications which require customized kernels, such as the IBM Interjet, the Intel StorageServer, and Inktomi's network products.

Will the code still be released under the BSD license? If so, which one? There are three BSD licenses available; the original BSD license with four clauses, the new BSD license, without the advertising clause, and the FreeBSD license, which also omits the fourth clause as well.

It will be released under the newest license, without the advertising clause. Contrary to other reports, once the BSDI code is released under the three clause license it will be usable by anyone, not just other open source projects.

How will this impact on other organisations use of the codebase? For example, Apple use FreeBSD extensively in MacOS X.

It will have a positive impact. We have been unable to work more closely with partners like Apple because of limited resources, especially not enough people. That will change. We will be strengthening existing partnerships and building new ones.

Jordan adds: It should also be noted that people who are doing their own FreeBSD-based solutions can continue to do so, we're not changing the terms under which FreeBSD is being released or can be used in other products. Nothing changes for FreeBSD here and it's in the areas where a customer wants more than FreeBSD can currently deliver for, say, an embedded systems product that I see the commercial possibilities. Anyong buying a commercial RTOS today gets a lot more than a CDROM containing some bits, for example, they also get about four feet of printed manuals, a support contract, tools for doing cross-compilation on other platforms (like NT), etc. Providing those kind of value-adds for FreeBSD on a commercial basis would be a win-win scenario for everyone, I think, and that's just one possible avenue of exploration.

Living and working in the UK, BSD's presence here is limited. I can get various Linux flavours from the bigger PC stores, but BSD seems to be relegated to a few, more specialist, suppliers. Red Hat has announced plans to expand in to Europe, and Suse is based in Germany. Is this a market you're going for, or are you contentrating on the U.S. at the moment?

Gary: In the UK, you may find FreeBSD on the shelves of Dixon's soon [Big consumer electronics chain, computers, cameras, hi-fi systems, that sort of thing -- Nik]. You can expect to see big changes in our market presence in Europe, particularly over the next six to 12 months. I can't say more than that at the moment.

Walnut Creek sell 'competing' products, including Slackware and Redhat Linux. Is this going to change?

Our Slackware division will be spun off as an independent company: Slackware Linux, Inc. But our Linux and BSD developers will continue to work closely together. Patrick Volkerding has moved out here from Minnesota and is now managing Slackware development on a day-to-day basis. We will be releasing Slackware 7.1 by summer.

What about other distributions (or, indeed, other OSs). Would the new company release OpenBSD or NetBSD CDs, for example?

We have no plans to do that.

But we are trying to get the entire BSD community to work together more. For instance, our annual conference, FreeBSD'Con, is being renamed BSD'Con, and will now include all BSD software, not just FreeBSD.

There is frequent cross-fertilization of ideas and code between the Linux and BSD communities. Probably a lot more than most people realize. This is what "Open Source" is all about: both communities benefit from fresh ideas as well as healthy competition. We are at the focal point where these two communities come together, and this is a very exciting place to be.

It's been planned for some time, and on March 4 at a user group meeting in the Netherlands, Jordan Hubbard let slip the news that the ink was dry, and Walnut Creek CDROM, a big player in the development and promotion of FreeBSD, and BSDi are merging. Obviously, this has big implications for FreeBSD. You can read what's been written so far at this DaemonNews article. Later today we'll have an interview with Walnut Creek president, Bob Bruce. If you've got questions, then you know the drill. . . Oh, OK. If you don't know the drill, post them here, let the moderators moderate them up, and I'll make sure they get an airing later.

Going to LinuxWorld this year? Robert Bruce, head honcho at Walnut Creek CDROM, writes "There is going to be a BSD BOF at the New York Linuxworld on Thursday, Feb. 3, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. We are in room 1D05, Jacob Javits Convention Center, near the conference area in the lower (2nd level down) of Javits. You do not need to be a Linuxworld attendee to come to the BOF. Everyone is welcome. There will be representatives from BSDi, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD." If you're after installation CD-ROMs, or a bite to eat, this is the place to be. You might even be able to get one of the free Daemon Horns that will be given away. The BOF is being sponsored by BSDI, Walnut Creek CDROM, and BUNY (BSD Users of New York).

brianm9 wrote in with this tidbit from BSDI's home page. "LAP enables a BSD/OS system to execute many dynamically linked Linux ELF binaries (both libc5 and glibc) with no significant loss of performance. This release has been tested with the following Linux applications: Adobe Acrobat, ApplixWare, Informix and Word Perfect." The beta is only available to BSDI customers with current support contracts; more information can be had from BSDI's Linux Application Platform page.

brianm9 wrote in with this tidbit from BSDI's home page. "LAP enables a BSD/OS system to execute many dynamically linked Linux ELF binaries (both libc5 and glibc) with no significant loss of performance. This release has been tested with the following Linux applications: Adobe Acrobat, ApplixWare, Informix and Word Perfect." The beta is only available to BSDI customers with current support contracts; more information can be had from BSDI's Linux Application Platform page.

Scott Brady writes "In an announcement to customers November 11, Virtual Server provider iServer announced plans to migrate from BSDi to the more open FreeBSD on ''...[n]ew Virtual Server accounts provisioned after November 23, 1999". They went on to say that "...we anticipate that all Virtual Servers will eventually be migrated to the new FreeBSD Virtual Server platform.'' Look for an official announcement to be forthcoming. "