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The Roots Of BSD

Posted by Nik on from the NP:-Tunnel-of-love dept.

drix was the first to write in with this "Standard fare roots of the BSD/hacker movement piece over at Salon. The picture of the FreeBSD devil guy is pretty cool." This is actually another chapter in Andrew Leonard's Free Software Project online book. Well written, but occasional errors (FreeBSD and BSDI have not merged, for example) cast doubt on some of the facts. Informed comment from people who were there would be appreciated.

2 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. The cute little daemon... by seebs · · Score: 5

    Well, if you want to know about factual errors, how about the one where the slashdot article refers to the Berkeley Daemon as "the FreeBSD devil"?

    :)

    1. He's a daemon, not a devil.
    2. He's BSD's, not FreeBSD's.

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  2. History is Not Darwinian by WebBug · · Score: 5

    Ah, BSD, looking back it is like looking into another world altogether. I remember other products from the same period that were "the best" and yet, those too are long gone.

    History looks back not on the best, but on the survivor. Beta Video tapes, DAT Audio, Digital AM/FM Radio, all have been "the best" and all have simply died.

    The causes are varied but they all share a common thread. Microsoft realized very early on that if you want to survive it matters not if you are the best, but rather that everyone recognizes that you are "it". Sony blew it with Beta because they did not allow general propegation of their standard. The VHS format was given away for free and adopted instantly by the pornography movement in the US and became the instant standard.

    BSD never made themselves a public entity. Linux has fought tooth and nail to make themselves visible. Outside of the computer professional field I doubt if anyone has heard of BSD, free or not.

    Unfortunately, it is the public's awarness that determines a products viability, and most importantly it is the public perception that a product is "used" that makes it indeed used.

    Take voting in an election as a good example. People want most of all to vote for the winner. So, whether they understand, believe in, or agree with, a candidate is moot. They will vote for the candidate that they believe will win. MS was preceived as having "won" the OS wars way back in the late '80's, even though MacOS, OS/2 and others were far far ahead of Windows 3.0.

    In Summary: Publicity Pays, big time

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