A Devil Of A BSDCon

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.

Comments

What bothers me...

[xtermz]

is the seperation of the Linux and BSD communities. In a very real sense, arent we all in the same war? promotion of our platforms as a viable alternative to Windows. I think there needs to be a movement out there to promote the *nix environment in general, particulary in reference to OSS based os'es. Perhaps some more OSS expo's...... im sure theres Unix expo's of some sort, but how about one tailored to the open source revolution...not just linux or bsd specificially...

"sex on tv is bad, you might fall off..."

Re:What bothers me...

[Jordan Block]

In one sense, we are all in this together, I've used both Linux and BSD, and both have strngths and weaknesses. Now, before I continue, let me say that my opinions are based on first hand experience.

BSD is stronger as a server Operating system than linux, it has a more mature TCP/IP stack, and is simply faster.

Linux is a FAR better desktop operating system. It's got more software for it, and there is a seeminly larger group of people developing for it, as well as a lot of commercial support.

As a friend put it: "Linux is the windows of alterative OSs"

Linux does get more attention, has a larger user base, and has some really cool shit that it can do. However, its not always stable (though a hell of a lot more stable that anything M$ has ever come up with.) and not always secure (again, a lot more secure than anythingfrom M$).

Then there's BSD, its not as well known (thanks in no small part to the legal troubles it had some years back). Its secure, stable, and can emulate linux faster than native linux can run! Unfortunately, there isn't as much developer backing for it, so there arent as many desktop apps for it.

Anybody out there who's judging BSD without knowing the facts, is doing exactly what the windows/mac world does to Linux. They don't understand it, of Bill and Steve don't like it, so I must be evil!

This really isn't something to start a holy war over!

Re:What bothers me...

[imp]

is the seperation of the Linux and BSD communities

Let us keep some historical perspective here. The Linux crowd decided to not use BSD net2 when it was freely available, but instead went off and invented their own stuff. They left the BSD community a long time ago and haven't given us enough credit or spotlight since then.

Having said that, it is good to have a convention focused on the BSD community. There are already several for the Linux community. This isn't a war or anything like that, just a chance for like horned people to get together and exchange ideas. While some members of the BSD community may indulge in excesses wrt Linux and/or its mascots from time to time, most people realize that both groups benefit by the competition and the cross fertilization that happens between the groups.

It is also a wonderful opportunity for us to meet the people that we develop the software with, or sometimes compete against, have some personal bonding and see the latest FreeBSD bondage t-shirts ;-)

Re:Daemon v. Penguin Wars...

[Arandir]

First off, the license is different.

The BSD kernel and Linux have different licenses, true. But the Perl on BSD and the Perl on Linux are the same. Ditto for Xfree86, gcc, less, OpenSSH, TCP/IP, lpr, emacs, ad infinitum.

For someone not working on the kernel or OS environment, the licensing is identical. From a user's perspective, one is 100% free and the other is 100% free.

The BSD license leaves version contrrol with UC-Berkley. Period.

Wrong. Go read the license. Go fork the project and create a new CVS tree on your own server if you wish. No one will sue. Version control remains with the FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD core teams for exactly the same reason that version control for Linux remains with Linus: it makes sense to have one official source.

Secondly, BSD is a more mature project than Linux, and that drives people apart. In the earlier days of Linux, and to a certain point even now, you can end up with copyright on a small chunk of the Linux kernel.

Yep. But its more than getting your name in the list of contributors. A new OS has opportunity for everyone to contribute. But with an old OS the opportunity is harder. You either need some grand vision of a radical change, or be content with the unglamorous tuning and tweaking.

But BSD is more than the kernel. There is also the userland OS environment. There's a lot of current work going on there, so you have the opportunity to get involved.

You should only be a bit bothered.

[mr]

The 'linux community' has a sub-set of voices who have money in Linux-centric stocks and have a vested interest in seeing 'linux succeed'. VA Research^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HLinux is an example of a voice that won't promote BSD unless they have to. Given money == volume, it is no wonder the BSD message is shouted over.

The voices are fine, it is what the voices *SAY*....$0 OSes/Open Source OSes == Linux (and only linux) that cause the problem.

Taking snippits from here these quotes are WHY there seems to be a division, because there *IS* a division.
The Institute has not yet seen fit to include the only companies which market products and services many in the Third World can actually afford, the Linux companies.
Now, anyone with 1/2 a clue or better knows that the ONLY companies that market products that are at a $0 cost option are NOT just Linux companies. There is BSD in the form of Darwin (the $0 option from Apple), FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.

So here is a 'linux voice' ignoring BSD, even thought the 'goal' of the voice is to help the 3rd world become aware of $0 options. Saying 'only linux' is being un-truthful.

Bruce P has a take on this, and I can understand his modivation:
Re: And BSD isn't affordable, nor corporate?
by Bruce Perens on Monday October 09, @03:31 AM BSD folks should be represented too. Hopefully, they can ask for representation in the same way the Linux folks are. Should the Linux folks fight their battles? I'd have no problem speaking out for them as a free software spokesperson. But I doubt that every Linux proponent should have to fight on the behalf of BSD.

Here is the source of a division.

If you are talking about 'open source alternatives to Micro$oft', then you should not be starting and ending with Linux. BSD is there, and you could always use HURD or even Minix. (if others have $0 options for personal/business use, please list em.) WRT HURD and Minix, there isn't alot of usefulness, so you are left with BSD.

When you talk about 'shrink-wrapped Linux binaries', do they even consider Solaris/SCO/BSD's Linux compatibility layer? If you don't think of BSD/SCO/Solaris, then you are adding to the division.

And, when someone approaches you and says: "Tell me about Linux", are they wanting to know about Linux, or are they "interested in knowing what they could run instead of Microsoft software" with Linux being the name on the tip of the tounge of the press.
(And Linus is in agreement with the POV that Choices to Microsoft should be varied.
That same attitude helps explain why Torvalds is so eager to counterbalance Microsoft's dominance. He wants computer users to have a choice among several operating systems, not just one from Microsoft. "I'm not rabid anti-Microsoft," he says. "But they make it so hard to compete.")

If *YOU* don't like the rift, what are you doing to bridge the gap? Do you say 'linux' as a shorthand for Open Source OS? When you ask vendors to create a 'linux binary', do you ask them to support BSD/SCO/Solaris with that linux binary?

And think about this:
Is it OK to go to a Windows technology roll-out to hand out Linux CD's, in the interest of letting ppl know about 'an option'?
Is it OK to go to a Linux Meeting and hand out BSD CD's, in the interest in expanding knowledge?