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Updated FreeBSD Release Schedule
Serin K Medusa writes: "The folks over at FreeBSD.org have put up a new 'roadmap' detailing the plan of action for the remainder of the year. In particular, check out the plans for a 5.0 preview and expected dates for 4.6.
Interesting reading if you're following -CURRENT."
It seems to me that FreeBSD is more well planned than Linux in terms of project management(This is not Linux bashing). When a development project gets bigger, it takes a lot more planning as a group effort than one man's decision, there maybe something for Linux development team to learn. I agree that it is hard to find the balance because most of us like Linux for some advanced new feature but there's got to be better planning and announcement system to let user know what to expect.
I would really appreciate if Linux kernel set stable checkpoint to indicate "This is a stable kernel" instead of 2.4 series trial and error approach.
I think you have to a commercial interprise to go bankrupt. FreeBSD is a team of volunteers who have kept on plugging away in spite of the main sponsor, Walnut Creek, being sold. The commercial business WC CDROM went away but not FreeBSD, And it won't. Berkely unix at it's best. And of course, OpenBSD and NetBSD have similar business models and all will still be around when all the current Linux distros have dried up and blown away.
Yes, 5.0 seems to be a significant change. Now, what I'm curious to know -- sorry if this is OT -- is: will the FreeBSD code used by Apple in Darwin/MacOS X be sync'ed with FB5.x???
Furthermore, and, er, "reversely" (can I say that?) will some of the stuff that Apple has been working on (integration of FreeBSD over the micro-kernel who's name I forget, something to do with drivers, etc.) be integrated back into FreeBSD?
With Jason Hubbard now working at Apple and with the *nix underpinnings of MacOS X (IOW: Darwin), how much cross-polination will occur?
The packages/ports collection rocks. Software works as documented. Documentation exists.
I can't wait to see all the goodies planned for FreeBSD-5.
Anyone who is interested in UNIX should check it out. It is one of the very "cleanest" implimentations out there, and it also happens to perform quite well.
Go ahead download the
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
I'm in the same boat as you. Since '96 I've been a Linux user, screaming about it from the rooftops, bringing it into huge companies and basing smaller companies on it. Ever since 2.4 though its been degrading. These days I don't dare run a stock kernel unless its been patched all the way to hell and halfway back. Even then its iffy. Linux apps are twitchy, and an above poster is definitly correct about it feeling thrown together.
Just last week I tried out FreeBSD 4.5-RELEASE and I must say I'm impressed. The whole thing feels really professional and tightly bundled, and the ports tree is a dream. I havn't found anything that isn't straightforward. It still blows my mind that I was able to do whatever I needed to do by looking in logical places, or at worst doing my one stop shopping for info at www.freebsd.org.
The project feels like one team built the whole works as opposed to everything being a mishmash from whoever showed up for amature night.
Best of all, I don't have to look at that fat, stupid penguin. It was cute a couple of years ago, but its a really insipid logo that makes it seem like a kiddie project.
The FreeBSD license doesn't preclude commercialization, which makes it far, far, far, more appealing for putting on commercial users' desktops.
Of course, the rock solid stability, better planned releases, centralized control, yadda, yadda, yadda, are no doubt factors that made it more appealing than Linux as a base. But even if those things were all equal, the GPL alone would have prevented Apple from basing OS X upon Linux.
Similarly, I'm working on two projects that will be commercialized; I'm using FreeBSD as the base, and sleeping well knowing that I won't have any licensing grief down the road. Linux and it's supporting utilities are just too fraught with GPL restrictions; if the core technology of Linux were leaps and bounds above FreeBSD, it would be more of a dilemma. But in terms of the kernel and core utilities, they really are neck and neck. I make my living creating this value-added code, I can't afford to give the source away for my modifications or extensions, and live off of services or whatever. (And the zealots will no doubt scream "if you don't like the GPL, don't use software that uses it!" Well, despite the kneejerk reaction that might be, that's exactly the right advice in my case, I'll use FreeBSD.)
I do think it's a shame for Linux, though. If Linux didn't have this restriction, and had four or five offshoots of commercialization, I think it'd be taken a lot more seriously on the desktop. With the release of OS/X, BSD really did leapfrog Linux in terms of popular acceptance on the desktop. Linux might have been the beneficiary of this, if it were more BSD-like in its licensing. And FreeBSD seem to be gaining even more momentum every day.
In any case, choice is good. I love Linux, but I choose BSD.
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I guess the "BSD is DEAD" boneheads do not manage servers on the net.. Can you say STABLE.. SECURE, UPTIME? As for support? -- Rackspace offers FreeBSD on Dedicated servers with 24x7 Support.. Hmm I have never called them for support on my machines.. wonder why? Isn't Hotmail still "stuck" with BSD on the backend? I remember an article on the WALNUT CREEK ftp server, serving more ftp users daily (over a terrabyte of data) on a single Pentuim Pro than the entire MS FTP Farm (700 GB)... Hmm I recently remember having to change out 3 Linux boxes to FreeBSD because the Linux boxes choked on 160K mail messages per hour. Hmm have not recieved an alarm on the FreeBsd boxes in six months.. I wonder if my pager is broken?