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Jordan Hubbard Resigns from FreeBSD Core
SteelX was one of many readers to cite this story in the Daily Daemon News which reports that "Jordan Hubbard is resigning from the FreeBSD core. Jordan is a founding member of the FreeBSD project." Note: According to this email, Hubbard is definitely not quitting FreeBSD; he's just changing the nature of his involvement with it.
You've done me nothing but right.
Thanks a million for all your hard work.
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- What is the "core team"?
- How long has JKH been on the core?
- Where does JKH currently work?
- Will JKH be replaced? Where on the net can you find procedures detailing this process?
- Do some research. How many people have been removed from the core? How many people have resigned from the core? What happens when a person quits the core team?
If you got a 50% or better, then you've read the article, did a google search, read some more, and likely have something to say that is not a rumor, falsehood, or a profound misunderstanding.I think it's actually good news for *BSD that Hubbard has quit core. Besides wasting his talents on administrative tasks, he obviously didn't like the squabbling anymore. Now someone with managerial enthusiasm can move into his core position, and Jordan can focus on what he does best for *BSD - contribute good code. A good deal all around.
It's not a competition. Agreed.
There isn't a huge number of linux projects (please read on before modding as troll).
There also isn't a huge number of BSD projects.
Actually, most of these projects... GNOME, KDE, etc... are pretty kernel/distribution independent. Remember, linux is only the kernel. Most of what you think of as linux, is GNU software. And it's all pretty portable, to a certain extent, even to windows (barf).
Linux and BSD don't compete for projects, they share them.
Slightly offtopic: What's with the "bsd is dying troll" variant that claims BSD lacks SMP? Will the next version claim that BSD has no keyboard support or shell prompt?
If it wasn't for Jordan, FreeBSD would really be dead. Many of you don't remember because you weren't around but when jkh started working his ass off on FreeBSD it was a pile of stinking refuse. This was during the time of the rising linux kernel (around rev .99? or earlier?). Unix on peecees was not pretty and not in way reliable. I worked at one of the first small ISPs (this was when Gopher was king) and a coworker convinced us to migrate from linux to FreeBSD because of some really bad linux fs bugs at the time (INN+linux was asking for trouble).
We never looked back. Over the years I've built at least 50 servers based on FreeBSD and at least that many based on linux. I've found them both to be reliable and good enough for commercial use but thanks to jkh and his pragmatic views on an OS distribution FreeBSD has been the more "stable" OS over the years.
--- I do not moderate.
I'm not really sure I understand your question.
Gnome is not a Linux program. Mozilla is not a Linux program. Gimp is not a Linux program. They all run just fine under FreeBSD.
GCC, bash, XFree86, tar, Perl, Windowmaker, etc, etc, etc, aren't Linux programs either. They're all Open Source Unix programs that work just fine under just about every Unix OS there is.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I used to be a big Linux advocate, unfortuantely it seems that Linux has been becoming more and more unstable. The hundreds of different distributions of Linux all have their pros and cons, but there is no centralised package or ports system. Want a package for Linux ? Ok, cool - DEB, RPM? RPM? That's the most popular. But don't try using a Mandrake RPM or a SuSE RPM on RedHat.
Linux has given up its usefulness for graphical installers and Windowesque gimmicks. The code bloat is unbelievable. Unless you roll out your own distribution or use a minimalist distribution like Slackware, the default installs for RedHat, Mandrake, etc are huge, Windows-like monstrosities.
So what?, I hear you say. Linux is stable and secure. Wrong again. The Lion worm proved that Linux is not as secure as one might believe. The fact that VMs get changed in the middle of a stable release branch (2.4.x) shows bad organization.
It took Linux years to overcome its awful filesystem problems, and now journalling filesystems are available. But speedwise, compared to the FreeBSD FFS, they are slow and cumbersome, and have yet to prove as reliable. FFS Softlinks are a few generations ahead of any journalling filesystem on the market.
FreeBSD is far better organized, the ports and packages collections are better synced and more reliable, the system is more stable and easier to understand. The firewall included with FreeBSD has been proven and has a far better track record than ipchains or iptables, the latter having security problems in its first week or release, the former having no stately inspection and being a complete mess due to its shell-script bound layout.
But Linux has more software than FreeBSD!, scream the Linux die-hards. What they fail to realize is that 99% of Linux software runs under FreeBSD. I haven't encountered a Linux program that didn't run under FreeBSD. Sure, I've heard reports by trolls that certain software doesn't work, but all the software I've tried works, in fact, even faster than the native Linux versions in most cases. To the VMWare troll: Yes, VMWare does work under FreeBSD.
FreeBSD vs Linux is a debate that won't ever be settled, but people who have used both generally prefer FreeBSD for mission-critical tasks. Those who claim that FreeBSD performs worse than Linux either haven't used FreeBSD or are trolls.
I won't say that FreeBSD is the best Unix variant on the market, but the best open source Unix variant? Yes. Solaris is still tops, but in terms of Free (Open Source) systems, FreeBSD is probably the best all-rounder. NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linux all have their respective places, but overall, FreeBSD will probably take over most of the open source server market, at least in organizations with serious management.
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
System Admin. for Solaris
First, I can see no lack of enthusiasm, not from jkh, let alone the BSD commiters, developers or user base. The steadily growing mailing list subscriptions are only one of many indicators. If you had read jkh's letter you would not have missed that he is not stopping work on FreeBSD, on the contrary, without the managerial work as a core member he can actually contribute *more* code and knowing jkh I am sure he'll raise his voice on many issues concerning the BSDs in the future.
The rest of your article seems to miss the current state of affairs so much that Richard P Feynman would probably attribute it with the same line he used for crank theories -- "not even wrong". To be more specific:
"poor quality of development tools" -- you mean make(1), gcc(1), cvs(1) or what? Care to elaborate when they are actually the same tools any linux (or for that matter unix) hacker uses? Typing
$ cd /usr/src; cvs update; make world
for the first time and watching the complete system being built was one of the most beautiful experiences in my hacker life.
"Very little projects from the FreeBSD community": You apparently have a different understanding of what constitutes a Linux or FreeBSD project than I have. Linux being kernel-only, lets address kernel projects going on in FreeBSD:
- fine grained SMP locking
- fine-grained privileges (capabilities)
- Access Control Lists
- KAME Project, a free IPv6/IPsec stack for BSD
- Mandatory Access Control
- Soft Updates: Asynchronous Meta-data Protection in File Systems
And there's tons more for the userland, e.g. the POSIX 2001 = IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 comformance project (which I regard my baby to some extent). Have a look at http://www.de.freebsd.org/projects/index.html for an exhaustive list of projects."controlled development model"? In FreeBSD more than 300 committers have write access to the repository. How does that compare to Linus, the benevolent dictator over the linux kernel? Funny that arch linux hacker Alan Cox is also actively working on the FreeBSD kernel. He seems to have no fear of working for both camps, heck, he might even be working on the Hurd and other OSes. The FreeBSD people couldn't care less. We value everybody's technical expertise and that is exactly what makes our community a place to be. Come to think of it: instead of uttering FUD why not learn from each other about strengths and weaknesses? Why the NIH attitude?
I give you a half point on the "no companies involved" issue. To be frank, the Windriver episode was not something to be proud of. I have no real insights into what went on inside WRS, but if I had to guess, I'd attribute it to lack of real enthusiasm. Other companies in the meantime have taken the role Walnut Creek had in the past, notably http://www.freebsdservices.com/ and http://www.freebsdmall.com/ They seem to do so well that I got the FreeBSD 4.5 DVD for free (like all 300+ committers).
With all this combined enthusiasm I have absolutely no doubt that FreeBSD will continue to have a great future.
Regards,
Jens, who is proud being a part of it.
SIGSIG -- signature too long (core dumped)