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Michael Smith Leaves Core
Donald Burr of Borg writes "Following in the footsteps of Jordan Hubbard,
Michael Smith leaves the FreeBSD core team. Reasons cited are similar to those that jkh gave, including displeasure at the bureacracy and politicking, and FreeBSD not being "fun" anymore."
first post!
and bsd isn't dying!
you obviously did not read the story. the article says that bsd is dying.
if only michael simms were to leave slashdot everything would be kosher
There, now that that's out of the way, people can make real comments now! Put all related trolls under here for convenient filtering.
I like that 3-line "article" Slashdot uses as an "article." Sigh.
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the
cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right
this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
The ultimate anti-troll.
Fate, chance, karma, whatever you wanna call it -- when Miss Fortune spreads her legs for you, you're already in over your head. Believe me, I know.
...
Bunny LaFever looked like a dame with more curves and venom than Reggie Peeler's Land O' Snakes. But she wasn't a real dame. She was a she-devil. That golden bush of hers was nothing but a welcome mat to hell.
But now I'm getting way ahead of myself. Bunny had a way of doing that to jerks like me. She twisted us inside out and turned our heads around so we couldn't think straight anymore. So lemme begin at the beginning
Carnies got a word for a crooked game operator like me. They call me "Flattie" cuz I'll flat-out rob you and make you like it.
My name's Randy Everhard and I've got a million ways to take your money. One of my personal favorites is the "hopper shot." It's tossing softballs into toilet seats, which you've seen on every midway in your life. I could gaff the joint to make it impossible to win.
But where's the fun in that? I work it so any chucklehead can win all night long. Cuz once I've hooked a live one into thinking he can take me for a ride, that's when I nail him with the "build-up." Caught up in the excitement of winning game after game, the rube's built up to play twenty games at two bucks a pop. And the only prize he's going home with is a teddy bear that cost me three shekels per, wholesale. You do the math, Einstein.
The problem with selling three-dollar plush for forty scoots is that the build-up only pays off if you've got a steady string of suckers. And that night was turning out to be a real larry. The Laff Riot carnival was a flattie's wet dream. The grab joints and flashy rides were a front for the real action: flat stories, alibi and percentage joints, crap tables, slot machines, fortune wheels.
The show was running wide open. Everybody crooked and every joint gaffed and nobody doing a damn thing to stop it. I figured the cops were greased slicker 'n Liberace's asshole. It should've been like shooting trout in a barrel. Too bad nobody was taking my bait. I was up shit creek without a paddle to piss on.
My first goddamn night with the show, and already I was itchy for a new angle.
I can't remember which one of them I saw first: the blonde come-on dressed like she had an exhibitionist streak a mile wide or the square in the coke bottle glasses who was eyeballing her like she was nothing but something to look at. Of course, that Coppertone beauty really was something to look at. She was turning heads and raising dicks all over the place. But I didn't like him getting his eyes all over this piece of 100 percent corn-fed cocktease.
She was stacked like a double-decker Ferris wheel with nipples that could cut glass. The red double-O's stenciled on her football jersey were stretched over humongous hooters. She looked like a shooting gallery, bursting at the seams. You couldn't miss those twin titty targets. I'm talking knockers so big you could still see them when she turned around. And believe you me, she was one woman who looked as good going as she did coming.
She wore a pair of daring Daisy Dukes that were so short and tight her crotch sucked them in. The denim over her ass was thread-bare, blown out like a retread. And if that wasn't enough, she was doing a number on a grape Popsicle to make your peter wish it was frozen on a stick. That girl was one carnival ride I wanted to jump on quick, and I didn't care how many tickets it cost.
In my racket, though, business comes before pleasure. And this looked like a golden opportunity to work the key scam. It's the oldest con in the carny book.
I jumped the counter and made my way over to the chump with the steamed-up glasses. I was like, "Hot enough for ya? And I ain't talking about the weather, fella." At first he didn't buy it when I told him I was the "manager" of this fine talent. He just stood there mopping his brow with a hanky.
"I don't fuck chickens and I don't shit feathers," I said, "and I wouldn't lie about a piece of ass like that, neither." I gave myself a hard-on feeding him the fast talk: screwing her would make a man think he died and gone to heaven, where the streets are paved with solid gold snatch.
"She's a sight for sore eyes, ain't she? And if you think I'm giving you lip, you oughta see her go to town on a dick. Life-transforming, friend. Life-transforming." I pulled out an old key I kept for just such an occasion. Dangling it before his bug eyes, I spieled how it was the key to her room at some motel outside of town. "I'm talking once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, pal. She's the reason hard-ons were made."
He swallowed it all -- hook, line and sinker.
Chuckling over what he was going to tell his wife when he came home minus his paycheck, I made my way over to the sultry sex kitten. She was throwing heat like a furnace. Melting chocolate bars at twenty paces. It was too hot to fuck, but next to her, that scorcher felt like a cool, seaside breeze.
"I just made you twenty bucks, and all you had to do was stand here looking gorgeous, Gorgeous." She didn't say anything, just looked me up and down and blinked those big baby blues. The sheen of sweat on her face glowed under the neon lights. She'd sucked all the flavor out of the end of the Popsicle, so the tip was white.
I fished out a crisp, new bill and passed it over. She let it rest in the palm of her hand as she stared at it, confused. She tried giving it back to me, but I stopped her. "See that guy over there?" I asked, stepping aside to give her a glimpse. "He just paid me a lot of money to sleep with you."
He what?" she goes, insulted. She threw down what was left of her Popsicle and took a step closer. Her eyes burned like a butane flame. Like most women, she looked better when she was steamed. But I didn't want her making a scene. She was liable to blow the act.
"Don't get yer panties in a bunch," I said, shutting her cakehole with my hand. I told her about the con and then nervously took my hand away. I was sure she was gonna blow up again. But she kept quiet. I told her we had to scram and didn't give her a chance to say no. I just put my arm around her waist and steered her toward the exit gates. I gave Pops a back-handed wave as we booked outta there double-time.
My dick is long and my cons are short. Cop and blow, that's my motto -- take the money and run. Otherwise things got a way of getting ugly.
Two minutes later, we were hauling ass down the highway in my supercharged Chevy Menace. It was an acid green two-door with cheetah seat covers, four on the floor and dual exhaust. Twin cams and 440 horses under the hood.
"Say," I said, "what's your name, anyway?"
I was hoping to get to know every inch of her better. She smelled like coconut oil. Her tanned skin gave off heat like asphalt that'd been baking in the sun all day.
"Bunny," she goes. "Bunny LaFever." She was a real piece, too. I couldn't wait to do all sorts of dirty things to her. "How much you take him for?" she asked. "Two-fifty." In actuality I scored three-fifty. But if there's one thing I know about women, it's never tell them exactly how much money you've got.
Back at my room at the God bless America Truckstop Motel, she showed me that that sweet and innocent show was just a put-on. I was glad, though. I prefer a girl with some experience under her belt.
Before I knew it, she was all over me like stink on shit. Purple from the Popsicle, her tongue sprung to the back of my throat and then snaked all over the inside of my mouth like she was mining the gold fillings out of my teeth. Despite all the tongue wrasslin,' her hands were nowhere near where I wanted them to be.
My dick had been so hard for so long I thought it would blast off like a rocket, but she kept her distance. The teasing was cute at first but enough was enough. I grabbed her hands and planted them on the tent pole in my pants.
She pulled away and took a few steps back.
"You trying to insult me? You think you can have this body for free?" Bunny squeezed her 'lopes together, serving them up for my hungry eyes: "These tits alone cost five bucks to look at."
I chuckled nervously. "C'mon," I go, "quit screwing around."
"I'm totally serious. Five bucks or I'm gone."
I started laughing for real, digging the little swindler. What else could I do but pay up? She had me right were she wanted me.
This was one of those times in a man's life when he knows his dick's doing the brainwork but he doesn't care. Whatever the dick wants, the dick gets. That right there's the whole story of my life.
I plucked a five-spot from my wallet and waved it like a flag of surrender. She just looked at it. "I don't want your money now," she goes. "Pay me later."
"Whatever you say." And I just eased back on the bed to enjoy the show.
She peeled off her T-shirt and out bounced those giant, all-natural juggs. She had razor sharp tan lines from the sling of a skimpy bikini top. You could tell from her nips that the air-conditioning was on full-blast.
Bunny danced around the room, wiggling and shaking everything her momma gave her. I looked her up and down until I could've guessed her weight. She had all the right parts in all the right places and then some.
She neared the bed and leaned over me to let those massive, all-American melons swing inches above my face. "Wanna taste them?" she goes. As if she had to ask.
I lifted my head to suck the tantalizing titties into my mouth, but she snatched them away.
"Five bucks," she goes.
"All right, five bucks."
"Five bucks each, big spender."
"You got it."
"Pay me later," she cooed, and moved closer to bury me beneath her treasure chest. "Mmm," she purred, "you suck real good."
"Damn straight," I mumbled. "You're getting my money's worth."
She only laughed as her fingers spider-walked down to my crotch and unzipped my fly. "You'd like a tit-fuck, wouldn't you?"
It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact. Some girls are mind readers, but Bunny LaFever was the first dick reader I ever had the pleasure to meet.
"Twenty bucks," she barked.
I was like, "A bargain at twice the price. Pay you later?"
"That's right, bright boy."
We switched places on the bed so that she was on her back. I kicked off my shoes and pulled down my pants and underwear. This dick of mine's got its own zip code and time zone.
When she gripped the shaft, her fingers didn't reach all the way around. She was like, "Lucky for you I'm still in my size-is-everything phase."
"Me, too," I said, dropping to my knees to straddle her. My hard-on slipped between her cleavage like a hot dog in its steamed bun. She pressed them together to make the sandwich good and tight as I began my strokes.
I humped her hooters harder to push my dick closer to her succulent mouth. She stuck out her pink tongue and tickled the tip. Back and forth it fluttered over the head.
"There's a freebie," she giggled. "But I won't take one in the mouth for less than twenty."
"How much to swallow?"
She had to think that one over. "Thirty," she answered. "And that's only cuz I like you."
I dismounted and stood beside the bed. She sat on the edge of the mattress to let her mouth get better acquainted with my cock. Her tongue twirled over my shaft until it looked like a monument of polished marble.
She blew me good and slow, repeatedly bringing me to the edge of orgasm and then stopping until the urge melted away.
The build-up felt so good it hurt. I never begged anyone for anything before. But tortured by her talented tongue, I was actually begging for mercy.
After some more tongue lashing, she finally let me fill her mouth. She swallowed, too, and it felt like my whole body was sliding down with it.
What the fuck !. I'm not on slashdot very often
but fuck ! You are so troll. Are you sick of the "BSD is dying". I am !. Your _*REALLY_ feed the stupid troll. Is it the slashdot goal ?. Is the slashdot slogan "We feed the troll since 1997 !".
I don't know what is more startling: that a core BSD member thinks "BSD is dying" trolls are worth addressing or that he seems to be saying that they're right.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Its now TRUE. BSD is dying. Ask wind river systems how much money the make off of BSD/OS.
The total lack of SMP is also VERY, VERY convenient! (Its "fake" in FreeBSD)
vendor support. oracle on FreeBSD? You can kinda run it, but oracle only supports it for the major UNIXes--and linux. You'll find that for almost all commercial software.
And what about hardware? Those shiny new Dell Poweredge and Compaq DL*'s actually work with Linux, because their developers have put time into writing drivers & contributing the source back into the kernel tree.
Once you get vendors on board, it's game over.
BSD is coherent, it is the father of much good in the world, but aside from OpenBSD, I see almost not future.
This is not a troll, but flame-bait-hungry moderators will probably not read it thoroughly or the context, but here it goes. It's now TRUE. BSD is dying. Ask Wind River systems how much money the make off of BSD/OS. The total lack of SMP is also VERY, VERY convenient! BSD is coherent, it is the father of much good in the world, but aside from OpenBSD, I see almost no future. I called Wind River about BSD/OS, they don't have EVAL versions of the OS, and their sales people *stink* at trying to sell it. They actually fucking suggest VXWORKS as an alternative. Unreal. tools. You can mark me as a troll, wrongly claim BSD and OS X are synonymous when in reality Darwin OS is a very, very (useless) and loose approximation of BSD. I wanted Darwin, I wanted OS X for x86, but neither are worth crap. BeOS supported more hardware than Darwin. I think it is pathetic that Steve Jobs kyboshed BeOS in favor of Darwin and then didn't ram the spear up Bill Gate's empire.
Quote JORDAN:
Well, that is certainly poetic. Sounds like the tanks already rushed in and crushed the skulls of BSD. Yeah, we hear whiners claim Darwin is BSD, bull. Darwin on both PPC and even more so on x86 is *completely* un-usable, and you people damn right well know it. Mark me as a troll, you can, deny the truth you will (to use a Yoda-ism, death to G. Lucas) You know it. If you don't buy a MAC, an overpriced hack at a PC (whatever happened to acceptance of the superior fire wire, almost ZILCH compared to USB, also, try and find a NuBUS card, let alone a slot.), then you are screwed when it comes to Apple UNIX. I wish Apple would stop being a WHIMP and port to x86, but it seems apparent they do not have the intelligence present to PORT an OS to x86 (geeze, of all the oddest, off the wall undocumented architectures ever [facetious]. Yeah, right. Must be tuff.). Who would have thought? Well, I would have.
Remember folks, UNIX vendors killed Unix. I piss on Microsoft, but they can sell SHIT far better than UNIX vendors can sell GOLD. IBM is dumping AIX in favor of Linux, what a surprise (They are writing JFS, POSIX THREADS 2.0, and lots of NUMA for Linux, not BSD, all you BSD loons take a note of that).. Solaris has only one thing Linux doesn't have, good scalable SMP. Other than that Solaris is a flaming dogpile, I know, I have seen it in action. HP-UX is trash, lovingly known as HOCKEY PUX (and also verifiably impossible to port to and compile stuff on), they also killed the only REAL competitor to Microshit Exchange, OpenMAIL. Now OpenMAIL is a dead end Samsung product and it sucks. Mark me as a troll, you are vastly uninformed if you do, but I have actually administered OpenMAIL and have tried it relabeled from Samsung. Worth noting, I never saw OpenMAIL working on anything else besides Linux. Thanks Carly, you for killing over the only good Unix based mail MTA. Lets rip into SGI. Ha ha ha ha. The only remnant holdover of that vendor is re-appearing in Linux as XFS. The rest of that shit IRIX is DEPRECATED in favor of a GNU OS. At least stupid Sun gets giving out a free OS. You can't even try BSD/OS. It's the only BSD of interest and Wind River is killing it. The rest of the BSDs are so far behind Linux in terms of scalability its not even funny. I wish IPF was ported to Linux, I wish Linux was a better networker, it surely has room to grow, but there is nothing, nothing, nothing compelling ANYONE to develop anything for BSD. Its dead. I gets things back-ported from Linux. The only BSD worth anything is OPENBSD,. Theo is God, the rest of that whole project is shit. It's a moot, embedded only OS barely useable as a workstation OS.
So all you flaming hippie scum get behind Linux, because Apple is going to screw BSD in the rump, this is the first step, cut the chicken's head off [pry Jordan from FreeBSD]. Apple is dead ending their fork of *BSD, we know it. It won't be ported. Its sole purpose it to be eye candy for Mac zealots (boy, using an industrial grade Unix OS and Kernel for displaying EYE CANDY - that's "THINKING SMART"????). Believe you me, if Intel died tomorrow, Microsoft would move *fast* to support the next best platform. Look at the boot Intel got in the balls when Microsoft recently licked Hammer's (Opeteron's) nuts instead of Itanic Itanium.
You better hope IBM buys out the now Defunct Sun, fixes up Java so it doesn't totally SUCK, throws out all the garbage that is named Solaris and SPARC, and makes a serious attempt at dominating the market. Otherwise, it wont be BSD dying as a troll, it will be UNIX having serious R&D funding problems. The party will end if big corporation abandon Unix, and oh, yes, it *can* happen. I sure hope it doesn't.
Sure mod me as a troll. Do it. But facts are facts. Apple BSD is a niche. *BSD is losing market share. OpenBSD is awesome, but very, very niche. Linux is being underwritten by IBM, Sun (through Cobalt, which is *pathetic). HP/Compaq are also earnestly supporting Linux, not BSD. The writing is on the wall, folks. Sniff some glue.
It is now official: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test. Coupled with the sudden departure of FreeBSD's main designer, all that remains is the eulogy.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
Sure this is half troll, half truth, but be open minded and see some writing on the wall.
Well, that is certainly poetic. Sounds like the tanks already rushed in and crushed the skulls of BSD. Yeah, we hear whiners claim Darwin is BSD, bull. Darwin on both PPC and even more so on x86 is *completely* un-usable, and you people damn right well know it. Mark me as a troll, you can, deny the truth you will (to use a Yoda-ism, death to G. Lucas) You know it. If you don't buy a MAC, an overpriced hack at a PC (whatever happened to acceptance of the superior fire wire, almost ZILCH compared to USB, also, try and find a NuBUS card, let alone a slot.), then you are screwed when it comes to Apple UNIX. I wish Apple would stop being a WHIMP and port to x86, but it seems apparent they do not have the intelligence present to PORT an OS to x86 (geeze, of all the oddest, off the wall undocumented architectures ever [facetious]. Yeah, right. Must be tuff.). Who would have thought? Well, I would have.
Remember folks, UNIX vendors killed Unix. I piss on Microsoft, but they can sell SHIT far better than UNIX vendors can sell GOLD. IBM is dumping AIX in favor of Linux, what a surprise (They are writing JFS, POSIX THREADS 2.0, and lots of NUMA for Linux, not BSD, all you BSD loons take a note of that).. Solaris has only one thing Linux doesn't have, good scalable SMP. Other than that Solaris is a flaming dogpile, I know, I have seen it in action. HP-UX is trash, lovingly known as HOCKEY PUX (and also verifiably impossible to port to and compile stuff on), they also killed the only REAL competitor to Microshit Exchange, OpenMAIL. Now OpenMAIL is a dead end Samsung product and it sucks. Mark me as a troll, you are vastly uninformed if you do, but I have actually administered OpenMAIL and have tried it relabeled from Samsung. Worth noting, I never saw OpenMAIL working on anything else besides Linux. Thanks Carly, you for killing over the only good Unix based mail MTA. Lets rip into SGI. Ha ha ha ha. The only remnant holdover of that vendor is re-appearing in Linux as XFS. The rest of that shit IRIX is DEPRECATED in favor of a GNU OS. At least stupid Sun gets giving out a free OS. You can't even try BSD/OS. It's the only BSD of interest and Wind River is killing it. The rest of the BSDs are so far behind Linux in terms of scalability its not even funny. I wish IPF was ported to Linux, I wish Linux was a better networker, it surely has room to grow, but there is nothing, nothing, nothing compelling ANYONE to develop anything for BSD. Its dead. I gets things back-ported from Linux. The only BSD worth anything is OPENBSD,. Theo is God, the rest of that whole project is shit. It's a moot, embedded only OS barely useable as a workstation OS.
So all you flaming hippie scum get behind Linux, because Apple is going to screw BSD in the rump, this is the first step, cut the chicken's head off [pry Jordan from FreeBSD]. Apple is dead ending their fork of *BSD, we know it. It won't be ported. Its sole purpose it to be eye candy for Mac zealots (boy, using an industrial grade Unix OS and Kernel for displaying EYE CANDY - that's "THINKING SMART"????). Believe you me, if Intel died tomorrow, Microsoft would move *fast* to support the next best platform. Look at the boot Intel got in the balls when Microsoft recently licked Hammer's (Opeteron's) nuts instead of Itanic Itanium.
You better hope IBM buys out the now Defunct Sun, fixes up Java so it doesn't totally SUCK, throws out all the garbage that is named Solaris and SPARC, and makes a serious attempt at dominating the market. Otherwise, it wont be BSD dying as a troll, it will be UNIX having serious R&D funding problems. The party will end if big corporation abandon Unix, and oh, yes, it *can* happen. I sure hope it doesn't.
Sure mod me as a troll. Do it. But facts are facts. Apple BSD is a niche. *BSD is losing market share. OpenBSD is awesome, but very, very niche. Linux is being underwritten by IBM, Sun (through Cobalt, which is *pathetic). HP/Compaq are also earnestly supporting Linux, not BSD. The writing is on the wall, folks. Sniff some glue.
BSD IS DYING. Knowing now what I just told you, read it and see the humor. It may not be entirely true, but its FUNNY. I think BSD use will continue to drop steadily.
meowmix
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood
. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of longtime FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only underscore the point more clearly.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.
While I happen to use OpenBSD, I don't think this spells the end of FreeBSD, any more than any of the changes that come to the Tech sector spell the end of a company. What happened to the IBM PC after Estridge was killed in a plane crash? IBM went on. Maybe they didn't _own_ the market in a few years, but hey, they are still around. What about all the top guys leaving Microsoft? Paul Allen, etc. yet they still rake in the bucks.
With the way opensource, and *BSD is spread out, the exodus of a few "core" members is not tragic. Maybe a wakeup call to get a little smoother on the politics, but that is life.
Move along folks, there is nothing of interest here, OH WAIT! Is that the *BSD is Dying troll over there? Nah, just some bozo...
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years
ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of
debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many
rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD
project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old
going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the
same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right
way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when
the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was
something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an
endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and
worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and
milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told.
It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead
the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they
think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole
has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed
with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing
something" about a project that has lost interest in having something
done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become
a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't
achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain
obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
==========
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the
time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to
play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to
address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy
of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges
that significantly outstrip our ability to deliver. Some of the
resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the
fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake
of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven
out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since
then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while
the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach
are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward,
one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the
project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or
it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a
brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and
the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and
endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting
shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to
let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big
picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with
as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by
your fellow travellers?
Shouts
======
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the
cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right
this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community
at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It's when you get
distracted by the politickers that they sideline you. The tireless
work that you perform keeping the system clean and building is what
provides the platform for the obsessives and the prima donnas to have
their moments in the sun. In the end, we need you all; in order to
go forwards we must first avoid going backwards.
To the paranoid conspiracy theorists - yes, I work for Apple too. No, my
resignation wasn't on Steve's direct orders, or in any way related to work
I'm doing, may do, may not do, or indeed what was in the tea I had at
lunchtime today. It's about real problems that the project faces, real
problems that the project has brought upon itself. You can't escape them
by inventing excuses about outside influence, the problem stems from
within.
To the politically obsessed - give it a break, if you can. No, the
project isn't a lemonade stand anymore, but it's not a world-spanning
corporate juggernaut either and some of the more grandiose visions
going around are in need of a solid dose of reality. Keep it simple,
stupid.
To the grandstanders, the prima donnas, and anyone that thinks that
they can hold the project to ransom for their own agenda - give it a
break, if you can. When the current core were elected, we took a
conscious stand against vigorous sanctions, and some of you have
exploited that. A new core is going to have to decide whether to
repeat this mistake or get tough. I hope they learn from our errors.
Future
======
I started work on FreeBSD because it was fun. If I'm going to
continue, it has to be fun again. There are things I still feel
obligated to do, and with any luck I'll find the time to meet those
obligations.
However I don't feel an obligation to get involved in the political
mess the project is in right now. I tried, I burnt out. I don't feel
that my efforts were worthwhile. So I won't be standing for election,
I won't be shouting from the sidelines, and I probably won't vote in
the next round of ballots.
You could say I'm packing up my toys. I'm not going home just yet,
but I'm not going to play unless you can work out how to make the
project somewhere fun to be again.
= Mike
--
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president,
or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not
only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to
the American public. - Theodore Roosevelt
BSD will no longer sing mellow christian rock favorites?
I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
Back on topic, it is kind of sad that two respected people have left the FreeBSD core team, but things have to evolve and projects need to become somewhat dynamic rather than stay stagnant. Companies cannot survive with the same set of people on their board of directors forever either (though some wish that isn't the case).
As projects get more committers, programmers, and commenters, the harder it is to keep focused and be able to agree on the same thing. I think that Linux has shown some of the same symptoms (disagreements between how kernel patches should be handled, etc.).
Just some of my thoughts... that's all.
Goodbye and thanks for all the fish....
Now seriously, thank you
The other
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dbblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
Another piece of great news hit the already prosperous *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has risen yet again, now up to more than of 18 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has gained more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is growing in complete unity, as fittingly exemplified by coming dead first in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amdest.com] to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a superb future. In fact there will be a wonderful future for *BSD because *BSD is living. Things are looking very good for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to gain market share. Black ink flows like a river of cash. FreeBSD is the most successful of them all, having acquired 93% more core developers.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 70000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 2 to 1. Therefore there are about 70000/2 = 35000 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 15000 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (70000+35000+7000)*4 = 448000 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the success of Walnut Creek, excellent sales and so on, FreeBSD became a viable business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another popular OS. Now BSDI is also growing, its success acquired by yet another software house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily increased in market share. *BSD is very strong and its long term survival prospects are very good. If *BSD is to keep growing it will be among those who appreciate solid, fast and well-engineered OSes. *BSD continues to succeed. Nothing short of a miracle could kill it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is here for good.
Fact: *BSD is living
Is it perhaps time for younger people, like Joseph Mallet, to start having more influence within the FreeBSD project?
Seems odd that major players are dropping out of the FreeBSD core, but Net and Open are doing just fine.
Hope they finish SMPng before the project implodes - means I might finally buy a second proc for my OpenBSD machine when the code finds its way into that fork.
--saint
Hmm...nothing in the above responses rates more than a score of 2 on the moderated /. list. Maybe that's what Mike means - the quality isn't what it used to be. Dunno, I'm too busy trying to fix bugs in ports that used to work when Jordan ran things. Hmm...
Not to troll or anything, but it _is_ true.
FreeBSD might have been excellent in some areas like stability, but they completely ignored the concept of marketing.
For the last time, technical excellence (real or perceived) is not enough to succeed in any market even if you are literally giving the product away.
For example, IDE disk operations are quite slow in FreeBSD by default compared to Linux.
Most newbies won't spend the time fiddling with mount options or kernel ide flags or patching.
They just choose what's more practical by default (Linux).
While the BSD advocates live in their ivory towers the world is moving on.
This is something anyone who has been involved in
a big project knows and to be honest if Mike Smith
finds this a problem then he should either have
left long ago or gone and got a dose of reality
himself before he joined. You will never find a
group of homogenised drones who share the same
common view about everything even in places like
microsoft so in a freeware project such as BSD
you've got no chance of an easy life if people
disagree with something you may be doing.
People are people, you're always going to get
egotists , the ones who are always right, the ones
who like giving orders, the ones who refuse to
take responsibilty for their actions and so on.
All I can say is Welcome to The Real World Mr Smith.
We wish the entire FreeBSD team well and appreciate your efforts and commitment. I think the key issue IMHO may be to try and understand the challenges of the entire FreeBSD structure. i.e. are the issues technical or non-technical ? Specifically what are they and what can be done to help ? Sometimes it helps to redefine roles, revisit responsibilities, priorities and expectations.
I think it must be no easy task for core members to understand and resolve such issues. Maybe some kind of a neutral third party could look at the structure and provide positive input to help facilitate the smooth and focused operation of our entire FreeBSD team/effort ?
Or, maybe it is as simple as reiterating and refreshing the rule book (if one exists ?). This may ensure that everyone is on the same page with regards to roles, responsibilites, priorities and expectations. What do you folks think ?
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *SD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
Frankly I think this is self serving in the worst way.
If Smith were gracious, and having dealt with him I can assure you he is not, he would pass the torch with grace rather than a flick of his self important troll wrist.
ESR even had a suggestion about the duty of working on an Open Source project, when you are tired of it, of finding someone new or simply dropping it. But this "after me, the deluge" tripe is thoroughly in his character.
YHBT YHL FOAD
And I just dumped core... all over the bathroom floor, unfortunately.
STOP ME BEFORE I POST AGAIN!
Does this mean FBSD-5.0 is going to be delayed yet again?
Remember that 5.0 was delayed by a year last year so that 5.0 would be more polished -- maybe it was delayed because the core team spends too much time bickering amongst each other?
I'm thisclose to making the switch from Linux to FBSD, but news like this makes me hesitant. After all, is this going to mean that the quality of the code or innovation in FBSD will decrease, now that some of the people who know FBSD best are dropping out?
That leaves the core's newer people to try and pick up where they left off. Can it be done? Only time will tell...
Seriously, all trolls aside - does FBSD have a future? Or is the fact that Linux and OSX take the *nix-world's limelight 99% of the time going to ensure that FBSD loses more and more users and developers?
Are there any *real* statistics that give an idea as to how many people currently use FBSD? The "BSD is dying" troll obviously uses "fuzzy math" to get his numbers and hasn't updated them in ages, and yet, they're really the only numbers that I've seen - and they're basically made-up...
I'd like to switch, but nobody - myself included - wants to use a "dying" OS...
Gnome, KDE, Samba, Wine, etc., all of these were started by the Linux community. They are at their heart Linux software. Hey, even FreeBSD had to switch their object file format because Linux did. BSD object files were dropped by the GCC project. Capping it all, Red Hat owns GCC now since buying out Cygnus.
The reality is that the BSD software landscape is best characterized as a barren wasteland. BSD software is mostly hand-me-downs from other projects, the crumbs off others' tables. Whatever FreeBSD 5.0 will become, it is now certain that it will fall far short of its goals. It is a disaster in progress.
Slashdot won't let me post a subject one-liner without a gratuitous body.
What are the future plans for FreeBSD?
Something must definately be wrong with this many people leaving the core team. It would be good if the remaining core team could give us a summary on where they think they are headed and then open it up to comments from the commiters and BSD users. Such a discussion may not be so useful on Slashdot , too many trolls, but perhaps a registered discussion board on FreeBSD.org would be a good way to get a bigger picture of where te core wants to take the project and where the rest of the community actually sees it going. Perhaps all the arguments that keep coming up in core discussion could be voted on in this discussion group.
This may not answer all the problems, but it would give the rest of the BSD users a better view of what is going on. It is clear that BSD is not dying, just changing. Ring out the old, ring in the new! The stable release cycle seems to be churning out more releases than ever. With the 4.6 release base already frozen and awaiting finalisation I look forward to the new release, but I look more forward to a bright future for FreeBSD.
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
One more crippling bombshell ht the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet gain, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
I think that this sort of talk is exactly the reason he left.
I don't mean this as a flame at you directly, but in this whole article theres lots of "they should do this", "appoint that", "change system".
Somehow I think its those discussions which detract most from real work.
Jason
Smith complains that whoever shouts the loudest wins. His parting shot has him "shouting" by quitting and airing his dirty laundry in public. In this effort he displays little class and I'd say the core team will be much better off without him. The strengths of FreeBSD are due mostly to the core team concept. There is no requirement for it to be fun. If you don't like doing it, then move on graciously.
Go burn a cross, Nazi. Why do you hate Jews so much??