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Comparing and Contrasting BSD/OS and NetBSD

LiquidPC writes: ""Even though BSD/OS and NetBSD operating systems have been mostly developed by different developers with some different goals over the past nine years, they share many similarities due to their near identitical open source origins and the open source software that complements the systems" Read the article comparing and contrasting NetBSD and BSD/OS at BSDNewsLetter.com."

35 comments

  1. first BSD post by krog · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    not hard.

    NetBSD rools, OpenBSD drools.

    1. Re:first BSD post by questionlp · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      BSD/OS is not OpenBSD.

      BSD/OS is the commercial version of BSD, whereas Net|Open|FreeBSD are open source version of BSD.

    2. Re:first BSD post by diaper_tales · · Score: -1

      idiot.

  2. Netcraft confirms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Netcraft confirms: Slashdot is dying!!

    propz to my dead homies

    mad gritz love

    goatse.cx

  3. Taco-snotting is dying by poopbot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Netcraft has confirmed: Taco-snotting is dying.

    Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered Taco-snotting community when recently IDC confirmed that Taco-snotting accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all homosexual acts. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that Taco-snotting has lost more fag practitioners, this news serves to reinforce what weve known all along. Taco-snotting faggots are collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Faggot World comprehensive snotting test.

    You dont need to be a Katz to predict Taco-snottings future. The handwriting is on the wall: Taco-snotting faces a bleak future. In fact there wont be any future at all for Taco-snotting because Taco-snotting is dying. Things are looking very bad for Taco-snotting. As many of us are already aware, Taco-snotting continues to lose faggotshare. White ink flows like a river of bubbly, thick jizz. The circle-snot is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core snotters.

    Lets keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

    Circle-snotting leader Jeff Homos Masterbates states that there are 7000 snotters of the circle-snot. How many users of anal snot are there? Lets see. The number of circle-snotting versus anal snot posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 anal snot users. SnotOS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of anal snot posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of SnotOS. A recent article put the circle-snot at about 80 percent of the Taco-snotting market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 circle-snot users. This is consistent with the number of circle-snot Usenet posts.

    Due to the troubles of CowboiKneels walnuts, abysmal sales and so on, the circle-snot went out of business and was taken over by SNOTi who sell another troubled Taco-snot. Now SNOTi is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another gay whorehouse.

    All major surveys show that Taco-snotting has steadily declined in faggotshare. Taco-snotting is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Taco-snotting is to survive at all it will be among heterosexual hobbyist dabblers. Taco-snotting continues to decay. Nothing short of a jizz-soaked miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Taco-snotting is dead.

    Fact: Taco-snotting is dead.

    - posted by poopbot: because even your grandmother can use lunix

    nupmA22Eqm Post #279

  4. on another note.. by josepha48 · · Score: 2

    NetBSD 1.5.3 is starting to apear on the ftp site. YEAH! There is a i386 port as well as several others...

    --

    Only 'flamers' flame!

  5. *BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    It is official; Netcraft confirms: *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 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

  6. Insider's scoop: Why FreeBSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    The End of FreeBSD

    [ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]

    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 outstrips 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
  7. What's the point? by saintlupus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is a remarkably content free article. For those who want the Cliff's Notes version:

    * BSD/OS has a commercial license.

    * Some of the binaries in BSD/OS are slightly
    smaller.

    * The setup scripts are arranged a little differently.

    * BSD/OS has more stuff by default, and it might take as much as ten minutes in the package tree to bring NetBSD up to par.

    Er, that's about it.

    I'd be more interested in a comparison of the three free BSD operating systems; I've been running NetBSD and OpenBSD for a couple of years now, but I've never installed FreeBSD. I've heard it's got something of a Linuxy bloat rather than the grim austerity of the Open and Net OSes... any comments from users? Might as well put _something_ useful in this wasted comments section.

    --saint

    1. Re:What's the point? by O_Sleep · · Score: 1

      Throw OS X in the comparison of the three as well.

    2. Re:What's the point? by ffsnjb · · Score: 2

      "Linuxy" bloat only if you choose to install FreeBSD that way. It would be nice to be able to not install the uucp, ppp and isdn utilities by default, but thats about the only unnecessary crap (in my case, others may use it...) I trash on a minimum install.

      --
      "Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
    3. Re:What's the point? by someonehasmyname · · Score: 1

      I've been running FreeBSD and OpenBSD for a couple of years now, and haven't ever installed NetBSD before.. It's true, FreeBSD does by default take a little more room than OpenBSD (not near as bad as Linux), but I think it's worth it.. FreeBSD's configuration files and everything make much more sense to me than OpenBSD's..

      --
      Common sense is not so common.
    4. Re:What's the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > FreeBSD's configuration files and everything make much more sense to me than OpenBSD's

      Really?
      Not to start a flame war or anything, but I am really surprised. I tried both, but chose OpenBSD because configuration and everything else there made much more sense to me than FreeBSD. Different people - different preferences I guess.

    5. Re:What's the point? by MobyTurbo · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Blockquoth the poster:
      I'd be more interested in a comparison of the three free BSD operating systems; I've been running NetBSD and OpenBSD for a couple of years now, but I've never installed FreeBSD. I've heard it's got something of a Linuxy bloat rather than the grim austerity of the Open and Net OSes... any comments from users? Might as well put _something_ useful in this wasted comments section.

      Wasted comments section? It's not wasted if you want to read canned AC posts about BSD being dead. ;-D

      Seriously though, I haven't used OpenBSD, and have only used NetBSD via a shell account on someone else's boxen, but FreeBSD is a lot less bloated in it's initial install than all major Linux distributions. The main reason I chose it over NetBSD or OpenBSD is it's larger (in fact humongeous) ports selection - very useful since I use it primarily as a workstation. (Am I the only one that uses BSD as something besides only a server or firewall?) Most of ports is not installed by default however; though my system was even lighter than average since I installed using the 4.6 mini-ISO due to being a dialup user, which meant that I had to use ports to fetch X Windows.

    6. Re:What's the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are not alone. Laptop, 2 workstations and my server

    7. Re:What's the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use FreeBSD on my desktops and my servers. Sure there's a couple of things that get installed by default that I don't need (UUCP, ISDN, for example) but the base system is very complete and up-to-date. It's interesting to see Perl being moved out of the base system in 5.0-CURRENT, as a lot of the system maintenance scripts are going to have to be ported to C.

    8. Re:What's the point? by Moridineas · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've been running NetBSD and OpenBSD for a couple of years now, but I've never installed FreeBSD. I've heard it's got something of a Linuxy bloat rather than the grim austerity of the Open and Net OSes...

      I've used FreeBSD a good bit, and have one OpenBSD firewall box setup. They both have their good sides and bad sides imho.

      The main good things about FreeBSD imho are the bigger ports collection and more users (more chance someone has had your problem before ;) The install program for FreeBSD is a lot friendlirt than the Open (though Open went 100% fine for me) and to me FreeBSD config files are easier to setup. OpenBSD on the other hand as a Firewall type box can't be beat imho, the ease of seting it up and writing pf rules can't be beaten. I'm not sure I'd want my personal desktop running OpenBSD though.

    9. Re:What's the point? by dohcvtec · · Score: 1

      ...something of a Linuxy bloat...
      Hardly; even with full source code + the ports collection installed, it only consumes about 700MB IIRC. OpenBSD does have a very small footprint, while still being very complete, but FreeBSD isn't that far off. Besides, for all of the utilities installed, there is one and only one version installed. I've seen plenty of Linux distributions with 3 versions of application foo and 3 versions of application bar installed - what's the point?

      --
      -- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
    10. Re:What's the point? by dohcvtec · · Score: 2, Interesting

      FreeBSD is my top choice for a desktop Unix-like system. In my experience, it's "snappier" performance-wise than any other Unix or Unix-like system I've used.

      --
      -- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
    11. Re:What's the point? by RevDobbs · · Score: 2

      Wow, that's odd... maybe it was just documentation differences, but I took to OpenBSD much quicker than FreeBSD. I recomend OpenBSD to just about everyone looking to learn UNIX these days, the "intro email" and man afterboot provide all you need to get started playing with it.

    12. Re:What's the point? by benedict · · Score: 2

      No, you're not alone. I used a FreeBSD
      workstation for years, until Mac OS X came
      out.

      At work I use a diskless X terminal running
      NetBSD.

      --
      Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
  8. Can't us BSD users work together? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's the same source code anyway. If we work together, maybe we can postpone its death for a little longer. Oh, too late.

    It's official: BSD is dead.

  9. Don't Expect Another Version ;-( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    BSD is dead.

  10. *BSD is Dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    It is official; Netcraft confirms: *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 [samag.com]
    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 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

  11. Eulogy for *BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I am a *BSD luser
    and I try hard to be brave
    That is a tall order
    *BSD's foot is in the grave.

    I tap at my toy keyboard
    and whistle a happy tune
    but keeping happy's so hard,
    *BSD will die real soon.

    Each day I wake and softly sob
    Nightfall finds me crying
    Not only am I a zit faced slob
    but *BSD is dying.

  12. Bud.. you're WRONG! BSD IS NOT DEAD! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    but don't forget.. BSD is dying :).

  13. Eh by neroz · · Score: 1

    This would have been a lot more interesting if they compared the kernels instead of userland.. all unixes can have the same userland. blah.

  14. What we can learn from BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    What We Can Learn From BSD
    By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

    Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

    Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

    These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

    As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

    Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

    The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.

  15. compare? by I+Have+a+Hard · · Score: -1

    Which one is less dead ?

  16. Sad News, Talk Radio, netBSD death, Few Details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just heard the sad news on talk radio. Troubled OS netBSD was found dead in it's downtown office. Initial reports place blame on a wasabi overdose. There were no more details. Truly a loss for the OS dabbler-dilletante troll hobbyist community. I miss it already:-(

  17. that is not insightful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That is inaccurate. BSD/OS has high quality SMP support. BSD/OS has commercial software packages released for it. BSD/OS is a production ready server product, engineered for use as a server operating system on real servers. Get that? NetBSD is not. NetBSD is an ongoing, somewhat clever, hack that runs everywhere. but it's not what you want running your mission critical apps. BSD/OS, however, is.

    1. Re:that is not insightful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't say that NetBSD is a bad OS. I have been very impressed with their NetBSD-sparc port running on my 1991 SPARCstation 2. I haven't had a single crash and it has been running pretty fast.

  18. I forget, why is BSD dying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Sorry, could somebody please post why BSD is dying? and possibly whether it's official or not and who confirmed this?

    Thanks,

  19. last post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Berkely, Software and Distribution

    Has anybody here seen my old friend Berkeley?
    Can you tell me where he's gone?
    He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young
    I just looked around and he's gone.

    Has anybody here seen my old friend Software?
    Can you tell me where he's gone?
    He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young
    I just looked around and he's gone.

    Has anybody here seen my old friend Distribution?
    Can you tell me where he's gone?
    He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young
    I just looked around and he's gone.

    Didn't you love the things they stood for?
    Didn't they try to find some good in you and me?
    And we'll be free
    Someday soon
    It's gonna be one day

    Has anybody here seen my old friend Linux?
    Can you tell me where he's gone?
    I thought I saw him walking up o'er the hill
    With Berkeley, Software and Distribution

  20. *BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    It is now official. Netcraft confirming: *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 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