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Taking MicroBSD for a Test Run
LiquidPC writes "In this article Jeremy Reed of BSDNewsletter.com talks about installing MicroBSD, what features make it special, troubles and successes I encountered, and the beauty of the BSD license."
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If it's allowed by the license, then it's not stealing. Someone obviously made a concious decision to release the software under the BSD license. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
You can't STEAL something that is licensed so people can use it anyway they want. Even if microsoft took the BSD TCP/IP stack, so what? What's the big deal if microsoft is using BSD's TCP/IP stack, it's not like microsoft took it and said BSD couldn't use it anymore. Microsoft should be allowed to take their TCP/IP stack and not having to release all their new source code; the original source is still available if you want to download it. You're making a big deal out of nothing.
I am fine with your opinion saying BSD is not dying, yet, I would like to point out that BSD has the near-the-best kernel in the whole wide world doesn't meant that it has the best user interface, best applications ported, best usability in the world, hence it is doubtful whether it is _the_ best OS there.
I would agree that BSD is a real good arch though, microkernels, decent IP stack.
BTW i'm using Darwin though.
install OpenBSD using only base31.tgz etc31.tgz and bsd, you'll have an install that takes about 96mb and has more than enough tools to run pf, bridging and altq (all for setting up a very useful firewall), and even has pop server, sshd, apache, perl - plenty for a basic server.
-f
www.blackant.net
A side note, I browse at a two threshold and at this point I see two posts. How does such a pro-MS, relatively content-less post such as yours make it to +4 Insightful so quickly?
At the time MS (and even AT&T) were accused of taking code the BSD licence had one more clause then it has now. Basically a credit clause, you had to acknolage BSD in your documentation (and maybe on screen).
The big deal is BSD asked for one very small and specifc (and fair!) form of payment, and they were denyed. That makes it theft.
Fairly serious theft in my book. The university put in a pretty impressave motion for "injunctave prayer for relief" diring the AT&T vs. BSDI lawsuit on those grounds too, something about "irreparable harm to the reputation of the University"....
You seem not to understand that people are diffrent. There are many, many developers that wants companies to use their source, and they dont care if they make money of it.
The BSD license is not friendly at all to the developers producing code.
i can't agree with you in that.
if you write a class with basic functions, let's say a textbox, and you give the sources to me, and i write a hole application using your textbox, i think i have the right to sell my product back to you.
you just wrote the textbox. i did a lot of work around it.
just like apple did.
I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Freedom can be bad. Suppose you make really cheap guns that work really well, and you decide to give them away completely free. Then some terrorist comes along and takes a few thousands of your guns, for free.
The BSD license allows companies like MS to take the code for free, and close the source, and possibly hurt the industry by extending the standard with proprietary, closed source, extensions, and then forcing people to use them through monopolistic practices.
So yes, the obvious conclusion is "If You Support BSD You Are Supporting Terrorism (TM)"
Of course this post is partly joking, but the analogy is somewhat fair I think.
BSD licensing has a place, but in my mind, that place is very limited. A small program that you don't care if people use for whatever reason, like something that is mostly educational as a code example, or a launching point for building another app that isn't very useful in and of itself, that is fine for BSD.
If you don't care about what MS or other companies are doing with your code, then by all means use the BSD. That is what it is there for. If you would rather guarantee that your code stays open source no matter what, then GPL. If you don't mind closed source people linking with and using your code, so long as they don't extend it without giving back to the community, then LGPL. If you don't want people to use your code at all, then use a more restrictive license, or close source it. It's all very simple.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
May I ask what debian has to do with FreeBSD in any way shape or form?
I think your viewpoint is biased and ridiculous. Expand your horizons before commenting.
// -- http://www.BRAD-X.com/ --
Yes, BSD-licensed code may end up in commercial products. But that often beats the alternative. I'd much rather see Microsoft use a piece of software with a BSD license than have them hack their own--I already know that whatever they come up with themselves is going to be less compatible with the rest of the world and usually technically worse.
Most companies who use BSD code and try to keep it closed sooner or later realize the futility of their endeavor and publish it--there is just no point on keeping software closed when other people have very similar software already for free.
The GPL relies on a contractual obligation to ensure source availability. BSD relies on something much simpler: laziness.
The LGPL and GPL both are very useful, and I use them for my software too. But BSD isn't "insane"--it's a valid license and a good approach to open source software. And sometimes, giving commercial users more than they "deserve" is a good idea because it helps get the APIs and architecture of free software systems into commercial and proprietary products.
So, here is how I see good licensing choices that promote free software:
For software like kernels and command line tools, the GPL/LGPL often isn't very strong anyway because most commercial uses would not involve linking with the code. Note again that the GPL (or some even more restrictive license) isn't always the best choice for promoting free software. Imagine where Linux and free software would be today if the Linux kernel only allowed the execution of free software applications, or if the X11 window system only allowed the display of GPL'ed GUI apps.
So, in short, all of the *GPL and BSD licenses have their purpose. Which one is best for the promotion of free software depends on the software and the potential users.
I'm reading a Computer Networks textbook right now. The author frequently points out that the success of the TCP/IP stack can be largely attributed to the BSD license because companies had access to a well-engineered network staff for free. Otherwise, OSI protocols might have been chosen as they were the "hot" research/development topic of the 80's.
Exactly. This is why I prefer the BSD license - it is truly a gift, unlike the GPL, which just pretends to be.
I once read a story about "Freedom: I Won't", the idea that everyone has the basic right to say "I won't" when requested to do something by another, and that answer must be accepted.
The BSD license says "I won't. I've chosen to freely give this away. I won't make money off it, but if you want to add your own code to it and try to make money off the combination, you're free too. It's a gift, and like any gift, can be resold."
The GPL says "I won't - and you won't either. If you use this code, you become beholden to us, and you must release your code in order to further our political ends."
The GPL violates my Freedom: I Won't: it tries to dictate to me. Well...I Won't use the GPL then.
It takes two tries to get right at first, but it's still my favorite installer. The only thing I'd reallly like to see different is the ability to assign swap more flexibly, but getting around that is as easy as finishing the install (you likely won't need to swap while installing) and editing fstab.
/s. If you aren't familiar with the BSD mindset at all (fdisk+disk slicing, which is about the only hard thing there), OpenBSD isn't your distro- FreeBSD should be, and yes, their sysinstall is broken and sucky (nice menus... but when you can't get back to partition your second disk, they aren't of much use), hence the 'libh' project to eventually allow a serious revamp of sysinstall.
Really, they've done well for what they're doing. It fits on one floppy, it's no-bullshit, and is the general equivalent of MS-DOS format
Check out NetBSD's installer sometime; IMHO, it's a bit of the worst of both worlds, but it's basically an OpenBSD installer that's more self-documenting.
From their Web Site
/. us this morning which is okay. Though those of you now reading this 0.5 is in two different ISOs the full ISO, and the miniISO. As they say 160megs installed on the Full ISO for 0.5, it is less then 64Megs for 0.6 which is due out soon. Also note that 0.6 contains all the cleanups and additions, fixes for 0.5 and actually is alot more usable. Looks like everyone is going to be about 7 days to early. Wait for 0.6 and then take a look if you really want to see what we are doing. The differences between 0.5 and 0.6 are too large to list but size, configurability and features are the largest points.
Seems someone decided to
This is a Size preview for the full Release for 0.6, other additional packages will include IDS, PostFix, MySQL, and a couple of others. Base install less then 64 Megs, and a heavily modified installation system.
641 Sep 2 15:33 CKSUM
36654 Sep 2 15:33 INSTALL.ata
37658 Sep 2 15:33 INSTALL.chs
21797 Sep 2 15:33 INSTALL.dbr
125042 Sep 2 15:33 INSTALL.i386
24017 Sep 2 15:33 INSTALL.linux
12465 Sep 2 15:33 INSTALL.mbr
22558 Sep 2 15:33 INSTALL.os2br
14522 Sep 2 15:33 INSTALL.pt
1155 Sep 2 15:33 MD5
9376463 Sep 2 15:49 base06.tgz
4432422 Sep 2 15:33 bsd
4252465 Sep 2 15:33 bsd.rd
2949120 Sep 2 15:33 cdrom06.fs
184670 Sep 2 15:49 dhcp06.tgz
128796 Sep 2 15:49 etc06.tgz
1474560 Sep 2 15:33 floppy06.fs
1474560 Sep 2 15:33 floppyB06.fs
1474560 Sep 2 15:33 floppyC06.fs
558766 Sep 2 15:49 ipsec06.tgz
440998 Sep 2 15:49 ppp06.tgz
37500 Sep 2 15:49 pptp06.tgz
424264 Sep 2 15:49 sendmail06.tgz
I hate to break this to you, captain, but nearly half of slashdot crowd use Microsoft products one way or another. I know people who never even installed linux, but read
I give credit where it's due.
>Contrast this to Linux which has had SMP support
> built in since 1996, is relatively fine grained
It wasn't fine grained by any definition in 1996, It wasn't fine grained when 2.2 come out and sections of the kernel are under BKL even in 2.4 and 2.5 development kernel. Not much difference as compared to FreeBSD here.
> FreeBSD has it, but only for i386
FreeBSD has is for Alpha and Sparc64 too, check your facts before spewing them on public.