Slashdot Mirror
Native Version Of Opera browser for FreeBSD
An anonymous reader writes "Norway based Opera Software finally released a native FreeBSD version of its fast, standard based browser yesterday. The browser has been available in the ports tree as an app running in Linux binary environment. Opera 6.1 is the first version released for FreeBSD, it has the same set of features as the Linux version."
I have long known that FreeBSD is a better Desktop OS than Linux. And now the few of us that have truly seen the light will be able to browse the web in style. Mozilla may be okay, but Opera is just plain better.
Enjoy, my fellow FreeBSD users. Soon Linux will be no more!
*crickets*
I think a native release of Opera 6.x for FreeBSD and the recent announcement of Pheonix would add two nice lighter weight [graphical] web browsers to FreeBSD. I've been using Mozilla 1.0 and 1.1 under FreeBSD (along with the Java 1.3.1 JDK, using both the regular and the Linux ports of JDK 1.3.1) and it runs fine... with the exception that it can get quite sluggish.
:)
Running the Linux version of Opera 6 on FreeBSD is faster than the native build of Mozilla, but getting the plug-ins to work has been a bit of a hit and miss.
Now what would be great would be a native version of the Macromedia Flash plug-in for FreeBSD
Too bad that anyone can steal the BSD license so the BSD people have nothing to compile anymore, they have to write the code again and again.
I think a native release of Opera 6.x for FreeBSD and the recent announcement of Pheonix would add two nice lighter weight [graphical] web browsers to FreeBSD. I've been using Mozilla 1.0 and 1.1 under FreeBSD (along with the Java 1.3.1 JDK, using both the regular and the Linux ports of JDK 1.3.1) and it runs fine... with the exception that it can get quite sluggish.
:)
Running the Linux version of Opera 6 on FreeBSD is faster than the native build of Mozilla, but getting the plug-ins to work has been a bit of a hit and miss.
Now what would be great would be a native version of the Macromedia Flash plug-in for FreeBSD
I have always been a big fan of freebsd. I am currently using it on my server. I think this is long over due. Most apps are being released for windows a linux and they forget about freebsd users. Like Nvidia drivers, UT2003, quake3, DOOM III (when it comes out). And alot lot more. They still havent released the src yet for phoenix 0.1 (I could always check it out of the cvs) so we wont see it on freebsd for quite awhile.
The reason linux gets so much more attention than freebsd is because of Tux the penguin. I know this might sound stupid but Tux makes people want to switch over. And once they see nvidia drivers and native games in linux they are hooked. Then once they get used to linux and want a real chalange they check out freebsd.
Most people that are curious about Unix will try linux first because people say its more user friendly. Mandrake and Redhat are super easy to install. I think for bsd to get as much market share as linux they need to do the same thing. Of course we will have freebsd (they way it is) for servers but wouldnt it be nice to see a gui installer for it?
Oh well Until then freebsd users will always have to wait for software.
keanmarine.com
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
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.
It is official; Netcraft now confirms: Opera is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Opera community when IDC confirmed that Opera market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all browsers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Opera has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Opera is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive browser test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Opera's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Opera faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Opera because Opera is dying. Things are looking very bad for Opera . As many of us are already aware, Opera continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
All major surveys show that Opera has steadily declined in market share. Opera is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Opera is to survive at all it will be among web dilettante dabblers. Opera continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Opera is dead.
Fact: Opera is dying
I think a native release of Opera 6.x for FreeBSD and the recent announcement of Pheonix would add two nice lighter weight [graphical] web browsers to FreeBSD. I've been using Mozilla 1.0 and 1.1 under FreeBSD (along with the Java 1.3.1 JDK, using both the regular and the Linux ports of JDK 1.3.1) and it runs fine... with the exception that it can get quite sluggish.
:)
Running the Linux version of Opera 6 on FreeBSD is faster than the native build of Mozilla, but getting the plug-ins to work has been a bit of a hit and miss.
Now what would be great would be a native version of the Macromedia Flash plug-in for FreeBSD
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now dropping 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
can someone please explain why people keep trolling that _instert_OS_here_ is dying?
I thought when clicked here I'd see it again -- and sure enough, another 'BSD is Dead'
troll.
WHY?
I use Linux myself, though I do like FreeBSD, but what would be *REALLY* cool and good and useful for *BOTH* would be a 'command line' version of say Mozilla, that would run without XFree.
Web browsing is one of the few things I use X for, and I would jump at the chance for something more featureful and useful than lynx. Ugh, lynx. Yes, there's links, but getting it to run is hit or miss unfortunately.
On a similar note, how well does Opera run on NetBSD's Linux (and I guess FreeBSD too now) binary compatibility system? I've recently decided to switch to NetBSD instead of upgrading.
In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
I agree. Look at how people remove the BSD license and put on a GPL instead, STEALING the code.
Sometimes the GPL community honor the license, and don't remove the BSD copyright, the GPLed code is embraced and extended BSD code. (kind of like Microsoft.)
As the gutless wonder Bruce Perens likes to say 'the new BSD license is great, because you can slap a GPL on it and "protect" the code.'
I have a feeling Netcraft has confirmed *something* about this announcement.
Gentoo Linux is for people who were ex BSD users but find portage better, don't like to be behind times. BSD is great !! Gentoo is something even better. Just my opinion.
[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
--
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 soon 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 a dying 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.
Thanks to Opera Software for recognizing this need. I've requested a FreeBSD port via their web form and am thrilled to see that they listen to their customers.
Now, everybody go buy a license to support this excellent work.