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BSD Journaled File System Ready For Testing
Dan writes "The Journaled File System for FreeBSD (JFS4BSD) Project has the goal of porting the JFS Technology from IBM/Linux to FreeBSD. It uses a log-based, byte-level file system that was developed for transaction-oriented, high performance systems. Scalable and robust, its advantage over non-journaled file systems is its quick restart capability: JFS can restore a file system to a consistent state in a matter of seconds or minutes. The jfsutils is under a compilable state on FreeBSD."
IBM/Linux? New one on me... GNU/Linux, yes, but not IBM. I don't use the "GNU/" phrase myself, but it's got good reasons. IBM haven't donated *that* much to Linux (not compared to GNU foundation)
Beware the psychokinetic mimes!
This strikes me as both a good and a bad thing. /home and JFS on the maildirs, for example. :-)
Good, because journalled filesystems are a Good Thing. I use FreeBSD exclusively on both desktop and workstation, and while SoftUpdates is very good, it and journalling have different aims. (SoftUpdates aims to keep all file metadata consistent at all times; journalling aims to keep all file -data- consistent at all times.) Choice is always good, and I could see myself using SoftUpdates on
However, this is a bit of a Bad Thing in that one of FreeBSD's simplicities has always been the One Filesystem, UFS. Granted, UFS has evolved some (UFS-Softupdates and now UFS2) but there was never a question as to which filesystem to choose: UFS has enough tunables, most of them automated, that you can optimize it for small-file, large-file, high-latency, low-latency, etc. I've found it to be capable of keeping up with the various Linux filesystems in their own areas. But if this is merged into -current, there will be a choice to make when preparing a slice. This is one of those things that's hard to change after the fact.
As for me, I'll stick with UFS2 until I see how this shapes up, but tally-ho!
Whats wrong with ReiserFS (my favourite) or EXT3? or SGI's XFS even? Strangely, i've never even heard of IBM's JFS before, as ReiserFS/EXT3/XFS make all the news here.
D.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
if so, it'll never end up as part of the base install.
One of the most impressive things about Linux is the XFS filesystem for it. It is thoroughly tested, production quality, and extremely robust. It is a please to deal with XFS. I personally have tested XFS for robustness and speed, and I have done things such as set up scripts to get, untar, copy erase, and start and stop various daemons and databases and then while this looping miasma was going on RIP THE HARD DRIVE from the system (SCA, SAF-TE, hop swappable). I have yet to see a lengthy FSCK or a corruption. Simply the best!
o bj-i3 86/sys/compile/JUNIPER
UFS2 is interesting, and provides a lot of improvements to UFS1, the soft updates are fairly effective at keeping things consistent and there is a background fsck in FreeBSD that works quite well.
A filesystem which is just as robust as XFS in terms of durability is JFS, but sadly I have found this filesystem to be a bit short on the performance side. I believe the main function of JFS is to provide support for those moving from older IBM systems to newer things that possibly include the us of Linux over AIX or OS/2.
I personally will not consider Reiser or EXT3 and could go into detail as to why. I have strong opinions as to what types of filesystems belong in production, and these will not qualify.
So, while JFS for FreeBSD is a good thing, I would like to see at some point an attempt to move XFS to FreeBSD, and if I had that capability, I would have already started.
FreeBSD is coherent, well documented and with things such as Vinum, and JFS-like filesystems and hopefully someday XFS, it really does quote a bit and is released under a flexible, corporate-friendly license (which I believe helps to foster and promulgate further development, not stifle or prevent it).
On of the series of equipment that I am most impressed with is the Juniper routers. They are the best routers available in my estimation (65xx switches are my most favored switches). I feel very at home with JunOS because it is largely FreeBSD:
JuneOS version 5.6R1.3 built by builder on 2003-01-02 20:19:20 UTC
Copyright (c) 1996-2001, Juniper Networks, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1992-2001 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
JUNOS 5.6R1.3 #0: 2003-01-02 20:38:33 UTC
builder@zu.juniper.net.:/build/zu-b/5.6R1.3/
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
Reiser is shit. And please, you stupid fuck, try and tell my why Reiser is better than XFS or JFS. Please. I want to hear it. I want to hear your fucking diarrhea. You know, JFS is one of the oldest and most robust filesystems there is. You know nothing tird, just because you never heard of it means JACK SHIT. I hate people like you. The best filesystem in the world, arguable, is XFS and you use fucking Reiser. You know what a fucking tird you look like? I'll tell you. Take Sponge Bob, change all the yellow to doo doo brown, and that the fucking pile of shit you look like.
Man, you fucking fuck. You think FreeBSD would what a piece of shit from Hans buttfuck Reiser on FreeBSD's glorious, fast, well documented and stable system?
You know how old and good even UFS is? With soft updates? You know what UFS is or does that not exist in your cunt world. Man I HATE YOU. Fucking loser. You are officially a loser. GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE AND AWAY FROM ME.
EXT3 is shit. Look at fucking Redhat bugzilla you fucking fag. Lots of data loss bugs and shit being fixed. You are a stupid asshole.
XFS rules you fucking pussy. JFS rules too.
see this thread on journaling filesystems & freebsd.
i'd like to see xfs on freebsd too, but the license...
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
JFS, other journalled file systems, and Softupdates have the same goal -- keeping file metadata structures consistent on the disk. JFS does not attempt to maintain file data integrity in the event of a crash -- that is the job of a DBMS. Go and read the web page on JFS from IBM that is linked to in the original posting.
Granted, journalled FS's and softupdates go about things in different ways. Softupdates trades off potentially increased disk space usage and higher disk and CPU activity after a crash (performing the background, reduced set of checks in fsck) against a smaller relative performance penalty vs. a non-journalled FS in normal usage as compared to a journalled file system.
My own $0.02 is that this is a nice scratch-the-itch, check-the-box-for-PHB's addition, but for most normal usage softupdates is a better choice. See the papers by Ganger and Patt and McKusick for more details. (Links copied from the OpenBSD FAQ pages.)
--Paul
[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
--
[eds. 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
--
I think it would be nice to have a group working on filesystems for all BSD systems (Free, Net, Open, ...), just like what KAME does for IPv6 on BSD.
That way, every BSD project would benefit from the efforts.
- Hubert
thank god(and IBM) its under the GPL.
Should I wait for the next major release?
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.
Will it do quotas for users?
FreeBSD makes an awesome mail server for that reason alone (not that there isn't a ton more).
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
can you say GPL violation? using GPL code (XFS and JFS) under BSD...taints the BSD kernel with GPL fs code.
According to the comment on http://daily.daemonnews.org/view_story.php3?story_ id=3539 the JFS code itself isn't ready yet, but the jfstools are. So you can take a JFS disk from a Linux box and use the jfstools, but you can't mount the JFS right now.
This basically means that you cannot distribute the FreeBSD kernel with both GPL and proprietary code, but there is no problem distributing it if you leave the GPL part out of the compile. See Greg Lehey's Diary, namely the Tuesday, 18 December 2001 entry.
Sixty years ago,I worked in what was once my Grandfather's Greenhouses. Gramps had died a year earlier and Grandma, now in her seventies had been forced to sell to the competition. I got a job with the new owners and mostly worked the range by myself. That summer, they hired a man to help me get the benches ready for the fall planting.
Ike always looked like he was three days from a shave and his whiskers were dirty white, shaded by the brim of his battered felt fedora.
He did not chew tobacco but the corners of his mouth turned down in a way that, at any moment, I expected a trickle of thin, brown juice to creep down his chin. His bushy, brown eyebrows shaded pale, gray eyes.
Old Ike, he extended his hand, lifted his leg like a dog about to mark a bush and let go the loudest fart I ever heard. The old man winked at me, "Ike Thomas is the name and playing pecker's my game."
I thought he said, "Checkers." I was nineteen, green as grass. I said, "I was never much good at that game."
"Now me," said Ike, "I just love jumping men . . ."
"I'll bet you do."
". . . and grabbing on to their peckers," said Ike.
"I though we were talking about . . ."
"You like jumping old men's peckers?"
I shook my head.
"I reckon we'll have to remedy that." Ike lifted his right leg and let go another tremendous fart. "He said, "We best be getting to work."
That summer of 1941 was a more innocent time. I learned most of the sex I knew from those little eight pager cartoon booklets of comic-page characters going at it. Young men read them in the privacy of an outside john, played with themselves, by themselves and didn't brag about it. Sometimes, we got off with a trusted friend and helped each other out.
Under the greenhouse glass, the temperature some times climbed over the hundred degree mark. I had worked stripped to the waist since April and was as brown as a berry. On only his second day on the job and in the middle of August, Ike wore old fashioned overalls. Those and socks in his high-top work shoes was every stitch he wore. When he bent forward, the bib front billowed out and I could see the white curly hairs on his chest and belly.
"Me? I just love to eat pussy!" Ike licked his lips from corner to corner then sticking his tongue out far enough that the tip could touch the end of his nose. He said, A man's not a man till he knows first hand, the flavor of a lady's pussy."
"People do that?"
He winked. "Of course the taste of a hard cock ain't to be sneezed at neither. Now you answer me, yes or no. Does a man's cock taste salty or not?"
"I never . . ."
"Well, old Ike's willing to let you find out."
"No way."
"Just teasing," said Ike. "But don't give me no sass or I'll show you my ass." He winked. "Might show it to you anyway, if you was to ask."
"Why would I do that?"
"Curiosity, maybe. I'm guessing you never had a good piece of man ass."
"I'm no queer."
"Now don't be getting judgmental. Enjoying what's at hand ain't being queer. It's taking pleasure where you find it with anybody willing." Ike slipped a hand into the side slit of his overalls and I could tell he was fondling and straightening out his cock. "Now I admit I got me a hole that satisfied a few guys."
I swallowed, hard.
Ike winked. "Care to be asshole buddies?"
***
We worked steadily until noon. Ike drew a worn pocket watch from the bib pocket of his loose overalls and croaked, "Bean time. But first its time to reel out our limber hoses and make with the golden arches before lunch."
I followed Ike to the end of the greenhouse where he stopped at the outside wall of the potting shed. He opened his fly, fished inside, and finger-hooked a soft white penis with a pouting foreskin puckered half an inch past the hidden head.
"Yes sir," breathed Ike, "this old peter needs some draining." He exhaled a sigh as a strong, yellow stream splattered against the boards and ran down to soak into the earthen floor.
He caught me looking down at him. He winked. "Like what you're viewing, Boy?"
I looked away.
"You taking a serious interest in old Ike's pecker?"
I shook my head.
"Well you just haul out yourn and let old Ike return the compliment."
Feeling trapped and really having to go, I fumbled at my fly, turned away slightly, withdrew my penis and strained to start.
"Take your time boy. Let it all hang out. Old Ike's the first to admit that he likes looking at another man's pecker." He flicked away the last drop of urine and shook his limp penis vigorously.
I tried not to look interested.
"Yes sir, this old peepee feels so good out, I just might leave it out." He turned to give me a better view.
"What if somebody walks in?"
Ike shrugged. He looked at my strong yellow stream beating against the boards and moved a step closer. "You got a nice one,boy."
I glanced over at him. His cock was definitely larger and beginning to stick straight out. I nodded toward his crotch. "Don't you think you should put that away?"
"I got me strictly a parlor prick," said Ike. "Barely measures six inches." He grinned. "Of course it's big enough around to make a mouthful." He ran a thumb and forefinger along its length and drawing his foreskin back enough to expose the tip of the pink head. "Yersiree." He grinned, revealing nicotine stained teeth. "It sure feels good, letting the old boy breathe."
I knew I should button up and move away. I watched his fingers moving up and down the thickening column.
"You like checking out this old man's cock?"
I nodded. In spite of myself, my cock began to swell.
"Maybe we should have ourselves a little pecker pulling party." Ike slid his fingers back and forth on his expanding shaft and winked. "I may be old but I'm not against doing some little pud pulling with a friend."
I shook my head.
"Maybe I'll give my balls some air. Would you like a viewing of old Ike's hairy balls?"
I swallowed hard and moistened my dry lips.
He opened another button on his fly and pulled out his scrotum. "Good God, It feels good to set 'em free. Now let's see yours."
"Why?"
"Just to show you're neighborly," said Ike.
"I don't think so." I buttoned up and moved into the potting shed.
Ike followed, his cock and balls protruding from the front of his overalls. "Overlook my informality." Ike grinned. "As you can see I ain't bashful."
I nodded and took my sandwich from the brown paper bag.
"Yessir," said Ike. "I just might have to have myself an old fashioned peter pulling all by my lonesome. He unhooked a shoulder strap and let his overalls drop around his ankles.
I took a bite of my sandwich but my eyes remained on Ike.
"Yessiree," said Ike, "I got a good one if I do say so myself. Gets nearly as hard as when I was eighteen. You know why?"
I shook my head.
"Cause I keep exercising him. When I was younger I was pulling on it three time a day. Still like to do him every day I can."
"Some say you'll go blind if you do that too much."
"Bull-loney!" Don't you believe that shit. I been pulling my pud for close to fifty years and I didn't start till I was fifteen."
I laughed.
"You laughing at my little peter, boy?"
"Your hat." I pointed to the soiled, brown fedora cocked on his head. That and his overalls draped about his ankles were his only items of apparel. In between was a chest full of gray curly hair, two hairy legs. Smack between them stood an erect, pale white cock with a tip of foreskin still hiding the head.
"I am one hairy S.O.B.," said Ike.
"I laughed at you wearing nothing but a hat."
"Covers up my bald spot," said Ike. "I got more hair on my ass than I got on my head. Want to see?"
"Your head?"
"No, Boy, my hairy ass and around my tight, brown asshole." He turned, reached back with both hands and parted his ass cheeks to reveal the small, puckered opening. "There it is, Boy, the entrance lots of good feelings. Tell me, Boy, how would you like to put it up old Ike's ass?"
"I don't think so."
"That'd be the best damned piece you ever got."
"We shouldn't be talking like this."
"C'mon now, confess, don't this make your cock perk up a little bit?"
"I reckon," I confessed.
"You ever seen an old man's hard cock before," asked Ike.
"My grandpa's when I was twelve or thirteen."
"How'd that come about?"
He was out in the barn and didn't know I was around. He dropped his pants. It was real big he did things to it. He saw me and he turned around real fast but I saw it."
"What did your grandpa do?"
"He said I shouldn't be watching him doing that. He said something like grandma wouldn't give him some,' that morning and that I should get out of there and leave a poor man in peace to do what he had to do."
"Did you want to join him."
"I might have if he'd asked. He didn't."
"I like showing off my cock," said Ike. "A hard-on is something I always been proud of. A hard-on proves a man's a man. Makes me feel like a man that can do things." He looked up at me and winked. "You getting a hard-on from all this talk, son?"
I nodded and looked away.
"Then maybe you should pull it out and show old Ike what you got."
"We shouldn't."
"Hey. A man's not a man till he jacked off with a buddy."
I wanted to but I was as nervous as hell.
Ike grinned and fingered his pecker. "C'mon, Boy, between friends, a little cock showing is perfectly fine. Lets see what you got in the cock and balls department."
In spite of my reluctance, I felt the stirring in my crotch. I had curiosity that needed satisfying. It had been a long, long time since I had walked in on my grandfather .
"C'mon let's see it all."
I shook my head.
"You can join the party anytime, said Ike. "Just drop your pants and pump away."
I had the urge. There was a tingling in my crotch. My cock was definitely willing and I had a terrible need to adjust myself down there. But my timidity and the strangeness of it all held me back.
Hope you don't mind if I play out this hand." Ike grinned. "It feels like I got a winner."
I stared at his gnarled hand sliding up and down that pale, white column and I could not look away. I wet my lips and shook my head.
Old Ike's about to spout a geyser." Ike breathed harder as he winked. "Now if I just had a long finger up my ass. You interested, boy?"
I shook my head.
The first, translucent, white glob crested the top of his cock and and arced to the dirt floor. Ike held his cock at the base with thumb and forefinger and tightened noticeably with each throb of ejaculation until he was finished.
I could not believe any man could do what he had done in front of another human being.
Ike sighed with pleasure and licked his fingers. "A man ain't a man till he's tasted his own juices."
He squatted, turned on the faucet and picked up the connected hose. He directed the water between his legs and on to his still dripping prick and milked the few remaining drops of white, sticky stuff into the puddle forming at his feet. "Cool water sure feels good on a cock that just shot its wad," said Ike.
***
"Cock-tale telling time," said Old Ike. It was the next day and he rubbed the front of his dirty,worn overalls where his bulge made the fly expand as his fingers smoothed the denim around the outline of his expanding cock.
I wasn't sure what he had in mind but I knew it wasn't something my straight-laced Grandma would approve of.
"Don't you like taking your cock out and jacking it?" Ike licked his lips.
I shook my head in denial.
"Sure you do. A young man in his prime has got to be pulling his pud."
I stared at his calloused hand moving over the growing bulge at his crotch.
"Like I said," continued Ike, "I got me barely six inches when he's standing up." He winked at me. "How much you got, son?"
"Almost seven inches . . ." I stuttered. "Last
time I measured."
"And I'm betting it feels real good with your fist wrapped around it."
"I don't do . . ."
"Everybody does it." He scratched his balls and said,"I'll show you mine if you show me yours." Then, looking me in the eye, he lifted his leg like a dog at a tree and let out a long, noisy fart.
Denying that I jacked off, I said, "I saw yours yesterday."
"A man has got to take out his pecker every once in a while." He winked and his fingers played with a button on his fly. Care to join me today?"
"I don't think so."
"What's the matter, boy? You ashamed of what's hanging 'tween your skinny legs?"
"It's not for showing off."
"That would be so with a crowd of strangers but with a friend, in a friendly showdown, where's the harm?
"It shouldn't be shown to other people. My Grandma said that a long time ago when I went to the bathroom against a tree when I was seven.
"There's nothing like a joint pulling among friends to seal a friendship," said Ike.
I don't think so." I felt very much, ill at ease.
"Then what the fuck is it for," demanded the old man. "A good man shares his cock with his friends. How old are you boy?"
"Nineteen almost twenty."
You ever fucked a woman?"
"No."
"Ever fucked a man?"
"Of course not.
"Son, you ain't never lived till you've fired your load up a man's tight ass."
"I didn't know men did that to each other."
"Men shove it up men's asses men all the time. They just don't talk about it like they do pussy."
"You've done that?"
"I admit this old pecker's been up a few manholes. More than a few hard cocks have shagged this old ass over the years." He shook his head, wistfully, "I still have a hankering for a hard one up the old dirt chute."
"I think that would hurt."
"First time, it usually does," agreed Ike. He took a bite from his sandwich.
I looked at my watch. Ten minutes of our lunch hour had already passed.
"We got time for a quickie," said Ike. "There's no one around to say, stop, if were enjoying ourselves."
He unhooked the slide off the button of one shoulder-strap, pushed the bib of his overalls down to let them fall to his feet.
"Showtime," said Ike. Between his legs, white and hairy, his semi-hard cock emerged from a tangled mass of brown and gray pubic hair. The foreskin, still puckered beyond the head of the cock, extended downward forty-five degrees from the horizontal but was definitely on the rise.
I could only stare at the man. Until the day before, I had never seen an older man with an erection besides my grandpa.
Ike moved his fingers along the stalk of his manhood until the head partially emerged, purplish and broad. He removed his hand for a moment and it bobbled obscenely in the subdued light of the potting shed. Ike leaned back against a bin of clay pots like a model on display. "Like I said, boy, it gets the job done."
I found it difficult not to watch. "You shouldn't . . ."
"C'mon, boy. Show Ike your pecker. I'm betting it's nice and hard."
I grasped my belt and tugged on the open end. I slipped the waistband button and two more before pushing down my blue jeans and shorts down in one move. My cock bounced and slapped my belly as I straightened."
"That's a beaut." Ike stroked his pale, white cock with the purplish-pink head shining. "I'm betting it'll grow some more if you stroke it."
"We really shouldn't . . ."
"Now don't tell me you never stroked your hard peter with a buddy."
"I've done that," I finally admitted,. "But he was the same age as me and it was a long time ago." I though back to the last time Chuck and me jerked each other off in the loft of our old barn. Chuck wanted more as a going away present and we had sucked each other's dicks a little bit.
"Jackin's always better when you do it with somebody," said Ike. "Then you can lend each other a helping hand."
"I don't know about that," I said.
Ike's hand continued moving on his old cock as he leaned over to inspect mine. "God Damn! Boy. That cock looks good enough to eat." Ike licked his lips. "You ever had that baby sucked?"
I shook my head as I watched the old man stroke his hard, pale cock.
"Well boy, I'd say you're packing a real mouthful for some lucky gal or guy." He grinned. "Well c'mon. Let's see you get down to some serious jacking. Old Ike's way ahead of you."
I wrapped my fist around my stiff cock and moved the foreskin up and over the head on the up stroke. On the down stroke the expanded corona of the angry, purple head stared obscenely at the naked old man.
Ike toyed with his modest six inches. "What do you think of this old man's cock?" His fist rode down to his balls and a cockhead smaller than the barrel stared back at mine.
"I guess I'm thinking this is like doing it with my grandpa."
"You ever wish you could a done this with your grandpa?"
"I thought about it a lot."
"Ever see him with a hard-on."
"I told you about that!"
"Ever think about him doing your grandma?"
"I can't imagine her ever doing anything with a man.
"Take my word for it, sonny, we know she did it or you wouldn't be here." Begrudgingly I nodded in agreement.
"Everybody fucks," said old Ike. "They fuck or they jack off."
"If you say so."
"Say sonny, your cocks getting real juicy with slickum. Want old Ike to lick some of it away?"
"You wouldn't."
Ike licked his lips as he kept his hand pistoning up and down his hard cock. "You might be surprised what old Ike might do if he was in the mood for a taste of what comes out of a hard cock."
And that is what he proceeded to do. He sucked me dry.
Then he erupted in half-a-dozen spurts shooting out and onto the dirt floor of the potting shed. He gave his cock a flip and shucked t back into his overalls. He unwrapped a sandwich from its wax paper and proceed to eat without washing his hands. He took a bite and chewed. "Nothing like it boy, a good jacking clears the cobwebs from your crotch and gives a man an appetite."
***
The following day, We skipped the preliminaries. We dropped our pants. Ike got down on his knees and sucked me until I was hard and good and wet before he stood and turned.
"C'mon boy, Shove that pretty cock up old Ike's tight, brown hole and massage old Ike's prostate.
Ike bent forward and gripped the edge of the potting bench. The lean, white cheeked buttocks parted slightly and exposed the dark brown, crinkly, puckered star of his asshole "Now you go slow and ease it along until you've got it all the way in," he cautioned. "This old ass craves your young cock but it don't want too much too soon. You've got to let this old hole stretch to accommodate you."
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Easy boy, easy," he cautioned. "You feel a lot bigger than you look. Put a little more spit in your cock."
"It's awfully tight. I don't know if it's going to go or not."
"It'll go," said Ike. "There's been bigger boys than you up the old shit chute."
I slipped in the the last few inches.. "It's all in."
"I can tell," said Ike. "Your cock hairs are tickling my ass."
"Are you ready," I asked.
"How are you liking old Ike's hairy asshole so far?"
"It's real tight."
"Tighter than your fist?"
"Might be."
"Ready to throw a fuck into a man that reminds you of your grandpa."
"I reckon."
"I want you should do old Ike one more favor."
"What?"
While you're pumpin' my ass, would you reach around and play with my dick like you would your own? Would you do that for an old man?"
I reached around and took hold of his hard cock sticking out straight in front of him. I pilled the skin back and then pulled it up and over the expanded glans. I felt my own cock expand inside him as I manipulated his staff in my fingers. I imagined that my cock extended through him and I was playing with what came out the other side of him.
"C'mon, boy, ram that big cock up the old shitter and make me know it. God Damn! tickle that old prostate and make old Ike come!"
I came. And I came. Ike's tightened up on my cock and I throbbed Roman Candle bursts into that brown hole as I pressed into him. His hairy, scrawny ass flattened against my crotch and we were joined as tightly as two humans can be.
"A man's not a man till he's cum in another man." said old Ike. "You made it, boy. But still, a man's not a man till he's had a hard cock poked up his ass at least once."
Every time I think of that scene, I get another hard-on. Then I remember the next day when old Ike returned the favor.
I never have managed to come that hard again. If only Ike were here.
At least he knows how to spell.
You must be a product of public education.
Oh bullshit. Look at all the GNU userland tools already available in *BSD.
you are a stupid pussy fucking asshole troll bitch. your fucking lame ass mentioning EXT3 or FUCK_RESIER makes me sick you fucker.
.
i want you dead. i hate you. i never want to hear ext3 or reiser again
you are a fucker traitor and a pussy. i hate your fucking zealotry for shit.
you like ntfs, ext3, resier, hfs. all faggit filesystems. fuckin faggit.
look at your fag loving fag shit. your bitch faggit ass fucking homo LINUX loving fag. shut your fucking piehole you disgusting piece of SHIT.
shut up you dumb fucking animal bitch. you are such a fucking piece of fucking carmelized dog shit. fucking sit.
sit bitch. sit.
you fucking pussy asshole cnut coming out of a festering quagmire, the asshole swamp.
you fucking mushroom fungus blooming out of the fuck swamp. you cunt bitch.
you fucking little bitch spore spawned fucking fungus asshole.
i get sick looking at you, your writing, everything, the best part ran down the crack of your mommas ass and left a brown stain on the mattres, i think you were cheated! you fucking little chunky brown vaginal discharge FUCKER FUCK YOU FUCKER FUCK OFF!
Beavis, you'd had too much sugar again....
you little bitch. shut up. diskiller sockpuppeting his own discussion thread you are a failure.
you fucking ass. you fucking anus rim calamari licking sphincter licker. you lick sphincter like you eat calamari rings
you fucking whore pussy bitch cunt roasted penis lipped fucker stain
i see you glass
glass
i see thorugh you glass attacks your deprecations and malfuckinations you FUCKTARDION fucking fucktardion. peice of fuckng pussy yeast anus pie fucking RUMP PISS! diarhea rump piss you fucking faggit REISER locing fag
reiser loving fucking faggit. FAG FUCK BITCH CUNT.
ever considered switching to decaf?
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
I personally will not consider Reiser or EXT3 and could go into detail as to why. I have strong opinions as to what types of filesystems belong in production, and these will not qualify.
/., and this will not qualify.
How can a stupid statement like this get moderated to the top? Unsubstantiated claims like this should only be allowed to criticize Microsoft. Comments critical of Linux must be backed up with hard data.
I personally will not consider this comment and could go into detail as to why. I have strong opinions as to what types of comment belong in
Joe Batt Solid Design
Obviously the poster has no real knowledge of *BSD or other OS. But, demonstrably he does have his head up his ass. Do we continue to see *BSD companies folding left and right? No. They just keep rolling along... ...
Get a life and do try to learn something factual!
Lord knows I have. I had a power outage at my house and got an error on boot for my
The problem with xfs is that they don't release "stable" patches for 2.4 that often. Oh, they release snapshots for every kernel, but those are at the start of the branch to that kernel and not at the end of the branch. Other than that you can pull their linux kernel with xfs out of their cvs, but they do not have any sort of stable branch in their cvs that I can find. There were 9 months between the release of xfs linux release 1.1 and 1.2 during which time many important bug fixes went into cvs.
Don't get me wrong. I still use xfs as my filesystem. Mostly because they have actual real acl's. I just wish they would release some sort of "stable", "blessed" version of their patches every now and then. Can't wait for 2.6 when it's just included in the stable kernel.
I did not quite understand your second paragraph. Could you please explain the advantages of softupdates versus journalled again. thanks.
I thought that one of the biggest reasons that the BSDs had not incorporated the publicly available journaling filesytems (SGI XFS and IBM JFS, and to a lesser extend ext3 and reiserfs) was that all the code was GPL, not BSD. I may be revealing my gross ignorance of kernel programming, but it was my impression that having GPLed filesystem code in a BSD-based system would not really be possible. How do the developers plan to get around this?
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
I recently tested JFS on a 2TB raid. In two days I got corruption in the filesystem and I was forced to switch back to ext3. This was with the JFS shipped with RH8.
This doesn't mean anything except I won't touch JFS in a long time. When you need machines in production use you really want to be sure about the filesystems. Too bad the customer wouldn't go with FreeBSD.
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
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 extremely 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
GPL, for better or worse IS more restrictive then BSDL.
GPL - Call it a virus if you like, or just 'good intent' but it is more restrictive, and *does* hamper commercial usage, even if you don't want to admit it or not.
They do both have their place, but don't be going all out globally thanking your god for GPLized code instead of BSDized...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Some people prefer that the filesystem keep data integrity. Certainly not all applications can use database backends.
(Though BSD guys may say otherwise). The data will not be completely protected. Either files may have zero-ed out portions, or files may have uninitialized data. There is no way to get 100% data safety with soft updates.
That isn't to say that it matters for most people. See a post above which says you should use a database if you care about data integrity. I personally wish that there was an option to do data journalling too...
[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
--
http://ditec.um.es/~piernas/dualfs/
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 [amazingkreskin.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
Elegy For *BSD
I am a *BSD user
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 died so soon.
Each day I wake and softly sob
Nightfall finds me crying
Not only am I a zit faced slob
but *BSD is dying.
[N.B.: 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
--
Endless, moronic, tedious, unfunny posts containing mind-numbing drivle from people who in their heart of hearts wish they had enough intellect do actually come up with a good zinger instead of posting the same tired old crap.
Oooo, FreeBSD with a decent filesystem finally, after how long ?
Maybe it will finally be good for something other than routing the odd piece of network traffic about the place.
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 mere fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close 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
Hasn't soft updates been proven "good enough" as far as data integrity goes, and slightly better performance-wise? If that's the case, shouldn't we (we=*bsd) be focusing on breaking new ground instead of trying to play catch-up with linux?
If Grog did the port to linux for IBM, as a core member, we has he not proposed the idea to port to FreeBSD?
LFS (originally by Ousterhout, ported to 4.4BSD by Seltzer) writes everything in a log. Just write as much as possible in one long stripe to the disk (up to a meg in the initial designs.) This means blocks of data move each time they are updated, which means you always write new inodes with each data write which point to the old unchanged blocks, and the new changed blocks.
Obviously once you hit the end of the disk, you have to wrap back around, and write some more, but where?
LFS had a seperate backgroup process that went around and finds all the, now unneeded, old data blocks that have been rewritten somewhere else and cleans them up. This is called the cleaner. Once the cleaner has found more space you get to write there.
The main positive point of the LFS design was very good write performance due to the lack of seeking needed to put little bits of data all over the disk.
The main downside to LFS was the cleaner itself, which was costly to run.
Margo Seltzer and Trevor Blackwell did some more work with the cleaner in this paper that shows that with the right timing you can get the cleaner to run efficiently.
I'm not aware of this work having been implemented (at least not as of 2000 which I stopped working on it on BSDI where Margo had been keeping LFS)
A good description can be found in the original papers, and the Pink 4.4 BSD book by McKusick, Bostic, Karels, and Quaterman.
Britt
--Britt
the Elegy For *BSD
I am a *BSD user
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 died so soon.
Each day I wake and softly sob
Nightfall finds me crying
Not only am I a zit faced slob
but *BSD is dying.