NetBSD Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary

jschauma writes "This week marks the tenth anniversary of the beginning of development of the NetBSD Operating System. The very first commit to the NetBSD source tree (src/Makefile) was by Chris Demetriou on Friday 21 March, 1993. Parties are being held in various cities around the world, see the press release for more details. Happy 10th Birthday, NetBSD!"

Comments

10th anniversary!

[sulli]

and 9 year, 364 day anniversary of dying

Re:10th anniversary!

[asparagus]

And may it keep on dying in the future.

NetBSD runs on 17 or so processor architectures and 50+ platforms. A pretty impressive feat, especially when you consider all the massive changes that have made it into the industry in the past ten years.

Kudos to the Net and other BSD teams. Keep that code clean and portable!

Birthday sale at linuxjewellery.com

[HeroicAutobot]

I'm not affiliated with them in any way (I swear!), but I noticed that the Linux Jewellery Store is having a BSD Birthday Sale.

If you're looking for Beastie to add to you (non-virtual) desktop, this is probably the time to get one.

I have a question

[soorma_bhopali]

Linux has also been around for 10 years. And just like NetBSD there are various other open source alternatives to linux. Why then has Linux grown so much popular in the corporate world? Is it because of GPL or because Linux is superior to these other alternatives?

Re:I have a question

[Jungle guy]

When NetBSD started, back in 1992/1993, there was a huge lawsuit against a company called BSDI (that used the BSD code to develop a proprietary operating system and called it Unix). They were sued by USL, a spun-off company formed by AT&T that had rights over Unix. To make a setlement, professors from University of California developed what they called 4BSD - an operating system without the files that were proprerty of USL. FreeBSD an NetBSD had to resynchronize their trees with 4BSD to avoid lawsuits.

The project lost precious time in its early infancy, while Linux progressed at warp speed (people say that Linus was REALY active those days). Linux was also seen as a haven for possible lawsuits as it was writen from scratch, even tough it was technically inferior in the early days. But, as the community around it grew faster, soon it gained momentum and critical mass. Its use of GNU software was also important. The whole story is in the book Open Sources.

Re:I have a question

[trb]

To make a setlement, professors from University of California developed what they called 4BSD - an operating system without the files that were proprerty of USL

You're confusing 4BSD with 4.4BSD. 4BSD came out in 1980 and was the original paging UNIX for VAX. 4.4 was the post-lawsuit one, and came out in 1994.

Re:I have a question

[Quill_28]

OK this will be modded as flamebait but I have the karma.

Ask people why they use Linux over BSD.

1. Better hardware support(true)
2. More software available(true)
3. Everybody else is(media influence)
4. Easier(maybe)

Ask people why they use Windows over Linux

1. Better hardware support(true)
2. More software available(true)
3. Everybody else is(depends)
4. Easier(true)

I have nothing against Linux, Windows, or FreeBSD. I use Linux at work, FreeBSD and Windows at home.

It seems to me the FreeBSD makes a server than Linux, but Linux is a better workstation. Linux is getting much better(server stuff) every year. Alot like Windows is getting much better at server stuff each year.

But in the end I think the media and the early BSD license issue are the big reasons. Also, BSD seems a little more of a closed circle while Linux is a free for all. Maybe developers found it easier to involved with.

These thoughts are fairly random, take them for what they are worth.

Re:I have a question

[__past__]

That study is off-topic, it doesn't even mention BSD. Here there are also objective comparisons between Linux and BSD that you should consider before setting up your next server.

To celebrate...

[DoctorPhish]

...Everybody port it to a new platform!

I think I'll port it to my turntable.

Hrm

[B3ryllium]

My toaster STILL can't run NetBSD. They need to hurry up the development of it.

Also, my coffee machine, microwave, and toaster oven all could use a little NetBSD loving.

Re:Hrm

[vesamies]

Generally running NetBSD requieres a prosessor
which has MMU. This is needed for its
multiprocessing and security cababilities.
I don't think your toaster has a enough
advanced CPU to run NetBSD. But you can try
put the boot floppies in your toaster and
see what happens. It could well be one
of the supported platforms.

Re:That's a good question...

[grub]

I'm waiting on my first set of OpenBSD 3.2 CD's

Owww! Lucky you! Your first virgin install of OpenBSD may take a try or two, but the sheer joy and sanity of the system once you're done will be worth every moment.

Enjoy it, I know I do.

Re:Which is older

[shamilton]

NetBSD is slightly older. FreeBSD 1.0 was released in November of 1993.

I'm told Linux was comparable back then, too.

Re:Another birthday?

[RLiegh]

Look up trivia and then flame each other on /.?
In otherwords: SOP?

Re:Are they girls at these parties?

[RLiegh]

She might show up

If I had mod points, they'd be yours.

Parent was moded "Funny"?

[/Idiot\]

Dying? We are all dying my son :-)

NetBSD is an excelent OS. Some may prefer Linux, some may perfer NetBSD. Me, I use both!

NetBSD might not be *your* particular brand of vodka on i386/x86 arch, but compare the progress of NetBSD on non-i386 archs to Linux on the same arch and, well, NetBSD is the ONLY real choice to make my uVAX more than just a space-heater!

Dying, definately not. NetBSD is not an example of how great an open source OS can become.

While I am here, a big thanks to all the NetBSD developers, where ever you are!

Still the most portable

[Dr. Manhattan]

"Of course it runs NetBSD."

Really true. I just started playing with it a few weeks ago, sticking it on an old Mac SE/30. It's now a very capable webserver, more than able to saturate my pathetic DSL upload bandwidth. (Watch, now the poor thing melts from a Slashdotting.)

Linux support for Mac68K seems to have stagnated; the 2.4 kernel still doesn't compile for 68K Macs. Sure, they're not common anymore, but Linux is supposed to scale.

It may not have every whiz-bang feature that Linux has, but portability is important, too. Almost any random hardware with an MMU runs NetBSD, and runs it well. I love Linux, and I run it on my PCs and at work, but NetBSD made way more sense for this project. It was very easy to set up, too. Configuration is... different from Linux, but I can't say it's worse. I'm not finding it too hard to learn.

Congrats to them, and best wishes for the future. They do good work.

Parties?

[xchino]

Parties are being held in various cities around the world...

I don't think 10 guys doing a shot together over IRC counts as "parties in various cities",

Best kept secret

[felix9x]

NetBSD is realy great many admins just love it. The system is rock solid and its not unusual that it woudl be running for years without a reboot. Many admins use it for things like mail, ftp, web servers internaly in companies and no press no hype is generated but the OS keeps on working doing its job.

Re:Elegy for *BSD

[dick johnson]

Died?

Think again.

Try Mac OS X.

It's the biggest selling Unix operating system on the market today (better than four million copies per year)

It's also a BSD unix.

Re:wtf

[TheRaven64]

You seem to be suffering from the Linux myth of 'One OS to rule them all'. There is a lot of code flow between the *BSDs, but they are all different because they all aim at different things.

OpenBSD is highly secure, nothing beats it on routers / firewalls.
NetBSD is ultra-portable, and runs on almost anything.
FreeBSD is what Linux want to be when it grows up. A powerful, yet easy to use, well documented UNIX, which works great on servers (AFAIK it still has the best TCP/IP stack of all the free *NIXes) and workstations (I dual boot FreeBSD and Windows on this machine).

Forks are only bad when they are aiming for the same goal and splitting developer time. When they are aiming for different goals and sharing code when their goals coincide, they are a Good Thing(tm).