Interview With The FreeBSD Core Team

Gentu writes "OSNews features an ultra interesting and in-depth interview with three members of FreeBSD's Core team (Wes Peters, Greg Lehey and M. Warner Losh) and also a major FreeBSD developer (Scott Long). They discuss issues from the Java port to corporate backing, the Linux competition, the 5.x branch and how it stacks up against the other Unices, UFS2, the possible XFree86 fork, SCO and its Unix IP situation, even... re-unification of the BSDs."

Comments

Re:BSD

[Per Wigren]

OSS isn't even a part of Linux. That's a part of Enlightenment. And there is no video display code in either FreeBSD's or Linux's kernel. You don't actually know what you are talking about, do you?

I was going to put a comment here, but I think it's unneccessary. ;-)

Re:20 comments and already /.ed

[chefbimbo]

Still working for me.

Today we feature an in-depth interview with three members of FreeBSD's Core (Wes Peters, Greg Lehey and M. Warner Losh) and also a major FreeBSD developer (Scott Long). It is a long read, but we touch a number of hot issues, from the Java port to corporate backing, the Linux competition, the 5.x branch and how it stacks up against the other Unices, UFS2, the possible XFree86 fork, SCO and its Unix IP situation, even re-unification of the BSDs. If you are into (any) Unix, this interview is a must read.

Intro, Java, Corporate Support
1. What is the status of the Java 1.4.x port to FreeBSD? How has its absence impacted FreeBSD's market penetration? (Editor's Note: Java patchset 3 for BSD was just released)

Scott Long: Several months ago the FreeBSD Foundation funded a contract to bring Java 1.4.1 to FreeBSD. Unfortunately, the process of gaining certification from Sun is quite lengthy, and the money available for the contract ran out before it was complete. Still, the work that was done is quite impressive. Most users have reported that it is relatively bug-free for common applications like tomcat, and some have also reported that it is measurably faster than the Linux version. It is even in production use by a very large internet portal company. The FreeBSD Foundation is currently working to raise funds to complete the contract and have it certified by Sun.

Wes Peters: The current status has been answered well by Scott Long.

As for the market penetration, the only possible answer is "we don't know," at least partly because we don't have a marketing department. I know of a few embedded development firms who use FreeBSD and Java successfully, but cannot comment on how they use it or on their performance needs, etc. I and a number of other developers are very much looking forward to being able to distribute Java 1.4.x in binary, but in the meantime the source distribution works well.

Developments in FreeBSD 5.x may have a strong positive effect on the performance of Java threads once we have time to sort out the interactions between the JVM and the new threading capabilities found in FreeBSD 5, but this work will be completed after the 5.1 release.

Greg 'groggy' Lehey: It's interesting that this is your first question: I would have considered it relatively uninteresting.

M. Warner Losh: I find this answer a little rude.

Greg 'groggy' Lehey: Scott has described the status. As others have said, it's difficult to assess the impact, but I would suspect that Sun's current licensing strategy would have more of an effect on the use of Java under FreeBSD: it's a real pain just getting the software. Possibly Linux users are more accustomed to jumping through hoops to get software installed, but FreeBSD users expect to be able to type 'make install' and have things done automatically. Sun's licensing conditions make this impossible.

2. A few years ago, companies like WindRiver/BSDi were helping out the FreeBSD project in many ways, including PR, handling relationships with other companies regarding drivers, etc. Now that the FreeBSD project is completely autonomous, how do you handle these issues? PR, tech specs for drivers that might require NDAs (e.g. an ATi/nVidia relationship) etc...

Scott Long: The loss of corporate backing from BSDi has slowed FreeBSD down without a doubt. Without a central focus point anymore, FreeBSD has relied on a more distributed set of backers. This includes NAI Labs, Yahoo!, The Weather Channel, and Apple, among others. They have provided employment for key developers, helped coordinate NDA deals with other companies, and donated server space and bandwidth to the project. Our experience with PR issues is also growing over time and we hope to make a good PR splash with the 5.1 release.

Wes Peters: Scott also answered this quite well. I want to note that FreeBSD was not ever a "division of" BSDi, or Wind River, nor was it ever a product of either of those companies. It is inaccurate to say

Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V

[RdsArts]

Copied verbatim from the story on OSNews. Original URL: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3415

1. What is the status of the Java 1.4.x port to FreeBSD? How has its absence impacted FreeBSD's market penetration? (Editor's Note: Java patchset 3 for BSD was just released)

Chuck, the FreeBSD mascot Scott Long: Several months ago the FreeBSD Foundation funded a contract to bring Java 1.4.1 to FreeBSD. Unfortunately, the process of gaining certification from Sun is quite lengthy, and the money available for the contract ran out before it was complete. Still, the work that was done is quite impressive. Most users have reported that it is relatively bug-free for common applications like tomcat, and some have also reported that it is measurably faster than the Linux version. It is even in production use by a very large internet portal company. The FreeBSD Foundation is currently working to raise funds to complete the contract and have it certified by Sun.

Wes Peters: The current status has been answered well by Scott Long.

As for the market penetration, the only possible answer is "we don't know," at least partly because we don't have a marketing department. I know of a few embedded development firms who use FreeBSD and Java successfully, but cannot comment on how they use it or on their performance needs, etc. I and a number of other developers are very much looking forward to being able to distribute Java 1.4.x in binary, but in the meantime the source distribution works well.

Developments in FreeBSD 5.x may have a strong positive effect on the performance of Java threads once we have time to sort out the interactions between the JVM and the new threading capabilities found in FreeBSD 5, but this work will be completed after the 5.1 release.

Greg 'groggy' Lehey: It's interesting that this is your first question: I would have considered it relatively uninteresting.

M. Warner Losh: I find this answer a little rude.

Greg 'groggy' Lehey: Scott has described the status. As others have said, it's difficult to assess the impact, but I would suspect that Sun's current licensing strategy would have more of an effect on the use of Java under FreeBSD: it's a real pain just getting the software. Possibly Linux users are more accustomed to jumping through hoops to get software installed, but FreeBSD users expect to be able to type 'make install' and have things done automatically. Sun's licensing conditions make this impossible.

2. A few years ago, companies like WindRiver/BSDi were helping out the FreeBSD project in many ways, including PR, handling relationships with other companies regarding drivers, etc. Now that the FreeBSD project is completely autonomous, how do you handle these issues? PR, tech specs for drivers that might require NDAs (e.g. an ATi/nVidia relationship) etc...

Scott Long: The loss of corporate backing from BSDi has slowed FreeBSD down without a doubt. Without a central focus point anymore, FreeBSD has relied on a more distributed set of backers. This includes NAI Labs, Yahoo!, The Weather Channel, and Apple, among others. They have provided employment for key developers, helped coordinate NDA deals with other companies, and donated server space and bandwidth to the project. Our experience with PR issues is also growing over time and we hope to make a good PR splash with the 5.1 release.

Wes Peters: Scott also answered this quite well. I want to note that FreeBSD was not ever a "division of" BSDi, or Wind River, nor was it ever a product of either of those companies. It is inaccurate to say that FreeBSD is *now* completely autonomous; it always was. I hope your article reflects this point.

BSDi (and Walnut Creek CD-ROM before it) were quite helpful to the FreeBSD Project in many ways; it's not clear (to me) that Wind River ever helped in any meaningful way.

Greg 'groggy' Lehey: This is an interesting perception. We never felt more or less autonomous. Yes, different groups have supported us; before WindRiver it

Re:Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V

[RdsArts]

I suppose the other pages would be helpful as well. XP

Again, copied verbatim from the story on OSNews.

3. FreeBSD's ever present "competitor," GNU/Linux, started winning the crowds with a first wave of hype around 1999, while now many try to convince us that Linux can perform well in the desktop space as well as in the server space. How does the FreeBSD project see the whole situation and how do you feel about a sub-project of "FreeBSD on the desktop?"

Scott Long: GNU/Linux actually got its first PR win with the USL lawsuit in the mid-1990's. That drove an unbelievable amount of momentum away from BSD and towards Linux. In light of that I think that it's a testement to the quality of BSD in general that FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD have remained viable and interesting.

I think that Max OS X has really set the bar for what Unix can do on the desktop. FreeBSD is just as capable as Linux as a desktop OS, but I think that OS X has reminded us that making a desktop OS with mass appeal is a huge task and that FreeBSD should still concentrate on its other strengths as a server OS.

Wes Peters: Most FreeBSD users use FreeBSD on their desktops daily; I have for just about ten years now. I don't know that we have the same drive our friends over in the Linux camp have to rule the world, we just want to make a system that works well for our needs.

To some extent the BSD world in general has already conquered the desktop in the form of Mac OS X. It's a very good product; it has all of the wonderful strengths of BSD and UNIX underneath, and has an unaparalleled user interface and world class applications on top. To many in the BSD world, OS X freed us from any need to become the desktop to the masses; we can concentrate on making a really good technical workstation for users that are comfortable with the X Window System, window managers, and such, and let Apple pick up those who specialize in something other than computers for a living.

I've been a part of the FreeBSD Community right from the start; I downloaded the 1.0 distribution onto floppies the night it was released. In the ensuing ten years the issue of making FreeBSD the operating system of choice for everyone has rarely come up, and when it has it's been mostly ignored.

This doesn't mean I don't think it's suitable to be a commercial operating system. Whatever pretty face your Linux distributor throws on top of Linux will run just as well on FreeBSD. The graphical installer might make a bit of difference, but the key to becoming a commercial operating system is not to have a nice graphical installer but rather to get IBM, Dell, HP, and Gateway to pre-install your OS on their hardware. Without the kind of financial backing that RedHat provides for Linux, that's not likely to happen to FreeBSD anytime soon. It's only just barely happened with Linux, in terms of shipping volume. Better operating systems than Linux or Windows have died on the cross of getting support from just one vendor, BeOS being the most recent visible victim.

Greg 'groggy' Lehey: There are a couple of issues here:

1. Linux and FreeBSD both separate the operating system from applications software, including the concept of a "desktop". The applications layer on Linux is usually identical to that on FreeBSD, so from that aspect you should expect to see no difference.

2. What is a "desktop"? There has been a lot of effort in the Linux space to duplicating Microsoft functionality; see OpenOffice for a good example. FreeBSD also supports OpenOffice. The real question, though, is whether we're doing anybody a favour by copying Microsoft. Like Wes Peters, I have been using BSD on the desktop for well over ten years. I find the current crop of "desktop" software incredibly difficult and frustrating to use. I am forced to do it from time to time, but it's both limited and limiting in its approach. The BSD community should be working towards a better alternative, not playing copycat.

As regards ease of use on the desktop, co