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Wind River To Stop Selling BSD/OS

David writes "According to an article on Bsdnewsletter.com, OS company Wind River has said it will be stopping sales of BSD/OS on this December 31st, and product support exactly one year thereafter. Only 15 more weeks to grab the final 5.1 update before this piece of history might be gone forever..."

396 comments

  1. So it is confirmed then? by Sevn · · Score: 4, Funny

    Couldn't resist. Much love for FreeBSD btw.

    --
    For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
    1. Re:So it is confirmed then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      No.. notice this is BSD* not *BSD. :)

    2. Re:So it is confirmed then? by j4k3 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah maybe Wind River will flow into Walnut Creek. Yort!

    3. Re:So it is confirmed then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, Wind River's HQ is here in Alameda, CA. Walnut Creek is way the hell up in Contra Costa County.

    4. Re:So it is confirmed then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NO! I won't believe it until Netcraft confirms it!

    5. Re:So it is confirmed then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, this is an example of a proprietary fork losing out to open source alternatives. Consider that some of the proprietary improvements were incorporated into FreeBSD a few years ago.

      Similar things have happened to proprietary X11 vendors. Remember them?

      This shows that even under a BSD or X11 license, open source projects are fairly safe, unlike feared by some GPL advocates.

    6. Re:So it is confirmed then? by ultrabot · · Score: 1

      Yeah maybe Wind River will flow into Walnut Creek. Yort!

      Flow, as in river of blood?

      --
      Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
    7. Re:So it is confirmed then? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      What do you mean "way the hell up in Contra Costa County"? Besides being South-East of Alameda, CCC is only about a half hour Bart ride from Alameda (that is, when the Bart works :-P).

    8. Re:So it is confirmed then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're insane. Have you actually seen a map of the Bay Area? I've lived here for 11 years and I can assure you that Walnut Creek is northeast of Alameda, about a 20 minute drive. BART doesn't even go into Alameda, Fruitvale or 12th St. in Oakland are the closest stations.

    9. Re:So it is confirmed then? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 1

      Doh! I was thinking of Albany. Still, Walnut Creek is NOT far from Alameda. (I used to live in Concord.)

    10. Re:So it is confirmed then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whatever. *BSD is dying. BSD* is dying. *BSD* is dying.

  2. BSD is dying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BSD in general NO.

    Only BSD/OS is dying.

    Long life to FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Apple Max OS!!

    1. Re:BSD is dying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple Max OS? Wow, that sounds cool! When did that come out?

  3. Idea to rename the last BSD/OS version by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... move the slash left one character.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re:Idea to rename the last BSD/OS version by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      swap D and O

      BSODs

    2. Re:Idea to rename the last BSD/OS version by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BSD\OS?

  4. Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Q: What do you call a gathering of BSD enthusiasts?

    A: A funeral.

    1. Re:Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL

      I like it!

    2. Re:Joke by SphynxSR · · Score: 1

      That's just wrong. :o)

      --

      I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
    3. Re:Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a TROLL, you idiot JERKOFFS! It's NOTHING but FLAMEBAIT! Jesus FUCKING Christ. All you SCRIPT KIDDIES masturbating too fucking HARD to NOTICE??? Holy fucking SHIT. FLAMEBAIT. TROLL. Funny? Not really.

  5. In the olden day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because it was faster and easier. These days, they could throttle bandwidth for people that don't pay (say to 56k speed), but people that pay get full speed.

    1. Re:In the olden day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Abd whats to stop me from re-distributing it from my T3 at work?

    2. Re:In the olden day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing. You're free to do that, but it's your bandwidth bill.

  6. Re:The obligitory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What about Mac OS X?

    Is Mac OS X user base decreased or INCREASED?

  7. Stop selling WHAT? by Bitmanhome · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Who would name their product BS-DOS? Guess I'm not surprised it's not selling.

    --
    Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
    1. Re:Stop selling WHAT? by Anonymous+Crowhead · · Score: 3, Funny

      They should rename it to BSD/OA.

    2. Re:Stop selling WHAT? by dcstimm · · Score: 4, Funny

      hehe I thought their name was WIN DRIVER when I saw the website windriver aka wind river. I thought it was some microsoft product....

    3. Re:Stop selling WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or golf clubs that require a laptop and Windows (or a badly hacked Linux tool) to swing.

    4. Re:Stop selling WHAT? by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm still waiting for FreeBDSM. We've already got the devil mascott...

    5. Re:Stop selling WHAT? by gfim · · Score: 1

      Already been done.

      --
      Graham
  8. huh? by qmrq · · Score: 1, Insightful
    What is the big deal here? What makes this "BSD/OS ISE dealy so nifty?

    There's always freebsd.org, and I don't see anything happening to them anytime soon.

    And before anyone says "*BSD is dying and is teh suX0rs, Linux forever!" I'd just like to say that BSD isn't going anywhere. There is no x86 based server OS that is as stable, as secure, as highly configurable, as fast, and as powerful as FreeBSD.

    1. Re:huh? by pyrrhonist · · Score: 2, Funny
      I'd just like to say that BSD isn't going anywhere.

      That's the point. BSD is dying.

      *ducks quickly*

      --
      Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
    2. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OpenBSD is all of that and more.

    3. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really. How is Linux "less configurable"? How is it "less powerful"? Can you actually back that up with any real facts at all? It's just vague nonsense. You're really in zealot territory there.

      A Debian box can be just as stable, secure, "powerful" etc. as a FreeBSD box. I like FreeBSD, but its differences from the well-crafted Linux distros are pretty much non-existant.

    4. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      Take two chaps with a clue, each well versed in BSD or Linux respectively. Give them each an identical computer to configure with their favorite operating system, BSD or Linux.

      When each chap has finished, you will have two stable and reliable machines suited to whatever task is at hand. Performance will be identical in practical terms. And that performance will be limited by the speed of the hardware far more than either operating system can add or detract.

      The zealots who claim one or the other is superior might as well be arguing that blue is a better color than red. Such arguments are the stuff of zealotry, not wisdom. BSD and Linux are far more similar than they are different.

  9. Re:The obligitory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Nice try, troll.

    Mac OS X is to FreeBSD what Windows is to Mac OS.

    The fuckers couldn't even steal the thing properly.

  10. Hardly any BSD users used BSD/OS, anyway- by jerkface · · Score: 3, Funny

    or at least, this is consistent with the number of usenet posts.

    1. Re:Hardly any BSD users used BSD/OS, anyway- by TheTiGuR · · Score: 1

      Call me crazy....but I would think that 100% of BSD/OS users used BSD/OS.

      --
      "Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world; unreasonable people persist in trying to adapt the world to themselves
    2. Re:Hardly any BSD users used BSD/OS, anyway- by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Try ISp's. Many do not like FreeBSD because its free. They think by paying alot of money that the product is better. Don't you love Phb's?

      BSD/OS is 2k! Of course no home enthasist is going to run. But a business is a different. Also BSD/OS I think had jail and better smp scalability for years. Infact it may still be better then 5.0.

    3. Re:Hardly any BSD users used BSD/OS, anyway- by gmack · · Score: 1

      I've used BSD/OS in the past and I can tell you it's one solid OS with excellent SMP support.

      It's a pity but maybe now they will be nice and donate the code the freebsd project like the previous managment said they would.

      OTH hand it is wind river so probably not. I can dream though...

    4. Re:Hardly any BSD users used BSD/OS, anyway- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FreeBSD is a child's toy compared to BSD/OS. BSD/OS is rock solid - not marketing speak like FreeBSD. SMP in BSD/OS has been mature for years. FreeBSD is still in knickers comparatively.

  11. Re:Good riddance. by BWJones · · Score: 1, Informative

    *BSD is dead. This is just more proof of what we've all already known.

    Ummmm. FreeBSD? OS X? Come on now, with OS X, we have a flavor of FreeBSD that is now the largest shipping *nix in the world.

    --
    Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
  12. Okay, okay... by c0dedude · · Score: 5, Informative

    Before we all go off on the *bsd is dying trip, let's look at the actual statistics, from Netcraft. This survey is current. Thanks.

    --
    Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
    1. Re:Okay, okay... by ScottGant · · Score: 4, Funny

      The "bsd is dying" rumours are taking on a life of their own.

      It's almost as bad as the "Apple is dying" nonsense that's been going on since 1984.

      But wait a minute...Apple's OSX runs a BSD variant....omg! IT's TRUE! IT'S TRUE!!!!

      --

      "Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
    2. Re:Okay, okay... by John+Hasler · · Score: 0, Troll

      This has nothing to do with "BSD is dying".

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    3. Re:Okay, okay... by Bullet-Dodger · · Score: 3, Funny
      It is now official - Netcraft has confirmed: "*BSD is dying" is dying

      Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered "*BSD is dying" community when the latest Netcraft survey plainly stated that *BSD accounts for nearly 2 million active sites, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The "*BSD is dying" trolls are collapsing in complete disarray.

      Fact: "*BSD is dying" is dead

    4. Re:Okay, okay... by slashvar · · Score: 1

      Yes, following those steps, I stop using linux 4 years ago, and never come back.

      --
      Marwan Burelle co-Head of EPITA's System Laboratory
    5. Re:Okay, okay... by MrLint · · Score: 1

      Funny, the new top secret apple marketing slogan is "You only die twice (at the same time).

    6. Re:Okay, okay... by jcr · · Score: 1

      Since 1984? Try since 1975!

      Predictions of Apple's imminent demise have been pretty much continuous since the company's founding. Funny how something can be both tedious and amusing at the same time.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    7. Re:Okay, okay... by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      BSD/OS is an awesome product. The netcraft survey proves it. With WinDriver no longer interested in it though, I wonder if they'll consider opening it up completely. Post the complete sources of BSD/OS under the BSD license. That would be awesome!

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    8. Re:Okay, okay... by PONA-Boy · · Score: 2, Funny

      ...because he dodges bullets, Avi.

      --
      +that's funny...I don't FEEL tardy.+
    9. Re:Okay, okay... by yomegaman · · Score: 1

      Does this mean that BSD now stands for "Beleaguered Software Distribution"?

      --
      ...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
    10. Re:Okay, okay... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      maybe there are many sites using BSD/OS however with the product being discontinued and support vanishing no one will be staying with this.
      Time to migrate to either OpenBSD or a Linux distro. ...and rush out to get a copy--- why? It's like buying dead sea scrolls unless Wind River releases the code under some open license or sells the property to another vendor who will continue support and fixes.

      Heck, if I were to get all fired up about running an old OS I'd set up a box running Apple A/UX... wait, I did that...

    11. Re:Okay, okay... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What language-challenged half-wit moderator labelled this a troll? I just 'spent' my moderation points on another thread so I can't push it back up again.
      Grrr

  13. Man, I still have a BSDI box in the closet by microbob · · Score: 1

    I still have an old BSDI box (and CDs) in the closet.

    That was back in the day when Solaris/X86 2.5 just wouldn't load on any PC that I had.

    The app I needed only ran on BSDI and Solaris PCs (wahh, they now support Linux though).

    Ahh, those were the days. I even coded up all the CGIs I needed in C (blech).

    M.B.

  14. That was quick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Slightly less than 10 years ago, I was invited to visit BSDI HQ - a very nice house in Colorado Springs. This was before they moved to the "real" office space a few miles away.

    The whole house was wired up for geekiness. They had terminals in various places and plenty of computers. The AV room had massive speakers, a projection screen, and tons of components. Outside, there was a RCA DSS dish, which had been on the market for less than a year as I recall.

    In one of the hallways there were a few gold CDs of various releases in picture frames. At the time, they were still working on the 2.0 release (first one called BSD/OS as opposed to BSD/386, if I remember correctly), so there were only a couple up there.

    They certainly seemed to have their business affairs in order. Now here it is and their company has been eaten by another, and now the former flagship product is being killed.

    I shut down my last BSD/OS system almost 4 years ago and moved to Slackware, so it won't affect me. I just wonder what happened to them when things were obviously quite good at one time.

    1. Re:That was quick by knobee · · Score: 1
      That was probably Rob Kolstad's house.

      I doubt that MUCH of that was paid for by BSD/OS.

      --
      Whatever.
    2. Re:That was quick by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1
      First off they bought FreeBSD or the company who makes the cd's, funds developers, and puts the product on shelves at compusa.

      I think they want to sell FreeBSD for alot cheaper since BSD/OS was very expensive and has limited enthusian and hardware support. They will continue support contracts but FreeBSD is where they make all their money in.

      I hope they do well with FreeBSD in the future.

    3. Re:That was quick by winkydink · · Score: 1

      Actually most of what you describe in Rob's old house was there when he was still working for Sun. I had the honor of being a guest there during the reception held for attendees of Lisa III, the 3rd USENIX sysadmin conference. 14 years ago... wow! Time really does fly!

      --

      "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

    4. Re:That was quick by Tim+Fraser · · Score: 2

      Back in 1997 my workplace was essentially an all-BSD/OS shop. We had a source license, and I think it's fair to say that all of us who hacked around in it admired the BSD/OS kernel for its stability and clean code.

      Unfortunately, a year or so later Windows NT swept down upon our group like a plague of management-mandated locusts. When the dust settled, our BSD/OS desktops were gone. I was sitting in front of a windows NT workstation, trying to convince myself that the SCO X server I had duct-taped on top of it was as good as the real thing.

      But through it all, our humble BSD/OS fileserver continued chugging along. That thing was rock-solid. It exceeded 1 year of continuous uptime on at least two occasions while I was working there, brought down only by power failures.

      Thanks for all the good bits, BSDi!

      - Tim

    5. Re:That was quick by phoenix_rizzen · · Score: 1

      WindRiver doesn't own FreeBSD. They never bought FreeBSD. They bought the trademark and they bought Walnut-Creek CD-ROM's distribution channels for FreeBSD. However, FreeBSD has always been just that ... free.

      The trademark has since been transfered to The FreeBSD Foundation (or, that was the plan, anyway ... not sure if that was completed or not). WindRiver doesn't distribute FreeBSD. In fact, WindRiver has next to no influence on FreeBSD at all.

    6. Re:That was quick by andrewski · · Score: 1

      I have never been able to figure out who'd be retarded enough to actually BUY FreeBSD. Wind River (and those before) hardly kicked any cash towards the development, and did nothing to promote it.

    7. Re:That was quick by phoenix_rizzen · · Score: 1

      Walnut Creek employed several core members and other committers, as well as providing the main distribution side. I'd hardly consider that "nothing".

  15. BSD Dead? by markalanj · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have to disagree that BSD itself is dead. Maybe what was once BSDI yes but not BSD in general. Personally I prefer using FreeBSD for serving over Linux. Its stable,consistant and the ports collection rocks! Sure its not for everyone and it maybe dead in the mainstream but its heart still beats for those geeks who want a geeks os.

    1. Re:BSD Dead? by TWX · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've never seen proof that Linux isn't a geeks' OS, considering the difficulty in getting mainstream people to accept that yes, something useful can still be done at the command line...

      From a users' perspective, there should be almost no functional difference between using a BSD machine, a Linux machine, and a commercial UNIX (Sun, HP-UX, etc) machine. All of the differences that I have seen have been in adminstration. So, even if BSD is dying, Admins will be the only ones to really notice.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:BSD Dead? by markalanj · · Score: 0

      I didn't mean to imply that Linux was not a geeks os. I should have clarified that statement by say that when someone wants to tackle configuration with FreeBSD for example the config utility is vi. Most Linux admins I meet are quick to reach for the GUI I just don't belive in that. I myself use both Linux and FreeBSD typicaly I use Linux for workstation type use and FreeBSD for serving. But thats just me.

    3. Re:BSD Dead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends on the admin, really. I run 100% Debian/Linux servers and my personal desktops are always Debian/Linux only. I hardly ever use any GUI, since the shell & friends (Perl, etc.) give me orders of magnitude more power and flexibility. Heck, about the only thing I ever go into X for is to see how a site looks in a graphical browser (ie, if I'm working on a web front-end for something) or to look at pr0n. ;) Even the games (eg, XMame) are better/faster in framebuffer mode...

    4. Re:BSD Dead? by EelBait · · Score: 1

      There is someone here with a pretty good sig that sums up the Linux vs. BSD comparison, so I'm going to steal it.

      "BSD is for people who love Unix; Linux is for people who hate Microsoft."

    5. Re:BSD Dead? by crucini · · Score: 1, Insightful

      How about: "Linux is for people who just want to get the job done; BSD is for people trying to prove how 31337 they are."

      Only partly serious.

    6. Re:BSD Dead? by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      Or even better: "Linux is for people who feel they have to prove something; BSD is for people who don't need to."

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    7. Re:BSD Dead? by Quill_28 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Funny you say that, i choose freebsd over linux because it was easier.

    8. Re:BSD Dead? by Felis+Rex · · Score: 1

      I was just about to post the same exact sentiment...

      --
      "it's only after disaster that you can be born resurected" - My friend Dave
    9. Re:BSD Dead? by EelBait · · Score: 0, Troll

      Naw. Not trying to prove anything. I'm just tired of playing with the dependency hell that is the world of Linux. I tried Linux. It's just too -- I dunno -- "ill-defined" for lack of a better term.

      I don't know why, but the FreeBSD ports system just works, and I don't need to spend hours chasing down every little shared library.

      BSD just seems a bit more "well-defined" and stable than Linux. I think it makes more sense to use an OS that gets the job done, and stays below the radar of hackers. Why try be a 1337 Linux d00d when FreeBSD gets the job done with 1/10 the noise?

      Maybe it's my background in mathematics and engineering showing through affecting my preferences.

    10. Re:BSD Dead? by tempest303 · · Score: 1

      Heh... much as the troll in me would agree...

      it's really more a matter of preference for many things these days. The apps are the same - Samba, Apache, postfix, GNOME, KDE, etc. They run great on Linux, and they run great on FreeBSD (and the other BSDs, I assume, I just haven't tried them pesonally). I can't stand the BSD toolchain, others love it. I think GNU rocks, some people loathe it. So be it! "Let one thousand flowers bloom" and all that - it's all Free Software, so we can live and let live.

      Thus, Linux is for people who like Linux, *BSD is for people who prefer *BSD.

    11. Re:BSD Dead? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1
      Speaking as someone who has about 100 times more Linux experience than FreeBSD experience, I feel the need to chine in here as well:

      Me Too!

      I cringe visibly whenever I have to admin a Linux box now.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    12. Re:BSD Dead? by corbosman · · Score: 1

      I think you have this turned around. You tend to see '1ee7' people running Linux, not FreeBSD.

      Both FreeBSD and Linux get the job done as long as you have good people running it.

      Cor

    13. Re:BSD Dead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, within the circles of the l3e7, there are those that wish to be uB3R-3137, and thus run *BSD and claim to be vastly superior life-forms because of it.

      Those with a clue just run slack.

    14. Re:BSD Dead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right...someone using Linux as a firewall over OpenBSD has a clue, don't make us all laugh.

    15. Re:BSD Dead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so you think your elite now, eh?

    16. Re:BSD Dead? by Felis+Rex · · Score: 1

      I have even abandoned the ease of use that Mandrake offers in favor of FreeBSD! Now that's easy!

      Easier and more stable and reliable? Not gonna die soon.

      In my case, I have about 5 years experience with Linux and maybe 6 months worth with FreeBSD.

      --
      "it's only after disaster that you can be born resurected" - My friend Dave
    17. Re:BSD Dead? by Quill_28 · · Score: 1

      Glad you think so highly of me. Thank you

    18. Re:BSD Dead? by crucini · · Score: 1

      I don't think that should have been modded "troll". Linux, at least Red Hat, is definitely afflicted with dependency hell. And I agree that BSD feels more "well-defined". On installing OpenBSD I was quite impressed to see the completeness of the man pages.

      But looking at people I know who run BSD, they largely fall into two categories: they have servers that predate the maturity of Linux, and see no reason to switch, or they are trying to distance themselves from the Gnome/KDE/turn-linux-into-windows crowd. While I understand the latter, I find it a bit funny.

  16. This is offtopic, but I have to ask by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can someone please explain to me why every *BSD-related post has to be bombarded by a million "*BSD is dying" AC trolls?

    Or is it me failing to see the humor in it? Is it a joke derived from another, kind of like "In soviet russia" or "I, for one, welcome our...!" ?

    I don't get it, please, someone enlighten me.

    1. Re:This is offtopic, but I have to ask by c0dedude · · Score: 1

      Yeah, *bsd is dying is a running gag. I don't think anyone actually believes it anymore.

      --
      Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
    2. Re:This is offtopic, but I have to ask by visgoth · · Score: 0, Offtopic
      and goatse.cx (don't go there.)

      Don't go there eh? Well, we'll just see about that!
      *click*
      Oh my god! My eyes! I'm blind! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!

      --
      My patience is infinite, my time is not.
    3. Re:This is offtopic, but I have to ask by pyrrhonist · · Score: 3, Informative
      I don't get it, please, someone enlighten me.

      This is a running joke that has been going on for a very long time. BSD's imminent death has been greatly exaggerated more than once, and this joke is poking fun at that fact.
      On Slashdot, this has evolved into a troll, which you can find information about in quite a few places.

      Everything2 has some general information on "BSD is dying".

      Wikipedia has this to say about BSD is dying:

      *BSD is dying
      Quite frequently (especially for BSD-related stories) a comment will be posted providing dubious statistics and many links detailing the forthcoming death of the BSD operating system. With its bogus statistics and inflammatory language the original "*BSD is dying" troll was enormously successful, and was still guaranteed to generate responses years after it first appeared. Unsurprisingly many variants of this troll were created: Slashdot/VA Linux/Linux/Beos/Apple is dying. None were as successful as the original.
      These sites claim that "BSD is dying" is purely a Slashdot trolling phenomenom.

      I'm not convinced that this is the case, however, because there are some earlier examples of this joke (not the troll necessarily, but off-color remarks).
      The earliest reference I can find was in 1992, and may be one explaniation of the phenomenom: Responses to survey on the death of BSD
      There was an article in an online magazine in 1999 that said some disparaging things about BSD's license that may have something to do with phenomenom.
      I could not find the article, but it is mentioned here: Debian wants to use FreeBSD kernel

      There is also a * is dying page.

      --
      Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
    4. Re:This is offtopic, but I have to ask by fliptout · · Score: 0

      I really miss those guys... God damn, i have been reading slashdot too long..

      --
      A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
    5. Re:This is offtopic, but I have to ask by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      I miss OOG and "the Haiku guy". There were giants in the earth in those days.

    6. Re:This is offtopic, but I have to ask by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1
      I forgot Haiku Guy!!!

      Who is crazee enough to fill those shoes today? I guess we'll be saying the same about "Darl McBride" in 2007.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    7. Re:This is offtopic, but I have to ask by red+floyd · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Don't forget "IF I EVER MEET YOU, I WILL KICK YOUR ASS!"

      Of course, since that's in all caps, I need to put this in to defeat the lameness filter.

      --
      The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
    8. Re:This is offtopic, but I have to ask by Rheingold · · Score: 1

      I have to thank you for the link to the Wikipedia page. Far too much of my wasted life over the past 4 or 5 years has been completely captured in that page. How many nights did I set my filter as low as possible after a few too many and giggle like a schoolgirl? Probably more than I ought to have.

      --
      Wil
      wiki
    9. Re:This is offtopic, but I have to ask by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 1

      hate to metamod the mod to my own post (I usually say anyone who complains about mods is a whiner, deal with the fact that imperfect, sometimes stupid humans are in charge of moderation) but it's kind of strange that it was marked offtopic. I'd have taken an "overrated" better.

      OOG, Hot Grits Guy, Haiku guy, and yes, even goatse.cx and Penis Bird guy are part of this entity we call slashdot. The germ of the idea was created by Taco et. al., but what made it work, what made it fun to read and post were the people commenting. It brought in people like me, and others, to this board. Slashdot is built by people who are willing to put forth effort to post comments. Sometimes the reward for that effort was a laugh or two. In some ways, all funny comments could be marked offtopic, since they don't advance the technical discussion, but they do advance the community that is slashdot. Hmm, don't lose any sleep; it's likely that the people who modded me has no idea who I'm even talking about.

      OK, soapbox mode off, time to have Natalie Portman pour hot grits down OOGs caveman fur-skins pants,.

  17. Mod parent up: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    +1, INFORMATIVE! Better make that +4. Thanks in advance. If only there were an "EXTREMELY INFORMATIVE" mod.

  18. SMP by the+uNF+cola · · Score: 3, Interesting

    BSD/OS had some kick ass SMP support. They were also great live support. Terrible package support, but that was the worst of it.

    --

    --
    "I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo

  19. Seemed obvious by FreeLinux · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems like only a year ago when Wind River took over BSD/OS and made lots of lavish praises and promises but, I think everyone knew that this would be the final result. Frankly I never fully understood why Wind River picked it up in the first place.

    In any case, I do not feel that this is a significant loss. The major BSD development is happening in FreeBSD and NetBSD, BSD/OS was never a strong contender.

    None the less, this does clearly demonstrate what happens to software that is owned by closed source companies.

    1. Re:Seemed obvious by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      Frankly I never fully understood why Wind River picked it up in the first place.

      Look at the timing. It was at the height of the dot.craze. You're an embedded OS company. Embedded companies don't especially like the GPL (some do, but most don't). So here's this OS that's every bit as good as Linux, if not better by some accounts. But it's under a license that doesn't scare away embedded developers. And a million investors throwing their money away like there was no tomorrow. It looked like a win-win situation at the time.

      Heck, it still looks like a win-win situation. But I guess WinDriver just isn't interested in promoting the world's most respected OS. No wonder it's not selling for them.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    2. Re:Seemed obvious by ByTor-2112 · · Score: 1

      The announcement says that they are no longer selling it as "BSD/OS". I'm fairly certain that they are using the core technology in their embedded systems now and not bothering with a full-fledged OS. It's called getting back to their core business.

  20. Re:Good riddance. by the+uNF+cola · · Score: 1

    Yeah, a server os (bsd/os) died and recently, a new os based mostly on bsd was born (darwin).

    --

    --
    "I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo

  21. Not dead, just homeless. by niko9 · · Score: 5, Funny

    BSD is not dead, it's just homeless for the time being.

    Please expect this fine OS to be smelling a bit ripe at your nearest highway exit ramp with a sign that says "Will boot for partition space".

  22. Give it a rest, Kevin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Kevin,

    I wish you would stop posting this crap and just move on with your life. I'm sorry that things worked out the way they did, but you gave us no choice. As it was, I spent a lot of time convincing Jon and Bill not to have you brought up on criminal charges. I even managed to get you a week's severence.

    Instead of being grateful that they gave you a break, you have become obsessed with trying to sabotage their business -- but your *BSD is dying posts are just childish and silly. We move more product now than when you left. No one is cancelling orders because of your anonymous messages on Slashdot.

    I think that you could still have a bright future, but if this keeps up, Jon and Bill are going to get pissed off and have you brought up on criminal charges. Is that what you want? How many jobs will you get when potential employers see a criminal record that includes the theft of company computer equipment? Jon still has the laptop that he bought back from the pawn shop along with the company's original purchase records for it. He still has printouts of the ads you put up on ebay for the DLT auto-loader and the RAID array. There are records showing that your badge was used to gain entrance to the building at 2:13AM on the day that the equipment was stolen. On top of the thefts, we also have logs showing your attempts to break into the servers using your ID the evening after you were let go.

    Do you want to end up being some guy's bitch in prison? That's what may happen if you keep this up. If you think that your shopping mall karate classes are going to do you any good there, you are in for a shock.

    Tim

    P.S. Please don't bother with denying this, who you are, and so forth. This started practically the day after you were let go. The writing style and the Kreskin reference leaves no doubt as to who's posting this. (Like someone else is going to go to that much trouble to discredit BSD and then not sign their name! Get real.)

    1. Re:Give it a rest, Kevin by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      "Now is the end time for BSD"

      And for you by the sounds of it. Grow up you prick, everyone on here is sick of your stupid posts.

    2. Re:Give it a rest, Kevin by andrewski · · Score: 0

      Do us all a favor and bring him up on the charges. God, what a fucking prick.

      Sounds like a little bunghole-loosening is just what this guy needs to take his mind off BSD. It's crazy that this little fucknugget has nothing to do but troll, but I guess that's his game.

      Again, PLEASE bring this fucker up on his charges. He sounds like a maladjusted single child on crack...

  23. Commercial Arm by cplater · · Score: 4, Informative

    BSD/OS was the commercial version of the BSD world. A few years ago there was a push to bring it up to date with the current FreeBSD at the time. Hopefully this will allow more focus on the *BSDs. I'm a real *BSD fan, but I wasn't even aware that this was still around, or even being actively developed.

    --
    -- Charles A. Plater
    1. Re:Commercial Arm by AntiBasic · · Score: 2, Informative

      So you're a BSD fan yet know so little about recent history? To be accurate, BSDI merged with Walnut Creek, changed its name to BSDi and donated the prototype BSDi BSD/OS 5.0 kernel code to the FreeBSD Project.

  24. Re:Turned over to another charnel house? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm switching the last of our BSD servers over the Redhat 7.3 this weekend. Woot!

  25. Ah, the memories... by secolactico · · Score: 5, Interesting

    BSDi... my first hacked server.

    No, I didn't hack it... It was the first server I admin'd that got hacked (circa 1997).

    I was a network guy in those days and somehow inherited the admin of that machine (running Livingston Radius!) and managed via unrestricted telnet.

    All of my unix experience came from having installed Redhat *once* as a lark, but since in the land of the blind the man with one eye is king, I was it.

    I remember seeing all those funny named process in the top display, doing a search on Altavista and then begining to panic.

    Eventually we switched over to FreeBSD and Solaris and my interest in unix (and hopefully, my knowledge) grew from there.

    --
    No sig
    1. Re:Ah, the memories... by mrpuffypants · · Score: 1
      Yes, seeing lots of processes running
      rm -r /
      can begin to be a little scary until your terminal disconnects. That's when you can stop worrying.
    2. Re:Ah, the memories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BSDi... my first hacked server.

      No, I didn't hack it... It was the first server I admin'd that got hacked (circa 1997).


      Nope. I hacked it.

      Hugs,
      h4x0r d00d

    3. Re:Ah, the memories... by gellenburg · · Score: 1

      Funny you should mention that!

      I was working for an ISP back in 1997, and my first hacked "box" was our BSDi box (2.1 I think), running cistron radius (it was unstable, but had much better radius accounting than livingston, and supported our total control hubs better).

      Ah ... the memories.

      I had already been running Slackware and FreeBSD at the time though, so that BSDi box wasn't my first introduction to UNIX.

      Since that hack job, I switched everything over the FreeBSD and things were much much more stable.

      Those were the days.

    4. Re:Ah, the memories... by Dwonis · · Score: 1

      Your terminal does not disconnect while removing all files.

    5. Re:Ah, the memories... by lannygodsey · · Score: 2, Informative

      While in high school, I helped start an ISP. My friends father put up the money and away we went. After the SunOS (BSD! not Solaris) machine got to be slow (around 1993), we decided to try a couple cheap Pentium 66/75 machines (~~$2500). We used an SLS distribution w/ kernel 0.99 and we were pretty happy with it. Along the way we upgraded to Slackware and around the time of kernel 1.2.8 we were cracked.
      Why on earth would someone crack and trash a system? There goes the neighborhood.
      We switched the machines to Solaris 2.5 x86 (If I recall, it was $700/machine for the license) but you got great stuff including a Windows 3 emulator!
      Being a BSD fan, the only thing I really liked about Solaris was /usr/ucb (*chuckle*).
      While Solaris was O.K., I had also become adicted to the Free Software Concept. (Side Note, my favorite computers were Amiga and I loved Fred Fish Disks. The Software Distillary BBS was my favorite BBS :) )
      After talking to a few people at a HAM RADIO FEST, I picked up FreeBSD which is what all our machines (save a few linux machines for customers who want to run linux for one reason or another).
      So, since 1995 we've had two problems, one was that restoring from a QIC tapes on 2.2 series was REALLY SLOW, so the drive upgrade we thought would last an hour, turned into 8. The second problem was insecure file permissions (our fault).
      FreeBSD has been a champ, I don't really care about FreeBSD vs OpenBSD vs Linux, I care about how it works.
      up 301+16:24, 0 users, load 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
      up 502+12:47, 2 users, load 0.08, 0.20, 0.17
      up 612+23:09, 0 users, load 0.02, 0.03, 0.00
      As you can see, I haven't been woken up in the middle of the night w/ THE SERVER IS DOWN for at least a year. Yes, that's what I care about. It works and works and works.
      FreeBSD makes me look good :)

    6. Re:Ah, the memories... by Craig+Davison · · Score: 1

      "We were cracked"? Haha. The English-speaking world has already declared your dated 'historically accurate' usage incorrect.
      Sorry. Find some other way to be elite.

    7. Re:Ah, the memories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      BSD zealots are quick to deny the "death" of BSD nowadays by pointing to the existence of OS X, which has supposedly given BSD "thousands" of users. In fact this is a myth propagated by Apple, eager to tout the "Industrial Strength Unix Foundations" of their new "Darwin" OS.

      The kernel of Darwin is not the BSD kernel, but rather the Mach kernel, In fact, the core of Darwin is of a totally different design to BSD, being of an elegant microkernel structure rather than the monolithic structure that BSD still retains. It is strange that Apple would choose to tout that their OS is based on 4.4BSD, which even by BSD standards is obsolete by over 10 years.

      Darwin includes totally rewritten filesystem and network support and does not use the BSD code here either. In fact, BSD code is only used in the OS as a "skin" to wrap the underlying OS in order to provide a virtual Unix-like environment, in much the same way as Cygwin wraps Windows.

      Higher up in userland, adapted versions of the BSD tools are used for the Unix command line, an odd choice, considering the GNU utilities are superior. Files are kept in odd places and in many cases manpages are out of date. Many basic system services such as user authentication are provided by Apple's own proprietary system rather than the traditional Unix methods. In general, the OS X command line is a lackluster and messy ordeal, and certainly radically unlike any BSD system.

  26. As goes BSD, so goes everything else... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    ...the GNU/Linux juggernaut continues...

  27. Speaking from ignorance here... by Bingo+Foo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is Wind River really an "OS company" or are they a "CD pressing and distribution company?"

    --
    taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
    1. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by FreeLinux · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wind River is an embedded OS company. Their main OS vxWorks is used by many major vendors of things like switches, routers, PBXs and who knows what else.

    2. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by Alinraz · · Score: 5, Informative

      Primarily an embedded OS and tools company. They sell VxWorks (OS), the Vision* (...Probe, ...ICE, ...Click) products, SNiFF+ (A code management/editor/analysis package that rocks and runs on Linux), and Diab (embedded compiler).

      We use several of their products at my company to develop MCF5407 systems. Not that I'd buy WR products again though...

      Actually, they're really a "aquire and kill" company...over the last several years they've gone on a major aqusions binge, and many of the products of companies they've aquired (mostly competitors, and often with superior products) they've either let stagnate or killed outright.

    3. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by Ben+Hutchings · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the most well-known machine to run VxWorks was the Pathfinder probe.

    4. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by Shamashmuddamiq · · Score: 3, Interesting
      WindRiver sells abominations like the DIAB compiler and operating systems like VxWorks. VxWorks isn't too bad. It's mostly POSIX-compliant, and has some nice features, though you'll sink a boatload of money into licensing. WindRiver also used to sell pSOS, a non-POSIX operating system that is pure hell to build embedded applications with. They're still trying to migrate a lot of their customers from pSOS to VxWorks.

      There are very few reasons, from a technical perspective, to use proprietary operating systems instead of GNU. Especially with the new Linux 2.6 kernel (with pseudo-real-time capabilities and the uCLinux MMU-less additions), there are more and more reasons to move away from proprietary RTOS for most embedded applications.

      --
      ...just my 2 gil.
    5. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by mrpuffypants · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, they're really a "aquire and kill" company

      I prefer SCO's policy of "Aquire and Rape" to WindRiver's more liberal leanings.

    6. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      Many reasons why not, but one really big reason why. And you even mention it.

      Real time. It's why companies put up with crappy systems like LynxOS and vxWorks, and spend the big bucks for excellent systems like QNX. Linux isn't real time.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    7. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by yanestra · · Score: 4, Interesting
      There are very few reasons, from a technical perspective, to use proprietary operating systems instead of GNU. Especially with the new Linux 2.6 kernel
      You might want to have a look at this paper, especially the part with the pathological test cases for the Linux scheduler.
    8. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by red+floyd · · Score: 1

      Aircraft avionics. The AH-1YZ Cobra.

      --
      The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
    9. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by red+floyd · · Score: 1

      Damn! That'll teach me to use preview!

      It should be AH-1Z Cobra chopper.

      --
      The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
    10. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I d/l the iso image for disc 1 of freebsd-4.6, but cannot get it to install. The install fails during the installation of the ports collection with a cpio error. I tried installing 4.5 from a cd I have, and it installed fine, so I dont think its my hd. I've burned 3 copies and all three die at the same time, about 16% through installing the ports. I've checked the md5sum and it matches for the d/l, but is it possible something happened during the d/l and the file is corrupt? Are there any others with the same problem?

      Kevin Miller

    11. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by LizardKing · · Score: 1

      There are very few reasons, from a technical perspective, to use proprietary operating systems instead of GNU.

      How about the fact that the Linux kernel is geared towards desktop and server machines, and as a result it's very hard to strip the kernel down to a reasonable size? Linux isn't a "one size fits all" solution, and projects like uCLinux are only applicable to a small subset of embedded projects. Another problem with Linux from an embedded developer's point of view, is the regularity with which key subsystems are replaced or radically altered. The endless overhauling of the scheduler is a fine example - such changes benefit desktop users but causes all kinds of headaches for embedded people when they update their kernels.

      Chris

    12. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you are going to use the words "SNiFF+" and "rocks" in the same sentence, you really need the word "sucks" in between, as in "SNiFF+ sucks rocks through a straw without breaking a sweat." Other descriptive words are: clunky, inflexible, badly documented. Hope this helps.

    13. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by k8to · · Score: 1

      In all fairness, they got into the acquire-and-kill business more or less by accident.

      They had the core products (VxWorks, Tornado, etc) which were making significant bank, and their stock evealuation was doing great, but they saw themselves as beseiged by various competitors (biggest looming was Microsoft and WinCE). So they took the capital and invested it where their corporate culture said all the value was: Tools.

      So they bought all the related tools companies they could get their hands on, thinking this is the way to become the biggest value in the embedded/realtime world.

      It's half-right of course. You can't just acuire them, you have to make sure they stay good (hopefully the best). Their eyes turned out to be bigger than their wallets as the market growth slowed significantly for the crash. Integration of dispirate corporate parts took its toll, and many of the best/brightest departed for more pleasant pastures. To control costs they've done round after round of layoffs, ensuring that many of the acquisitions got axed.

      And so the American corporate story goes.

      To be fair, many axed products really weren't very good, and were just redundant ones from various tools vendor companies.

      Some were though. And they've always overcharged for the stuff and acted arrrogant about it. No shock that everyone wants to use linux who can get away with it, as they want to be in charge of their product, not ransomed to an arrogant stoodge.

      --
      -josh
    14. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by k8to · · Score: 1

      Again, fairness: pSOS was developed by WindRiver's traditional competitor Integrated Systems. As ISI spiraled down the toilet of mismanagement and inferior product, WRS bought them, and picked up their product lines for a while. You can bet they discontinued it as rapidly as was at all reasonable for their new customer base.

      The transitional APIs predated all this of course, and were marketing tools for stealing customers from their competitor.

      It was funny, in the days I was at WRS, (1997ish?) we used to make fun of the things pSOS used to try to sell as features. Example: they claimed faster interrupt times because they required that ISRs be written in assembly. I mean you could write ISRs for VxWorks in asm if you wanted.. but strangely no one ever seemed to want this. As it was, we had a hard enough time talking customers into avoiding excessive templates in C++ (gcc was not very good at this at the time).

      --
      -josh
    15. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can use the ULE sched in Linux if you like...
      It's been ported. see kerneltrap.

    16. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by treat · · Score: 1
      Their main OS vxWorks is used by many major vendors of things like switches, routers, PBXs and who knows what else.

      Lots of random things on Boeing jets run vxWorks as well.

    17. Re:Speaking from ignorance here... by yanestra · · Score: 1
      You can use the ULE sched in Linux if you like...
      It's been ported. see kerneltrap.
      You can use anything with everything, I have no doubt. What counts is primarily the main branch.
      (Linux lacks of many of the mechanisms FreeBSD supports, and it would take A LOT of time to port them all, even if it's underway for years in several cases.)
  28. The full letter by knobee · · Score: 5, Informative

    you can find the full announcement here. Alan Clegg -- Formerly abc@bsdi.com

    --
    Whatever.
  29. The article should be titled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    BreakingWind River.

    Just a little cubicle humor.

    1. Re:The article should be titled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hope they move you to a bigger one

    2. Re:The article should be titled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      BSD you grow in the ghetto, living second rate.
      And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate.
      The places you play and where you stay
      Looks like one great big alley way.
      You'll admire all the numberbook takers,
      Thugs, BSD pimps and pushers, and the big money makers.

  30. Who used BSD/OS? by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I'm not looking for a hand count -- I'm wondering where BSD/OS saw the biggest deployments.

    Was BSD/OS popular before the free BSDs? I see on their site that they have some information about embedding BSD/OS -- is there a piece of hardware we might all know about, or is it more for internal hardware projects?

    1. Re:Who used BSD/OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What..a troll is actually looking for real information now? Is the world coming to an end?

      Maybe you should go back to investigating the ANAL support in the kernel.

    2. Re:Who used BSD/OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BSD/OS is basically where you went if you wanted to run something Unixy on x86 hardware and have support. Sure, there were other alternatives, especially as Linux got bigger, but once you're on a platform you tend to stick with it for awhile.

      I ran a few of these systems. Part of what got me off BSD/OS and onto something else was the inability to diagnose certain problems on my own. I wasn't about to ask the boss for $5000 (I think that's what it was) for a source code license just to debug something on my own. I just worked around the things that bit us and made plans to get something better as soon as the powers that be would approve it.

      Just this morning I had to dig through the glibc 2.3.1 sources to find out why valgrind was bitching about a branch in their regex code that used an uninitalized variable. That same kind of problem on my old systems would have had me on the phone to HQ, hoping they could figure it out for me.

      Some people like picking up the phone when something breaks. I prefer to use debuggers, memory analysis tools, and grep.

    3. Re:Who used BSD/OS? by LizardKing · · Score: 1

      Was BSD/OS popular before the free BSDs?

      It was mature long before the free BSD's were, and as a result gained a foothold in the ISP market when the Internet started to expand. You could also get the source for what was a comparatively reasonable license cost at the time, (early to mid nineties). As an example, Stephen's seminal "Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment" was so informative in part because of the authors ability to poke around the BSD/OS source code.

      Chris

    4. Re:Who used BSD/OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is all water under the bridge. It is dead now.

  31. Re:Good riddance. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    YHBT! YHL! HAND!

  32. BSD is not dying by revividus · · Score: 1
    It's just unemployed.

    IANAT, I just couldn't resist.

    Seriously, though, if I were to decide to install *BSD on a spare partition, why would I buy one? I would be more likely to download one of the many free versions. Maybe I missed something, though.... Is there something special about BSD/OS?

  33. It's important to keep perspective here by RLiegh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    BSDi was NEVER a free (speech or beer) product, and as such really has and had no impact on the free software community. So, while another (some might say 'useless') proprietary software company goes down the shithole, it does not affect the free software movement in any signifigant way.

    Free and Net BSD will continue to serve our community alongside of Linux as always, completely unaffected by today's announcement.

    1. Re:It's important to keep perspective here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      you forget OpenBSD sir!

      Also, BSDi has given code up to open source in the past, the BSD auth system being the largest of these contributions.

    2. Re:It's important to keep perspective here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For some of us, you cannot seperate quality from freedom. If that makes me a wacko, then at least I'm a wacko who'll go down shooting!

    3. Re:It's important to keep perspective here by RLiegh · · Score: 1

      "No commercial support"?

      You mean like this:
      Commercial Vendors - Consulting
      Consultants for hire
      ?

    4. Re:It's important to keep perspective here by k8to · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Well, I'd say the BSD camp was never too hostile to commercialization of BSD code in the manner employed by BSDI. If you hate proprieterization of free code, you'll probably gravitate to some other project.

      No, the reason that Free/Net/OpenBSD people tended to dislike BSDI was because of the vastly unimpressive management of the sourcebase that they got from 4.4BSD. Improvements appeared in only a few key areas (such as the threaded network stack), with the rest vast majority of the system left fairly bereft in a way that would make a default solaris install feel like a breath of fresh air.

      --
      -josh
    5. Re:It's important to keep perspective here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *chuckle* - Some guys working out of their mom's basement. You BSD guys are a riot.

    6. Re:It's important to keep perspective here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is the killer. Lack of commercial support for BSD has hurt it strongly. Most organizations with a clue these days operate on the quality assurance principal of TQM. Under TQM the vendor must take responsibility for all problems in his product. With BSD there can be no TQM because there is no vendor willing to take responsibility. While there may be nothing terribly wrong with BSD per se, it just doesn't work in a system which relies on TQM.

  34. You Troll. Everybody knows... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that Emacs Lite is a myth. There ain't no such thing. Nowif you wanted to talk about vi well, that would be a whole different thing........

    1. Re:You Troll. Everybody knows... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Emacs Lite is a myth. There ain't no such thing.

      It's perfectly feasible to make a lightweight distribution of GNU Emacs by stripping out all elisp files that don't relate to the text editing tasks you do daily.

      Ninnle Linux, on the other hand, is a myth.

  35. What about F5 BigIP and 3DNS? by nutznboltz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What about F5 BigIP? It used to run on NetBSD but they needed a commerical OS so they moved on. F5's 3DNS version 3.x ran on FreeBSD, but they migrated it to BSDi in version 4.0.

    I wonder if they will try to maintain BSD/OS themselves or migrate back?

    1. Re:What about F5 BigIP and 3DNS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A guy I know lifted a BigIP server from a dot com that was in a death spiral. He has it in his closet and uses it as a firewall. I don't remember which one it is, but it the company paid $80K for it.

    2. Re:What about F5 BigIP and 3DNS? by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 1

      I wonder how this will affect Sidewinder. It's tightly integrated around BSD/OS for it's type-enforcement technology. They're even quoted in a Wind River press release from last year. I guess people should just migrate to FreeBSD and be done with it. It's not going anywhere.

    3. Re:What about F5 BigIP and 3DNS? by dhawton · · Score: 0

      ... ehh no.. *BSD isn't dead... just BSD/OS. Get over it, it will always serve us alongside Linux.

    4. Re:What about F5 BigIP and 3DNS? by evilviper · · Score: 2, Insightful
      the company paid $80K for it.

      Who cares? The value of hardware depreciates very quickly. When Intel processors were at about 100MHz, 500MHz Alpha machines were going for $100,000. Now, you can grab them for $300.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    5. Re:What about F5 BigIP and 3DNS? by onecrazyfoo · · Score: 1

      F5 will be using Linux for version 5.0 of their software due out soon.

  36. Re:LMAO!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every point here is wrong. That is pretty pathetic. Oh and #9 is completely irrelevant anyway.

  37. Where's it go? by Endareth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So anyone know what will happen to the source? Any chance of it being released into the Open Source community? I'm sure some of it would benefit other *NIXes out there.

    --
    Disclaimer: The above comment was made while under the influence of too much coding and not enough sleep.
    1. Re:Where's it go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      So anyone know what will happen to the source?

      it will probably be copied into the linux kernel.

    2. Re:Where's it go? by fmayhar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I very strongly suspect that there's nearly zero chance that BSD/OS will be open-sourced. While the developers (hi, guys!) might want to do that, Wind River the company has shown itself, I think, to be pretty unfriendly to the open-source community. Just look at how the FreeBSD guys got the shaft in 2001.

      As for the extinction of BSD/OS, well, when I heard a rumor that it was coming, I credited that rumor pretty strongly. When WR came along to buy us (I worked for BSDi at the time) I was skeptical of the future of BSD/OS there. One word: PSOS. So this news comes as no surprise at all.

      The real nasty in this, though, is what it does to the development team. I haven't heard yet what is going on with them, but I doubt that it will be anything good. It could be that Mike, Pat, Peter, Geert Jan and I were just the first to get pink slips, though...

  38. Remember the InfoMagic Workgroup Server? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was published by Walnut Creek.

    Based on RedHat 5.2. Old, but at least the print server didn't fucking die every 10 minutes. It was the peak expression of Linux. RH9? Bleaaagh!!

    1. Re:Remember the InfoMagic Workgroup Server? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is more to Linux than Red Hat.

      Who runs a Red Hate Server anyway?

    2. Re:Remember the InfoMagic Workgroup Server? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What We Can Learn From BSD
      By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

      Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

      Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

      These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents [theos.com] on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

      As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

      Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

      The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains more and more market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.

  39. Oh boy by batkins · · Score: 0, Troll
    /me wonders if the slashdot editors have ever heard the phrase "don't feed the trolls."


    Judging from the number of trolls already, I'd say this story is better left unreported. :)

  40. Re:What A Surprise by Chromodromic · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Why should I pay for something I can download for free?

    That's fairly subtle, considering the events of the last day or so. Bravo, and, I think, a point well made.

    There are differences, of course, between publicly consumed intellectual property, like music, and sector-targeted intellectual property, like software: Differences in support requirements, public perception of traditional ownership and rights, the respective industries' take on enforcement and public relations, and the kinds and scope of typical license infringement.

    But ... It's still a good point, so I'm a little disappointed that you're not modded up ...

    --
    Chr0m0Dr0m!C
  41. I still love BSDi by StudentAction.CA · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here at work we still have 20+ BSDi machines. We started back in the 1.x days (still have the manuals somewhere.....) and have kept with it ever since. Over the years, we've had to do some custom hacks to fix some OSS software (Cyrus IMAP, just to mention one) but for the most part it is still a rock solid OS with the only downtime being when BSDi released a kernel mod that needed a reboot.

    Of couse now we are moving to FreeBSD and Linux, but it's sad to see an old friend reach the end of it's life. There were a lot of great things in BSDi (like the IPFW firewall syntax - it rocks) but I guess all good things must come to an end.

    Fiarwell, my old friend.

    --
    Driven by 100% sarcasm - fueled by the need to be heard.
    1. Re:I still love BSDi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe if you bitches payed for all the licenses you actually used, they would still be making it.

  42. Re:LMAO!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course they were all wrong...it was obviously a joke. Of course you would have to know at least SOMETHING about *BSD to get it.

  43. Re:What A Surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why should I pay for something I can download for free?

    (Sorry to respond to this troll but I feel I must)

    You shouldn't -- if you want the program you're using to die, that is. Volunteer OSS projects needs funding; after all, people have to eat and pay the bills you know! Everyone who wants OSS to suceed to should, as often as is possible, either buy physical items (like cdrom's manuals and the like) or donate money to keep the project(s) alive. It's in your best interest if you use the software, and it's also fair to the authors. An exception to this would be if a project is already well-funded (quite rare) for instance if IBM was paying every kernel hacker a decent salary to work on the kernel.

    Voluntary donations drive so many of our most precious social services, like charities, public television and radio, and Free Software. Hopefully in the future it will drive artists to produce music. I've always wanted a p2p program that would have a button on the side when you're downloading a song that says "click here to give $1 to the artist.".. but that's going a little off-topic.

  44. Re:Problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Original here.

  45. It had one heydey... by tkrotchko · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Remember the Gauntlet firewall? One of the first firewalls commercial firewalls, and one that you got the source for (it was not open source in the sense that you couldn't distribute source).

    Anyway, make a long story short. Gauntlet ran Solaris, HP-UX, and BSDI, because it actually modified the kernal and several peripheral systems to make it more secure.

    Well, it was geared to a specific release of BSDI. I suspect this was one of the big sellers, and when Gauntlet essentially died of old age (and a company that had no interest in keeping its customers), BSDI lost a big chunk of the market.

    Then you add the rise of the really "Free" BSD's and Linux, and that pretty much ended it.

    But I'll say that BSDI was one of the most robust, forgiving, stable platforms I ran; a fortune 1000 company ran its entire email gateway systems on a pair of BSDI 4.x boxes running a customized FWTK proxy. They only reason it was retired was because the new guys were only Windows literate and BSDI scared them.

    Anyway, I can't say enough good things about BSDI.

    --
    You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
    1. Re:It had one heydey... by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 5, Interesting
      BSDI were the folks who sat down with the FreeBSD developers and basically said, "Here -- these are all of our SMP secrets." From the FreeBSD SMP mailing list, this was instrumental in FreeBSD 5.0 becoming the SMP uberbeast it is, well beyond what just unraveling the macro kernel lock was accomplishing.

      At one point, I seem to recall that Wind River were acquiring Walnut Creek or otherwise taking on the publication of FreeBSD. Whatever happened to that? It seems like they poured blessings all over FreeBSD, then didn't reap the benefits of resultant FreeBSD's growth.

    2. Re:It had one heydey... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      Well, it was geared to a specific release of BSDI. I suspect this was one of the big sellers, and when Gauntlet essentially died of old age (and a company that had no interest in keeping its customers), BSDI lost a big chunk of the market.

      Gauntlet didn't die of old age, Gauntlet died because Network Associates sucked and didn't market it very well. Gauntlet is a VERY nice firewall and I'm glad it's technology is going to go into Sidewinder G2. Frankly the other firewalls on the market (Firewall-1, PIX, Netscreen, etc.) are pitifully insecure at best.

    3. Re:It had one heydey... by oohp · · Score: 1

      I think they published FreeBSD for a while, then stopped and now FreeBSD Mall does the publishing.

  46. As a *BSD troll I just can't stop laughing.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh this is funny.

  47. Small world by sTalking_Goat · · Score: 1

    I've worked right next door to them for the last 15 months and I had no idea what they did...Maybe I should pop over tomorow and see if they've got any free CDs...

    --

    My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...

  48. Par for the course by El · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It was obvious from the beginning that Wind River bought BSD, just like it bought pSOS, not to obtain new technology, but rather to eliminate another competitor to VxWorks. (What other technologies has Wind River done this to?) Unfortunately, embedded Linux seems to be ruining Wind River's plans to become the Microsoft of the embedded world.

    --

    "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

    1. Re:Par for the course by SmackCrackandPot · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wind River Systems made the following acquisitions and sales:

      In May 2000, they bought AudeSi for $40,000,000 and Norwegian company ICESoft for $25,000,000

      In April 2001, they bought the software assets of Berkeley Software Design Inc.

      There's an interesting quote from Business Week at this time.

      owning the assets of an open-source software company doesn't guarantee gaining access to the talent of programmers in the open-source community

      Rather not surprisingly, in January 2002, they sold FreeBSD

      From Algonet: Diab Data was bought by ISI who in turn were bought by Wind River Systems. EST Corporation were also bought out by Wind River Systems.

      I guess Wind River Systems were just trying to expand to fill their niche market.

    2. Re:Par for the course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, blind old man, QNX ownz0rz embedded Linux for every application except TSCs (Tightwad Satisfaction Circuits).

    3. Re:Par for the course by clf8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, they did purchase a lot of companies a few years back. Diab and SingleStep allowed them to own the entire tool chain from compiler to debugger. They've been integrating these into their IDE in an attempt to provide an entire solution. They may have gotten pSOS or BSD to kill them, but don't forget there's also money in support.

      Personally, I started using VxWorks almost 10 years ago and always considered it a decent OS. Sure, it's just one big memory space, but in a lot of ways it's a good solid scalable embedded operating system. Are you gonna put it on your PC, hell no. But it's hella good in telecom applications, and anything else that isn't going to need a pretty GUI. Oh yeah, and it supports IPv6 already.

      I wouldn't count WindRiver out. With the some of the acquisitions they've made, the embedded Linux people will need some of their hardware and software just for debugging. They may end up being niche players, but they'll still have a share of the pie.

    4. Re:Par for the course by Quill_28 · · Score: 1

      As I work for a software company that sells to embedded OEM's, we sell more on VxWorks than any other embedded platform. That being said nobody really likes WindRiver they are kinda like the MS of the embedded world.

    5. Re:Par for the course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now I wouldn't count WindRiver out completely. With the some of the acquisitions they've made, the embedded Linux people could use some of their hardware and software for debugging. They may end up being niche players, but they'll still have a share of the pie as a tool vendor.

    6. Re:Par for the course by k8to · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Right, because of all the embedded development sales opportunities that were going towards BSDI??

      Let's review. Was BSDI a highly successful embedded operating system? Was BSDI known for being used in realtime and/or small-scaled operating environments across tens of architectures?

      Answers: No, no, and no.

      Aside: pSOS was bought for tools and customer acquisition. It was a buyout ISI was actively interested because their company was taking on water rapidly. I mean, sure, WRS wouldn't mind eliminating competitors, but that's not how it happened.

      Back to BSDI. It's a server OS. Sure, as technology marches onward, what was designed for minicomputers (BSD for VAX) becomes more appropriate for embedded. But where was the developer support for using BSDI in an embedded fashion? The company wasn't laying the groundwork for it. They were focusing on the networking appliance market. The code wasn't generally available either. People who wanted to do BSD with embedded were, as far as I know, using NetBSD. Wasabi, for example, was a customization and consulting group for doing embedded and custom network work with the NetBSD base.

      So if BSDI wasn't a competitor, why were they bought? Three reasons: First, VxWorks used the BSD network stack, but their codebase wasn't meeting customer needs (TCP use changes in 10 years.. shock), while the BSDI base had been significantly enhanced. Second, BSDI/FreeBSD had some good talent who know their way around such things. Third, Linux was the rising threat in embedded (the storm surge sagged a bit with the dotcom collapse, though it's still around), and developing BSD expertise was seen as a counter to this. BSD isn't GPL, so some more real concerns in the embedded space go away, and well, there weren't any great embedded Linux companies to buy at the time. Besides, I think the nerds over there were kind of BSD-biased, being old crusty types.

      --
      -josh
    7. Re:Par for the course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here Here!! Quite right!

    8. Re:Par for the course by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Perhaps. It may well depend on how they play their endgame. E.g.: They've killed the product, but what happens to the code?

      Many Linux developers would look unkindly on a company that played dog in the manger with code. And it might make them a rather hard market to sell into.

      OTOH, they could infuriate the BSD developers no end by GPLing the code. To the extend that FreeBSD and NetBSD and OpenBSD have influence, that could make *them* a difficult market to sell into.

      OTOH, they could just put the code on an ftp server with a BSD license. Say, it'll stay they for two months. And abandon it. This wouldn't infuriate anyone, but would leave a sour taste in some people's mouths. Probably wouldn't lead to any problems, but wouldn't give a tremendous boost, either.

      OTOH, they could both open it, and help with it's integration into other people's projects. Think of it as a public relations ploy, and allocate 2 developer years + a "permanent" ftp server. BSD license. Only support on unmodified code (support for sale otherwise). This would garner nearly free & favorable publicity. This might bring in a few bucks, though not much. This would cost supporting an ftp server. And it might bring in a large customer or two (or maybe not).

      It's easy to tell which I think they should do, but unless they P.O. a bunch of people, I'll never know. (I'm more focused on Linux. My favored choice would be for them to release the entire mess under the GPL...but I don't think anyone would pick up on it, so it's not what I think they *should* do.)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  49. I Won't Miss It by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

    I paid them $1000 for a source distribution of their beta version when it first came out. I stuck with them through the lawsuit but their support vanished when 1.0 came out. I dumped them for Slackware and never looked back.

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  50. SMP? by SHEENmaster · · Score: 1

    They are really just shutting down in the face of threats from SCO.

    --
    You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
  51. They are a REAL-TIME company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    /.

    They sell the egregiously overhyped real-time operating system VXWORKS, which has reasonable performance (why, it rivals the RT-11 OpSystem DEC built in the 70s!) and a user interface so horrible it makes *nix and IBM mainframes seem positively warm and fuzzy.

    One assumes they bought BSD to plunder some techniques and standard API routines... or so that nobody could sue them for any *nix code that might be found in vxworks. What with SCO's recent antics, they are probably feeling pretty clever over at Wind River these days.

    --Charlie

    1. Re:They are a REAL-TIME company by Rock+Ridge · · Score: 1

      One assumes they bought BSD to plunder some techniques and standard API routines...

      VxWorks has always depended heavily on BSD code. They may have been the first RT OS to offer tcp/ip networking -- courtesy of BSD, twenty or so years ago! As far as plundering techniques and standard APIs, VxWorks is a one-address-space-holds-all OS, like MS-DOS, in that respect. They have a follow-on, something like VxWorks AE that may support processes.

      -Rock

  52. FreeBSD by mabu · · Score: 1

    Who cares. FreeBSD kicks its ass anyway.

  53. Possibly to the FreeBSD Foundation? by yerricde · · Score: 1

    So anyone know what will happen to the source?

    Would donating BSD/OS source code to the FreeBSD Foundation let Wind River write it off as a tax deduction?

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  54. A legit question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FreeBSD is [b]NOT[/b] open source correct? If so is OpenBSD to FreeBSD what Linux is to Unix?

    1. Re:A legit question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks, i wasn't sure because if FreeBSD was open source, why there was an openbsd :)

    2. Re:A legit question by thanjee · · Score: 1

      FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD and Darwin are all open source. They are so open that anyone can use their sourcecode for absolutely anything.

      BSD/OS is (was) the closed source BSD.

      Hopefully it will mean a few more people to help with the opensource projects :)

      --
      Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
    3. Re:A legit question by Gwala · · Score: 1

      BSD has a much better license than GNU, stupidity aside. While the GPL allows for companies to use code if they release code, BSD allows free (as in beer) use of source code for any purpose, is YOUR company going to use GPL'd code if it means they have to release their code? Heavens no' unless your an OSS company.

      I license my source under the BSD license becuase as long as I'm still credited, people can use it for whatever they like. I dont mind, commercial or not. I'm happy to see code I have written going to good use.

      -Adam

      --
      #!/bin/csh cat $0
    4. Re:A legit question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GNU licenses are more beneficial to the community in the long run, since everyone can see and copy everyone else "public" evolution of the licensed software.
      OTOH, as you explained it, BSD license are more practical business-wise, since businesses will try to keep an edge on competition, by keeping their change closed source.
      You could also say that GNU peeps don't trust business for that late reason (they are beginning to experience it with SCO), while BSD peeps are more willing to believe in human good nature and forgiving when it fails on them (AT&T mess).

    5. Re:A legit question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know. I have noticed that approximately half, perhaps more, of established corporations are more willing to outright steal GPLed code then seek alternatives (like BSD) or comply with the license. *pokes Linksys and TiVo*

    6. Re:A legit question by andrewski · · Score: 0

      Nice troll.

      I think your concept of 'better' is HIGHLY subjective.

    7. Re:A legit question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Repeat after me...

      THERE IS NO DRAGONFLY BSD

      Only FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x

      DragonFly BSD is a troll / joke / red herring designed to draw you away from the infinately superior FreeBSD 5.x series...

  55. Donating is better by Unregistered · · Score: 1

    Most projects only see a small fraction of the purchase cost of items, but see all of a donation. So a $10 donation does $PROJECT more good than an $18 tshirt.

  56. Re:Good riddance. by Mohammed+Al-Sahaf · · Score: 0, Troll
    BSD zealots are quick to deny the "death" of BSD nowadays by pointing to the existence of OS X, which has supposedly given BSD "thousands" of users. Infact this is a myth propagated by Apple, eager to tout the "Industrial Strength Unix Foundations" of their new "Darwin" OS.

    The kernel of Darwin is not the BSD kernel, but rather the Mach kernel, Infact, the core of Darwin is of a totally different design to BSD, being of an elegant microkernel structure rather than the monolithic structure that BSD still retains. It is strange that Apple would choose to tout that their OS is based on 4.4BSD, which even by BSD standards is obsolete by over 10 years.

    Darwin includes totally rewritten filesystem and network support and does not use the BSD code here either. Infact, BSD code is only used in the OS as a "skin" to wrap the underlying OS in order to provide a virtual Unix-like environment, in much the same way as Cygwin wraps Windows.

    Higher up in userland, adapted versions of the BSD tools are used for the Unix command line, an odd choice, considering the GNU utilities are superior. Files are kept in odd places and in many cases manpages are out of date. Many basic system services such as user authentication are provided by Apple's own proprietary system rather than the traditional Unix methods. In general, the OS X command line is a lackluster and messy ordeal, and certainly radically unlike any BSD system.

    --
    Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
  57. Re:Good riddance. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mac Os Ex is not *BSD.

    It's the same tired Mach kernel with some BSD utilities glued on.

    I downloaded some gnu unix utils for Windows, does that make Windows 2000 BSD Unix?

  58. Re:LMAO!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you describing the latest version of Red Hat?

  59. Re:What A Surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not paying for the Linux kernel or Gentoo, that seems to be going pretty well.

  60. Re:Good riddance. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well put.

    Let's see the BSD zealots use the Chewbacca defense here.

  61. Japanese BSD by kyoko21 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just came back from a two month business trip in Japan. From what I saw in their bookstore was that there were several BSD magazines with 5.1 that comes with the magazines. I didn't see too many linux magazines though. Maybe the Japanese prefer BSD. Any Japanese slashdot readers out there?

    1. Re:Japanese BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      There are at least three major monthly Japanese Linux magazines (with cds) plus frequent "How-to" magazines. In fact, the Turbo-Linux box version was actually outselling Windows 98 before XP went on sale. Besides Turbo-Kinux, RedHat has a localized boxed distribution and Debian and others are well-known too.

      BSD is certainly used here, but Linux is much more popular and better known to the public. Of course, Windows and Office is still the default for most people and businesses, though.

  62. The Red Flag effect. by grinchmaster · · Score: 1

    It never ceases to amaze me that as soon as one puts BS and D together on slashdot, you get the run of idiots. Why does this happen? Are there people who truly believe that it makes any importance to anyone other than themselves what OS they use? In REAL LIFE, people who are able to see things from only one point of view are called SMALL MINDED. I'd say the ability to use only one OS is a limiting factor, not an advantage. As per the BSD is dead idiots, well at least get the right OS worked out. You're only showing your ignorance if you don't know which OS you're trying to talk down.

  63. Er by AvengerXP · · Score: 0, Troll

    Why would you stop selling something that's already dead anyhow?

    --
    Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
    1. Re:Er by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL, here we go...the "BSD is dying/dead" How wrong you are...as is stated in other posts people are ACTIVELY using and developing the flavors of BSD. You've got Japan where *BSD is very popular, ISPs who have been using freeBSD for probably 10 years(ie: my current provider), and others who actually are switching to BSD as a server because of it's robustness, and now with PF people are looking back to BSD again. I'm not saying Linux is weak, it's NOT WEAK, it could be the greatest hope to push M$ off the desktop! Fact is, the whole BSD community benefits from the attention Linux is getting, because it spills over for attention for BSD as well. The more Linux zealots say "*BSD is dead" the more people go "BSD? Hmmm..." and they go check it out. Linux can have the desktop, but the BSDs will always be the server they look to.

  64. Re:Turned over to another charnel house? by DA-MAN · · Score: 1

    LOL!

    That's going to be fun dealing with after RedHat drops support for 7.3. Suddenly no more updates, and it's either go to RH 10 or run an insecure box. I personally would either opt out for the RH Enterprise products or stick with good ol' Debian and/or FreeBSD.

    If keeping your boxes secure is important to you. Remember, even if you decided to roll your own updates, you wouldn't be able to get the cert advisories and what not before the fixes were released by vendors anyways, most of the time.

    Just so you know, I started this whole thing out with LOL because you put yourself in such a rediculous spot, by choice. I'm in the exact same spot, but not by choice.

    --
    Can I get an eye poke?
    Dog House Forum
  65. Re:Good riddance. by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1
    Do you really believe any of that, or were you trying to be funny?

    It is strange that Apple would choose to tout that their OS is based on 4.4BSD

    Oh! You were trying to be funny! OK, but you really need to post at a higher level in the topic if you want your message to be seen.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  66. Re:Sad news, BSD/OS dead at 12 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Heh, that was pretty funny. Like the bowling ball part. Too bad the mods are sux0rz today.

  67. BSD and OS X - good points by crucini · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Thanks. This issue has been irritating me, and you expressed it well. The idea that OS X is "based on" BSD seems deeply appealing to both Mac zealots and BSD zealots. Definitely a marketing coup.

    This topic came up today, and a Unix guy who is programming a MacOS application was there. I asked him, "How much of BSD is used when a normal user uses MacOS X?" (Meaning no terminals). After thinking a moment, he answered "None."

    Now he may have missed some odds and ends, but given his background and the fact that he's spending hours a day neck-deep in a MacOS X application, I think he's substantially right.

    1. Re:BSD and OS X - good points by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your friend _if you do indeed have any_ is a bonehead.

    2. Re:BSD and OS X - good points by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well, when a normal user runs mac os x they are running "bsd-like" unix. the kernel is not pure freebsd, but even the mach kernel is built on bsd 4.4 I would wager a bet that things like the tcp/ip stack are based on freebsd. even in the background several processes are running as daemon processes (one of the distinguishing factors of a BSD-like OS)
      and despite the presence of netinfo manager, there are some BSD-style configuration files behind-the-scenes that still work (see: an introduction to darwin at http://www.daemonnews.org/200010/darwin.html )

  68. Re:LMAO!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As far as I know Windows have had native support for Java for ages. Actually, since Microsoft and Sun signed an agreement about this back in 1997 that deals with this issue. So the fact that FreeBSD got this is fine but not exactly revolutionary.

  69. Re:Good riddance. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Higher up in userland, adapted versions of the BSD tools are used for the Unix command line, an odd choice, considering the GNU utilities are superior.


    I won't comment on OS X, but BSD needs defending. First off, BSD command-line tools are not inferior to GNU command-line tools. GNU adds lots of non-standard options and generally has poor man pages (if any) which are invariably out of date. BSD man pages are probably the best around. Second, GNU doesn't provide nearly as many command-line tools as does a standard BSD distribution, leaving linux distros to use many oddball tools from multiple sources, which don't conform to standard flags, help messages, man pages, etc.

  70. Re:FreeBSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As far as I know Windows have had native support for Java for ages. Actually since Microsoft and Sun signed an agreement about this back in 1997 that deals with this issue. So the fact that FreeBSD got this is fine but not exactly revolutionary.

  71. Re:Good riddance. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yikes....has anyone told the people at Juniper networks ? You know...the makers of likely the most powerful IP routers on the planet, whose OS is based directly on FreeBSD (or was it OpenBSD....).

    You sir, are an idiot.

  72. What I meant... by tkrotchko · · Score: 1

    The provided proxies were not well done, and from my viewpoint, the 5.0 release of Gauntlet was poor for proxying streams for video and audio.

    The support from NA was at its best poor. At worst, it was a rip-off.

    --
    You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
  73. Completely wrong. by AntiBasic · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Completely wrong. It was more than a year ago when WindRiver took over BSDi. And BSD/OS was a pretty bigtime product many, many years ago. Microsoft used it extensively before it ate its own dogfood with NT. Initially, BSDI's product was called BSD/386; not to be confused with 386/BSD. I have no idea why this was moderated-up. Oh wait, its simple-minded, infantile, liberal Linux zealots with no concern for accuracy.

    1. Re:Completely wrong. by edinho · · Score: 1

      Linux was not even mentioned! Maybe you are the one with the inferiority complex? A case of the, um, blackboard calling the chalk black? :-D

      Cheers,

    2. Re:Completely wrong. by AntiBasic · · Score: 1

      Maybe you are the one with the superiority complex? Go look at his handle son.

  74. Re:BSD IS DYING by dhawton · · Score: 0

    BSD/OS is dead... the free BSDs like FreeBSD are not... all the people out there saying *BSD is dead just don't like competition to Linux as far as I can tell. FreeBSD is for servers, and is *NOT* dead... get over it Linux Zealots, seriously. FreeBSD will not kill Linux, and same with Linux will not kill FreeBSD.

  75. Re:Good riddance. by evilviper · · Score: 1
    being of an elegant microkernel structure rather than the monolithic structure that BSD still retains.

    Not true. For performance reasons, Apple uses Mach as a monolithic kernel.

    adapted versions of the BSD tools are used for the Unix command line, an odd choice, considering the GNU utilities are superior.

    It is an absolutely ridiculous claim that the GNU tools are better than the BSD tools. In fact, the paper you link to does NOT include BSD-versions of the tools in their comparison.
    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  76. Re:What A Surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Like in nature, this is survival of the fittest. The weaker succumb and the strong survive. When you artificially prop something up, it might delay the inevitable, but it won't change the course of events. It's better to let the free market decide.

  77. Opss wrong Darwin is not BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Darwin is Apples own licence but they are kind of nice and give out the source. Darwin is built from freeBSD and Mach 3.0. But it is still not BSD. The problem is that BSD is a able to be over licenced.

    So something that was BSD once might not be BSD usable now. GPL fixs this problem.

  78. openbsd pf syntax all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nt

  79. Re:What A Surprise by jmo_jon · · Score: 1

    You make it sound like market economy is a part of nature, which i can assure you it's not.

    I think you forget all the gov aid most large corps have had, either in tax cuts or direct money like the farmers.

    Heck some companies, like united fruit, even get military aid.

  80. *BSD is alive and kicking, news at eleven by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I guess it's time to say a few words as a past member of the BSD/OS development team.

    Wind River had trouble dealing with the BSD thing for a long time. Keep in mind that their aim was *embedded* stuff, not the UNIX we all know and love.
    In that regard, their announcement is just a move back to a market Wind has been more successful in.

    I, too, knew the end was coming when I was one of the five people that received a pink slip in January, and I was (and I still am) worried about what happens to the people left behind. I hope they do well; some have troube dealing with the loss of something they've worked on for a decade or more.

    Of the five that have left, many have found a new place, but some are still looking. If you're looking for some *real* good folk, ping them. (I work at a leading Dutch security company now).

    I've had a *wonderful* 6 years at BSDI/Wind, and would like to thank the people I've worked with (including customers) for making it happen.

    BSD development will continue, it will just happen elsewhere. May the source be with you.

    Geert Jan

    1. Re:*BSD is alive and kicking, news at eleven by billhuey · · Score: 1

      Hey, it's Bill. Remember me ? your lone JVM engineer for BSD/OS ? now pissed off former JVM lead for the FreeBSD community ? :)

      Yeah, heard about the news, not good. I never like their management layer anyways, they never seem to understand what they had with their product and how incredible and engineering team you folks still are.

      Best engineering group I've ever work with and I'm happy to have met and work with you folks for that final year of BSDi, partied at Kirks, and the transition to WRS.

      I'll be around via the old email address: billh@gnuppy.monkey.org

      Good luck with you folks and drop me a line if you ever get in the San Diego area.

      bill

    2. Re:*BSD is alive and kicking, news at eleven by gujo-odori · · Score: 1
      (I work at a leading Dutch security company now).


      Is it the one where all those rich Nigerians have their millions of dollars on deposit?

  81. Re:Turned over to another charnel house? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NetBSD rules your bones!

  82. Re:What A Surprise by mandolin · · Score: 1
    You shouldn't -- if you want the program you're using to die, that is.

    That's overblowing things; there's a differenece between program "death" and program "stagnation". One of them, in theory, doesn't happen to Free Software.

    it's also fair to the authors

    Some authors don't care what you do. Some work for pizza and beer. Others run (in effect) a charity. Some actively maintain and improve their programs, and some don't/won't. Point is.. what and if you should contribute varies widely from author to author.

  83. BSD/OS dead by corbosman · · Score: 2, Informative

    BSD/OS has actually been in a coma for quite some time. Shutting down life support is the only fair thing to do.

    We used to run BSD/386 back in 1992 and used BSD/OS upto about 4.1. Around that point BSD/OS started to lag behind in the fast pace of development, but most importantly, in support. When you pay tens of thousands of dollars for licenses with no visible return you tend to start looking for alternatives.

    We switched our whole ISP (now around 600 servers) to FreeBSD with little hassle.

    It's a shame though, BSD/OS had some cool people behind it.

    Cor

    1. Re:BSD/OS dead by Mistah+Blue · · Score: 1

      I stopped using it after v1.0 when there was no upgrade path beyond (read low cost - as I wasn't making much then). This was in '94 I believe.

  84. Re:What A Surprise by main() · · Score: 1

    Dunno. But I have just spent 60 of your US dollars on a T-shirt and FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE CD set from http://www.freebsdmall.com/.

    Heck. These guys have kept me in a job for 6 years and its been all the more bearable owing to the technology they've put in my hands.

    Cheers,
    Si

    ps. *all* proceeds from sales at freebsdmall.com until September 13th go to freebsd. so now's an even better time to cough up 8-)

  85. Re:how can a piece of history be gone forever..... by Viol8 · · Score: 1

    Don't be silly. This website would just be a blank page if they did that. Hey ... maybe thats not such a bad idea...

  86. *BSD isn't dead in Japan. by ui9872 · · Score: 2, Informative

    In Japan, *BSD (especially FreeBSD) is very popular.
    You can see BSD Magazine and much more

  87. Re:Good riddance. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Flavor of FreeBSD, eh? How many native OSX apps can you also run cleanly on FreeBSD/PPC then? Hint: just cos an OS uses bits of another OS's code, doesn't make it a "flavor".

    Be realistic. Apple chose BSD over Linux simply because of licensing.

  88. I started using BSD/OS around v1.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    And when it reached roughly v3.0, FreeBSD had caught up for the uses I needed (DNS/Apache/mail). So I migrated to FreeBSD and didn't look back. About 2 years later, I did the same thing, except this time I switched from FreeBSD to Linux. And I haven't looked back.

    The BSDs are/were nice to use and are robust. For people that like *BSD, there's certainly no danger of them dying so there's no need to switch. Personally, I enjoy the greater support structure and commercial support behind Linux. I wonder if some other entity is going to step up and offer commercial support for BSD/OS?

    Cheers,

  89. Re:When I read this post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Consistentcy does have some merits.

  90. *sniff sniff* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You smell something?

  91. And now the Capony Group will... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... buy up the smoking carcass of that which was formerly known as BSDI and declare all *BSD to be their IP too.

    Right, Darl?

    1. Re:And now the Capony Group will... by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 1
      Right, Darl?

      Who's buying? It's already ours, and we're having words, believe you me. We're taking our IP, as well as all leftover office supplies and toiletries from the husk of a once-great IP thief.

  92. QUIT IT ALREADY!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are all pathetic.

    Linux and *BSD are all UNIX dervatives in some form or other. They are all open, transparent, unencumbered by upper management and their MBAs who understand nothing of why *N?X can run Marathons faster individually than Windows can as a relay team. They all have the same basic design philosophy (lots of little tools chained together) that has given Windows the MegaKernel from Hell and the rest of MS' bloatware.

    (Windows 2003! Whole months of Uptime!. Blah)

    Its like Peoples Front of Judea hating the the Judean Peoples Front who hate the Judean Popular Front and leaving the Romans to get on with ruling.

    Bill Gates is the Antichrist... or have we all forgotten that?

    1. Re:QUIT IT ALREADY!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly right!

      I am often baffled by the way that some Linux people are bashing BSD, spreading propaganda, and in general trying to soil the *BSDs. Linux can gain alot from the BSDs, because it's a different way of looking at things.

      BSD and Linux are technically similar but the cultures are very different. Is that a bad thing? Certainly not, because each ballances the other out. In fact, I've seen some who enjoy certain things about Linux distros looking to incorporate certain things into the BSD distros, others see some good things that BSDs have brought about, like PF(packet filter), and look at porting that to Linux.

      The two are COMPLIMENTARY, not mutually exclusive.

  93. Which to buy? by bluethundr · · Score: 1



    What to buy...what to buy...hmmm...hmmm...just can't decide how much I'd like to spend! I need to get my hands on a copy of BSD to host my site! Stat!

    --
    Quod scripsi, scripsi.
    1. Re:Which to buy? by JShadow · · Score: 1

      If you're looking for a server BSD...might want to look closely at OpenBSD

  94. Are all BSDI boxes gay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yours might be.

  95. Re:huh? except OpenBSD by beui · · Score: 1

    except, of course, OpenBSD.
    NetBSD being damn close in all those areas except security.

    --
    openbsd. gentoo. blfs. public key: 0x7EA13687 http://npt.ath.cx "All unix, all the time."
  96. Meta-mods...? Hello...? by theTerribleRobbo · · Score: 0
    Umm...

    ( ) 'Fair'
    (X) 'Unfair'
  97. Re:Turned over to another charnel house? by DA-MAN · · Score: 1

    Yeah, if you want to run a beowulf of Dreamcast, but for any real work it's gotta be Linux, FreeBSD, or OpenBSD.

    FreeBSD has it's optimization, OpenBSD has it's security, and Linux has the commercial support and fast evolution cycle. What's NetBSD got? It runs on my wristwatch. Well cool beans.....will a database and web farm made from wristwatches run on our enterprise network? No. Well then who gives a shit!

    --
    Can I get an eye poke?
    Dog House Forum
  98. A: by siskbc · · Score: 1
    Q: What do you call a gathering of BSD enthusiasts?

    A circle jerk! Hey, remember not to eat the soggy cracker...

    --

    -Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat

  99. Re: who cares about NetBSD by jdooley · · Score: 1

    A web farm made from wristwatches might not be useful on your enterprise network, but NetBSD can make old machines usable again. I recently bought a few SGI workstations (Indigo2's) from Boeing that were being surplused. Think I'm going to buy a $600 IRIX license (for each of 3 machines) for a computer that cost me $75? No. But I can download NetBSD and make the machines still useful. NetBSD running on an Indigo2 makes a fine small web or mail server. The parent said NetBSD rocks your bones. Bones... as in old computers (I'm just guessing)... Just because you don't give a shit doesn't mean the rest of us don't still see something as a useful product.

  100. Here is the "open" source to BSD/OS 1.1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would upload the source to 1.1, but it is 56 mb's and I am on 56k
    I will share it on kazaa:
    File:bsdi-1.1-src.tar.bz2
    Length:59420431 Bytes,58028KB
    UUHash:=9tbeO7iT7MuoAkhV/Zfi3YJgQQw =

    use sig2dat 3.11 and kazaalite ++

  101. Why not burn the karma? by Stephen+Samuel · · Score: 1
    Man, the mods are funny. The real goatse link is at +1 Troll with 50% Informative and my not-the-bad-tubgirl link is at -1 Troll.

    It's the almost reflexive reaction of immediately moderating anything to do with the goatse.cx site a troll. Originally it was a protective reaction (not wanting to get a flurry of complaints), then everybody knew what it was, so it became an inside joke. Now a quarter of the Slashdot audience doesn't know what the site is (since it's died out for more than a year because of the automatic domain tags).

    In any case, even with these two mods down to -1 I think I'm still net positive for the day.

    --
    Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
  102. Re: who cares about NetBSD by DA-MAN · · Score: 1

    I don't know about you, but making a $75 machine into a web/mail server is not bone rocking in my book. I've been doing this for years now with Linux on older alpha's and older sparcs.

    --
    Can I get an eye poke?
    Dog House Forum
  103. Re:FreeBSD is dying by andrewski · · Score: 1

    Sure, if you consider 'native support' as running about 1/5 of actual java code...

  104. Except OpenBSD is irrelavent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OpenBSD is a walking corpse, they have almost no
    market penetration. And increasingly as things
    go hyperthreaded and SMP based even on the desktop OpenBSD will be increasinly out in the cold as they have no MP support to speak of.

    Talk all you want, but this isn't about teenage
    fan kid zeal, its about the direction the market
    is moving in. Their is huge industry support behind Linux that continues to build, while with the exception of apple, industry support for BSD (and virtually all other Unices) continues to ebb.

    Look at where the dollar are going, and what CIO's and analysts are saying. I think the writing is
    on the wall is massive red letters.

  105. Re:What A Surprise by andrewski · · Score: 1

    You're actually implying that these shady umbrella corporations actually contribute significantly to FreeBSD. They really don't.

    Volunteer donations, maybe they help (although, being a relatively new concept in open source, I doubt it). Wind River or BSD mall don't help a whole lot.

  106. Perhaps.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps that's the reason why Japan does not have a good IT reputation. I mean, come on, name one Japanese computer guru! THERE JUST AIN'T NONE!

  107. Re:Turned over to another charnel house? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After BSD/OS, NetBSD is the deadest of the dead.

  108. SEVEN YEAR THEORY!!! bsd by Spooge+Knight · · Score: 1

    Tupac ain't comin back CAUSE I SHOT HIM!

  109. Not just Gauntlet by strat · · Score: 1

    Not only was original Gauntlet built upon BSD/OS, but Secure Computing Corporation's Sidewinder ran a version of BSD/OS into which Domain Type Enforcement had been integrated.

    It was the preferred choice for commercial secure UNIX on Intel platforms in the 90s.

    The network performance (amongst other things) was exceptional.

  110. Wind River history lesson by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    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 marketing 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 hobbyist dilettante dabblers. In truth, for all practical purposes *BSD is already dead. It is a dead man walking.

  111. BSD is dead ... by PinkFreud · · Score: 1

    ... long live BSD Lite.

  112. death be not proud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    When it comes to the subject of operating systems, most of us can agree on at least one thing, and that is the simple plain truth that *BSD is dying. But the deeper question is why? Why did *BSD fail?

    Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personas?

    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.