Slashdot Mirror
Metawire.org Admin On OpenBSD Hosting
hext0r writes "Open Hosting provider metawire.org administrator Daniel Selans recently wrote an informative article for the OpenBSD Journal about the difficulties and successes in running a free hosting provider using OpenBSD. It's an informative read for anyone considering starting any type of hosting company using free technologies."
Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying.
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house. All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dead
I'm sure Billy's going to start trolling BSD once he gets through using Linux as a case study against open source. Microsoft is already proud of Linux's high TCO compared to Windows.
Oh where, oh where is my BSD?
I just loaded it yesterday.
It's gone to heaven, so I've got to be good,
So I can see the OS when I leave this world.
I'd started to load it in my roommate's Dell,
the hard drive was taking it pretty well.
During the load, straight ahead,
the distro was stalled, *BSD was dead.
I couldn't stop, so I yanked the cord.
I'll never forget, the sound , oh Lord--
the screamin' drives, the speaker's blast,
the painful scream that I-- heard last.
Oh where, oh where is my *BSD?
That load took it away from me.
It's gone to heaven, so I've got to be good,
So I can see *BSD when I leave this world.
When I woke up, the sparks were pourin down.
There were admins standin all around.
Some fragments of chips gotten in my eyes,
but somehow I found my *BSD that night.
I lifted the CD, it looked at me and said,
"Load me darlin just a little while."
I held it close, I kissed the CD label--our last kiss.
I found the love that i knew i had missed
well now it's gone, even though I hold it tight
I lost my *BSD and my Dell-- that night.
Oh where, oh where is my *BSD?
The load took it away from me.
It's gone to heaven so I've got to be good,
So I can see *BSD when I leave this world.
I've heard of that happening before. Oh yes, that's right, www.redhat.com.