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FreeBSD Status Report March-April 2004
Anonymous Coward writes "The FreeBSD project has posted a new status report
for March and April of 2004. Work continues on locking down the network
stack, ACPI made more great strides, an ARM port appeared in the tree,
and the FreeBSD 4.10 release cycle wrapped up."
x86 life looks ever more limited!
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
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, it crashed the heads,
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 burned-out chips had fallen on the tiles,
but somehow I found my disc of files.
I lifted the CD, the devil winked and said,
"Load me darlin just a little while."
I held it close, I kissed the label--our last kiss.
I found the love that i knew i had missed
well now it's gone, even though I loaded it right
I lost my *BSD and the Dell-- that night.
Oh where, oh where is my *BSD?
I tried to load it yesterday.
It's gone to heaven so I've got to be good,
So I can see *BSD when I leave this world.
When I next went to Slashdot, where so many had trolled.
Any so many times "BSD's Dead!" was told.
Tears fallin' on the keyboard, I checked "Anonymous"
and I eulogized *BSD, in memory, of us....
When I logged on next, my post was modded down.
In my heartbreak and sorrow, treated like a clown....
No matter what the mods do, it's in my heart and head
We'll always know "*BSD IS DEAD!"
Oh where, oh where is my *BSD?
I tried to load it yesterday.
It's gone to heaven so I've got to be good,
So I can see *BSD when I leave this world.
Same Alan Cox of Linux kernel hacking fame? Woot! We've attracted him to the dark side... ;)
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
*BSD, that is.
There are only two kinds of responses to *BSD news items: those that have been modded "-1", and "0" ranked items that the moderators have not yet modded down to "-1".
May 2003 beep
June 2003 beep
July 2003 badump
August 2003 beep
September 2003 beep
October 2003 "Clear"
November 2003 badump
December 2003 badump
January 2004 beep
February 2004 beep
March 2004 beeeeeeep
April 2004 "Time of Death?"
"I was writing a operating system on the PC, and it was, like, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep," says Nate Lawson, FreeBSD developer. "And then, like, half of my OS was dead. And I was, like heh. It devoured my OS. It was a really good OS."
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. I
Meanwhile, it looks like they still haven't fixed the IDE disk geometry problems that have created problems for FreeBSD users worldwide for years:
FreeBSD bug search results
Just another example of how the open-source community has its priorities all wrong. Getting the OS to install smoothly should be a top priority. This issue should have been resolved years ago.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dbblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
We are well past rigor mortis as deep down decay is now setting in on this corpse.
Q: What do you call a *BSD developer's convention?
A: A CEMETARY!
It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amdest.com] to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dbblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
"and the FreeBSD 4.10 release cycle wrapped up."
Wrapping it up, eh? SOUNDS LIKE MUMMIFICATION TO ME!!!
It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dbblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I love FreeBSD! When one of the linux distros will switch over from the Linux effect and adopt one of the BSD??
:)
Anyone interested in starting a bsd company offering a rock solid desktop OS?
Flip a coin, it doesn't really matter which you choose:
;)
FreeBSD is something i'd put on a critical nfs/http/ftp server or something
OpenBSD is something I'd put on a Pentium 200Mhz box to keep that nfs/http/ftp box safe.
Nothing prevents you from doing either one with either operating system. It's just about preference
Error 407 - No creative sig found
OpenBSD will always have the most up to date PF stuff.
What you'll notice with OpenBSD is that you're discouraged from messing with the kernel at all, and ports work better. Theoretically, you may notice it's slower, and you'll probably notice that the software isn't as up to date. Debian-stable should also be in consideration, depending on your needs, but its firewalling capabilities are well behind FreeBSD and OpenBSD.
You're giving something up if you commit to anything period. FreeBSD and OpenBSD have dramatically disjoint sets of stuff they're good at. I've never seen an OS good enough at everything (or even most things) to make it worth commiting to. Not if you can deal with multiple OSes on a day to day basis.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
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 fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers.
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
The one question I always had is when would someone want to use NetBSD except for when they want to t=use *nix on their toaster?
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
When are freebsd, openbsd, and netbsd adopt the one true ports system? Is there any logical reason to have three different source based ports systems?
evil is as evil does
The current status of the FreeBSD on PowerPC is here
Short version: It's a Tier 2 architecture which means it's not quite there yet. According to the project page it's "on the verge of booting to single-user mode".
I like to keep my trolls to the point.
Dragonfly is going to eat FreeBSD eventually. There'll be a serious brain drain in the Free camp once Dragonfly reaches a release stage, as it's rapidly exchanging FreeBSD cruft for DragonflyBSD niceness. People will want to work on the better BSD, and that'll be Dragonfly.
This is a log I had with a BSD zealot person...
:) :( :) :)
S. tell P.: btw, I got enough of reputation of fanatic horse defender and horse welfare fighter that I think finding out I'm a zoo wouldn't do much harm
-> P. nods, so did a zoo I know IRL, he even had a horse rescue center, but he still has a lot of people who suspect him and avoid him because of it
-> P. tells you: all because he told his GF
S. tell P.: I'm not going to put myself into any situation that could mean danger to horses.
-> P. tells you: and she told as many people as possible
S. tell P.: A human GF. That's a baaad mistake for a zoo.
-> P. tells you: she wasn't too happy that he bonked mares.
-> P. tells you: she sent him emails every day for the next couple of months threatening him...
S. emote to P.: S. nods. Jealous probably. And feeling worse.
-> P. tells you: and since he lives in a 20,000 person town (8,000 whites and 12,000 blacks), the rumours from the GF spread very quickly indeed
S. nods.
S. is probably never going to have a human GF. At least one who wouldn't know.
P. nodsnods.
S. says: (like, all ppl on furry mailing list know I'm a zoo, if I "picked" one of the furry she-wolfs it wouldn't necessarily be bad
P. thinks it would be cool to have a GF that wasn't really human, but sort of like a realdoll with a quantumn computer brain that had a limited subsystem that allowed procreation naturally.
S. coughs.
S. asks: A robotic GF?
P. says: programmable brain, of course.
P. says: preferably running FreeBSD.
P. says: programmed in python.
P. says: no, not robotic... more like cybernetic.
So, who do you think is more pervert?
Book: The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System
I know a birthday present for this year!
bash$
testing
When will the status change from dying to dead ?
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.
*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_ _ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
g_______________________________________________g
o_/_____\_____________\____________/____\_______o
a|_______|_____________\__________|______|______a
t|_______`._____________|_________|_______:_____t
s`________|_____________|________\|_______|_____s
e_\_______|_/_______/__\\\___--___\\_______:____e
x__\______\/____--~~__________~--__|_\_____|____x
*___\______\_-~____________________~-_\____|____*
g____\______\_________.--------.______\|___|____g
o______\_____\______//_________(_(__>__\___|____o
a_______\___.__C____)_________(_(____>__|__/____a
t_______/\_|___C_____)/______\_(_____>__|_/_____t
s______/_/\|___C_____)__*BSD_|__(___>___/__\____s
e_____|___(____C_____)\______/__//__/_/_____\___e
x_____|____\__|_____\\_________//_(__/_______|__x
*____|_\____\____)___`----___--'_____________|__*
g____|__\______________\_______/____________/_|_g
o___|______________/____|_____|__\____________|_o
a___|_____________|____/_______\__\___________|_a
t___|__________/_/____|_________|__\___________|t
s___|_________/_/______\__/\___/____|__________|s
e__|_________/_/________|____|_______|_________|e
x__|__________|_________|____|_______|_________|x
*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*
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Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.
Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) If you want replies to your comments sent to you, consider logging in or creating an account.
#include "imo.h"
I think the advantages of FreeBSD are drivers ( for newer toys ), speed, and that jail thing ( which I have not actually used ) which AFAIK lets you run a virtual machine chroot thing. Also, freebsd ( and netbsd ) have automagical update the ports/packages tools and things. On openbsd you need to pkg_delete them yourself.
Other than that, I think OpenBSD is the ticket. Lots of people seem to think OpenBsd is only a firewall OS... which is unfortunate. OpenBSD works fine as a standard server ( eg, web, dns, mail, ftp, samba, etc ). The security effort which goes into obsd is also a deeper than just things disabled by default, too.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
It's dead.
Gnusay -- for all your talking gnu needs.
Seriously?
Personally, I see the different BSDs as all good OSes, but for different purposes...
FreeBSD - Good general purpose server OS, and my 'nix of choice on x86
OpenBSD - Good firewall/network-device OS, runs wonderfully on good hardware (like old SPARCs) Though it can often be behind the ball in places you'd least expect it until you run into them head-on, out of nowhere. (Like when I tried the sparc64 port on my Netra, and it ran slowly, and didn't like more than 2 hme network interfaces)
NetBSD - Tinkerer's OS of choice. Runs on anything, and is easy to manually install. Perfect for figuring out how to net-boot a VAXstation, SPARC, or simply to put that Sun3 through its paces. (and anyone who thinks you can't have gcc and X in a 200MB full system, has never used NetBSD)
Firewall Failover
"In test environments, we have run up to 4 pfsync+carp hosts (all different architectures: i386, sparc, sparc64, and amd64!), randomly rebooting them. TCP sessions were not interrupted through over two days of such torture testing."
Linux has UCARP, but has no way for the stateful firewall to do transparent failover.
Don't really feel like researching enough detail for a comprehensive summary of the other stuff.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.