Slashdot Mirror
DragonFlyBSD Team Interviewed
lowks writes "A nice little interview from the ONLamp BSD advocacy page where we get to peer a little into the goings ons and updates as well as plans for DragonFlyBSD. Highlights include the rationale behind DragonFlyBSD and peeks into the current engine as well as goodies planned to be implemented in the future versions. DragonFlyBSD is another flavour of BSD which forked from the FreeBSD 4.x branch not too long ago. It's headed by Matt Dillon, who forged out on his own and started DragonFlyBSD due to technical differences with the FreeBSD team ."
First BSD is dead post
Or I suppose it could be that I'm mildly interested in Dragonfly and I think Matt et all have a strong argument in LWKT.
Hmmm now I wonder what sort of SMP strategy is used in OS X??
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
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 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 dying
just farted! Is that really news?
They can now tell people: look we have 5 guys running FreeBSD, 5 guys running NetBSD, 5 guys running OpenBSD and 5 guys running DragBSD.
Someome who is not familiar with the BSD folks' rhetoric might think 20 people are using BSD, while in fact it's the same 5 nerds (3 of whom are still to reach puberty in their 30s) who use this "OS".
Did you use BSD back when it was alive or did you only get into it after it died because of your necrophilia?
The driver of the bus was negotiating a bend in the road when he lost control of the vehicle which skidded and crashed into a gorge, nearly 200 feet below. Residents of nearby villages and authorities found 22 bodies. BSD was among the dead. Its corpse has gone unclaimed, leading to speculation that BSD was indeed an orphan. Calls to former spouse Wind River went unreturned.
Dealing with the death of someone close to you can be one of the most traumatic experiences of your life, and you're bound to go through a range of emotions. While you may be able to work through those feelings on your own, it's often helpful to talk to a friend, a family member, or a counselor. You might also seek out a support group for people who are grieving.
Grieving is a process, and it's totally normal to go through feelings of shock, sadness, anger -- even guilt. The healing process is different for everyone. It might take you six weeks to move on, or it might take you six years. Don't beat yourself up because you're not "over it" yet. It takes time to heal wounds.
So what else can you do to feel better? It might sound corny, but try writing a letter, making a collage, or planting a tree in memory of the operating system you've lost. Remembering and celebrating all the good things *BSD brought to your life might help give you some closure, and having a keepsake to honor *BSD may help you get through some tough times in the future when you'll be missing it.
It's true that life won't be the same without *BSD around. It may seem like you'll never feel better, but eventually you will. Take some comfort in the old saying, "Time heals all wounds," and remember that *BSD will always be with you in your heart.
=======
P.S. Bite! You've been bitten by the Original AIDS Monkey! You have AIDS now!
If by "technical differences with the FreeBSD core team" you mean "kicked off the team and mailing lists for hostile, inflammatory behavior," then you're right on the money.
I listened to Dillon's crap on the -current mailing list and elsewhere. 'Technical differences' were the least of the concerns in getting rid of him.
Sure, he's competent, and he's contributed some great things to FreeBSD over the years, but that doesn't mean he's not a troll.
It seems like this new DragonFLy BSD project could become very interesting. I have been wondering for a while what their exact purpose was for the split, and I think I like it. Their goal of implementing cleaner and more scalable structures sounds like a worthy one, even if it is a long tem goal.
Who knows, someday the BSD world might break up lke this:
OpenBSD is for Routers and firewalls
NetBSD is for XBox/Toaster/microwave/everything else =P
FreeBSD is for Servers
and
DragonBSD is for SSI Supercomputers or other highly scalable systems.
Why is it that, for any BSD article, half of the responses are standard, boring, retarded "BSD is dying" posts. I think it is just a bunch of linux evangelists with massive insecurities, just wanting to ensure that linux stays at the top of the heap when it comes to open-source operating systems. Who says that all competition has to come from Microsoft? It's not like they're amazing to begin with. (For the record: I am a happy Linux user. I tried OpenBSD, and found that I didn't like it. This does not stop me from realizing that some people like it more, and that it may be better for some purposes. At the moment, I am considering giving FreeBSD a try. Generally I'm open-minded towards all operating systems. Yes. Even Windows, to a lesser degree)
It looks like BSD is gaining more market share now that ever before. There is a new company Crescent Anchor with a commercially supported BSD operating system called SilverOS which looks likes its based off of the upcoming release of DragonFly. Http://www.crescentanchor.com
From reading through the site site the operating system looks very interesting. They already have a large client base, with some very respectable companies listed. I think I'll order a copy and at least give it a try as FreeBSD 4.x is what we use at work and I've noticed the development work on 4.x has slowed down a lot in the past year . SilverOS/DragonFly might be what we start running next. We've already been looking at DragonFly for some time now and if there is a company offering commercial support I can't see a reason not to start using it now.
Chocolate Icecream is DEAD!
Everyone knows that Vanilla icecream is better than chocolate icecream.
You can ask anyone who works in an icecream shop, everyone wants vanilla!
If you eat chocolate icecream, then you are a necropheliac because chocolate icecream is dead!
Everyone knows that vanilla icecream is superior. Chocolate icecream eaters are morons.
Even the people who make chocolate icecream know that their days are numbered. They don't sell as much icecream as the vanilla icecream makers.
[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. It
I predict that DragonFlyBSD ain't gonna fly. Do you want to know why? Dillon started it out of spite, because he hated the rest of the BSD team. When the anger blows over, the fly will be dead.
Grieving is a process, and it's totally normal to go through feelings of shock, sadness, anger even guilt. The healing process is different for everyone. It might take you six weeks to move on, or it might take you six years. Every person is different. Don't beat yourself up because you're not "over it" yet. It takes time to heal wounds.
So what else can you do to feel better? It might sound corny, but try writing a letter, making a collage, or planting a tree in memory of the operating system you've lost. Remembering and celebrating all the good things *BSD brought to your life might help give you some closure, and having a keepsake to honor *BSD may help you get through some tough times in the future when you'll be missing it.
It's true that life won't be the same without *BSD around. It may seem like you'll never feel better, but eventually you will. Take some comfort in the old saying, "Time heals all wounds," and remember that *BSD will always be with you in your heart.
Do we really need Yet Another *BSD? I mean isn't all that fragmention bad after all? At the end of the day we have Developers / 4 to move ahead.
:) ) is like drawing four lines to go from one point to the other.
:P
I mean the fastest way between two point is the straight line. With 4 *BSD's (yet another apostophe
Weel what the hell, BSD is dying anyway, so lets die with company.
Yet another sickening blow has struck what's left of the *BSD community, as a soon-to-be-released report by the independent Commision for Technology Management (CTM) after a year-long study has concluded: *BSD is already dead. Here are some of the commission's findings:
.005% of internet servers. A recent attempt at a face-to-face summit in Boulder, Colorado culminated in an out-and-out fistfight between core developers, reportedly over code commenting formats (tabs vs. spaces). Hotel security guards broke up the melee and banned the participants from the hotel. Two of the developers were hospitalized, and one continues to have his jaw wired shut.
Fact: DragonflyBSD, yet another offshoot of the beleaguered FreeBSD "project", is already collapsing under the weight of internal power struggles and in-fighting. "They haven't done a single decent release," notes Mark Baron, an industry watcher and columnist. "Their mailing lists read like an online version of a Jerry Springer episode, complete with food fights, swearing, name-calling, and chair-throwing." Netcraft reports that DragonflyBSD is run on exactly 0% of internet servers.
Fact: the *BSDs have balkanized yet again. There are now no less than twelve separate, competing *BSD projects, each of which has introduced fundamental incompatibilities with the other *BSDs, and frequently with Unix standards. Average number of developers in each project: fewer than five. Average number of users per project: there are no definitive numbers, but reports show that all projects are on the decline.
Fact: X.org will not include support *BSD. The newly formed group believes that the *BSDs have strayed too far from Unix standards and have become too difficult to support along with Linux and Solaris x86. "It's too much trouble," said one anonymous developer. "If they want to make their own standards, let them doing the porting for us."
Fact: There are almost no FreeBSD developers left, and its use, according to Netcraft, is down to a sadly crippled
Fact: NetBSD, which claims to focus on portability (whatever that is supposed to mean), is slow, and cannot take advantage of multiple CPUs. "That about drove the last nail in the coffin for BSD use here," said Michael Curry, CTO of Amazon.com. "We took our NetBSD boxes out to the backyard and shot them in the head. We're much happier running Linux."
Fact: *BSD has no support from the media. Number of Linux magazines available at bookstores: 5 (Linux Journal, Linux World, Linux Developer, Linux Format, Linux User). Number of available *BSD magazines: 0. Current count of Linux-oriented technical books: 1071. Current count of *BSD books: 6.
Fact: Many user-level applications will no longer work under *BSD, and no one is working to change this. The GIMP, a Photoshop-like application, has not worked at all under *BSD since version 1.1 (sorry, too much trouble for such a small base, developers have said). OpenOffice, a Microsoft Office clone, has never worked under *BSD and never will. ("Why would we bother?" said developer Steven Andrews, an OpenOffice team lead.)
Fact: servers running OpenBSD, which claims to focus on security, are frequently compromised. According to Jim Markham, editor of the online security forum SecurityWatch, the few OpenBSD servers that exist on the internet have become a joke among the hacker community. "They make a game out of it," he says. "(OpenBSD leader) Theo [de Raadt] will scramble to make a new patch to fix one problem, and they've already compromised a bunch of boxes with a different exploit."
With these incontroverible facts staring (what's left of) the *BSD community in the face, they can only draw one conclusion: *BSD is already dead.
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 dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save *BSD at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
To: Secretary of State Colin Powell
March 10, 2003
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I am joining my colleague AmigaOS in submitting my resignation from the list of living operating systems (effective immediately) because I cannot in good conscience compete with Linux.
I have failed:
--To support SMP
--To generate media attention
--To spawn a professionally managed distribution
--To innovate
--To be relevant.
Throughout the globe *BSD is becoming associated with in-fighting and sloppy coding. My disregard for views of other operating systems, borne out by my neglect of technical competence, is giving birth to an anti-BSD century.
I joined the operating system world because I love technology. Respectfully, Mr. Secretary, I am now bringing this calling to a close, with a heavy heart but for the same reason that I embraced it.
Sincerely,
*BSD
Dead Operating System