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ekkoBSD Officially Dead
sniperu writes "The EkkoBSD team leader announced the project's premature death , only 12 days after their latest release . No clue is given about the causes of such an unespected end other than saying "It's been a stressful fun trip" . You can still get the last release from the downloads page . Get it while you can ."
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 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 bureacratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.
Have you ever seen an animal backed into a corner and fighting for its life? That is the exact situation BSD finds itself in. The BSD fans are in a state of desperation, and even the mildest criticism of their hobby horse results in wild and paranoid outbursts from the faithful. They will find an alibi and excuse for everything. Truth has nothing to do with it. The truth is too painful for the BSD crowd.
It is common knowledge that *BSD is dying. And yet 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 personalities?
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.
I've been an avid follower of the developments in FreeBSD for around 5 years now, so my overview of the entire history of "glue that binds" FreeBSD together isn't complete. That said, I've come to be a bit disappointed at how events in the last 18 months or so seem to be pushing the project in a direction that has made things more difficult, instead of more successful, that has shown distain for experience and quality and made FreeBSD a platform for large ego's to push their personal projects down everyone's throat.
The statistics sample from 2001 over a year was a cheap attempt to minimize Matt Dillon's contribution to the project. The reason why he has been mostly silent is probably one of the most prominent signs of his superior maturity. The fact that the official defense (mostly fronted by Greg, atm) he wasn't such a substantial committer is crap, for the most part. If one wanted to go by the stats, Jeff Robertson (sorry if I munged the spelling) would be one of the key committers, and his UMA system isn't even entirely ripe yet, it's just been committed within the sample timeframe. That suddenly phk is at the top of the list, is simple a result of his newest attempt to add another large chunk of bit rot to the project that he can later claim not to have time to maintain "unless someone is willing to pay for my time" (like the atm bits, the half-finished devd monster, et.al.) One can hardly get him to look at his malloc bits, that put his name in lights at some point in the long past.
Matt didn't contribute because he was convinced that that the smp development direction that was chosen (my impression at least from the archives and my fading memory) was overly complex, too complex for the number and talent level of the contributers involved, and that it would delay a release from the -current branch significantly. So he was right. I'll almost bet that that was a constant sore for John, who still hasn't gotten his long-promised, but little delivered re-entrant work done, but he always had time enough to object to any other commits that might help along the way. Strangely Julian and Matt could work together. One might attribute certain commits to both Matt and Julian (if that would matter anyway, since -core is interested in proving the opposite statistically).
If the issue here had anything to do with IPFW, then you all better get out your C-coder hats and take a little more time to fix that rotting pile of muck that has been the standard broken packet filter interface for FreeBSD long past its possible usefulness. A packet filter with no central maintainer which is subject to once yearly random feature bloat through some wild university project from Luigi. The brokenness that Luigi introduced (and the repository bloat through backing out and recommitting, ad absurdum) was probably no less a threat to security than anything Matt did. If the security officer was to be blatantly honest with himself, ipfw would be marked broken for either a full audit or full removal (just port obsd's pf or something that someone actually actively _cares_ about).
You've alienated Jordan, Mike, Bill Paul (for all I can see), Greenman, you constantly rag on Terry, even though he's seen and done more with FreeBSD than most of you, O'Brien is on the verge of quitting (since he, like I, am not convinced that GEOM is anything more than an ego trip that will never be completely maintained or usefully documented). There are certainly others, too, that have attempted to make technically correct contributions, but didn't fit into the sort of paranoid "glee club" that core would like to have around them. You guys lack the talent to steer the positive from Matt into the project and let the crap fall by the wayside. I'm not saying Matt's rants are the most intelligent thing he's done, but he's sat by the wayside and watch the superstars beat up the code to a point where it's less stable, slower, and more bloated than it ever was. I, for one, can understand his frustration (as I can with Mike's, Jordan's, and a few oth
to those in the know, what the hell was ekkoBSD?
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
This is the trolling equivalent of pouring blood in shark-infested waters. *shudder*
[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's when
'nuff said. Really. Don't say it. ARRRRGH! *attacks*
I tried ekkobsd and for my tastes, it was indistinguishable from regular openbsd. From the get-go it seemed as though there was no real compelling reason for this distribution to exist (aside from itch scratching, of course).
However, I do wish the ekko project members success in their future endevours.
ekkoBSD was the idea of a guy named Rick Collette... now if you spend a little time googling that name you'll see that this guy has had his named attached to a few failed linux distributions. And on the ekkobsd.org webpage he even says: "Rick Collette - I actually only provided the Intel hardware, colo, marketing, path to completion, etc. I didn't do any coding at all - so my involvement was strictly in starting and attempting to guide the project. " the Operative word here is "didn't do any coding at all" This guy is a about as close to human hot air balloon as it gets. He starts up some project, makes a lot of noise, doesn't do a damn thing except get other people to do the work for him. This is just another failed attempt for this guy. Perhaps he'll learn to stop trying to make poor ripoff's of existing operating systems and wasting peoples time.
p ://lwn.net/2000/0323/a/deeplinux.html
Some choice urls:
http://linuxpr.com/releases/1319.html
htt
Ever heard of SPIROlinux? DeepLinux? Same guy, same story.
Remember, if it's worth re-doing, it's worth re-doing stupidly!
Then it morphed into some kind of "astral multiplatform nanokernel for multiple OS transmogrification of everything forever," churned and burned the confused efforts of many for three years, and died. But never officially. That would involve admitting maybe it wasn't a good idea in the first place.
I can't seem to find a really good account of the Freedows debacle anywhere. I'm sure it would make good reading. Hint, hint.
Check out the Apostrophe open-source CMS: http://www.apostrophenow.com/
At least they admit that their project is dead, which is more than can be said for the comparable disasters of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and, most recently, Firefly BSD, which was more or less born into a morgue.
There is nothing sadder than the spectacle of BSD zealots attempting to weather an endless barrage of crippling bombshells. This is the latest one; let it serve as a message to the irrational fanatics responsible for the other flailing BSDs.
Those BSD projects, like ekkoBSD, are dead.
R.I.P.
The EkkoBSD team leader announced the project's premature death
Did somebody get a confirmation from Netcraft about this?
bash$
So, EekkoBSD really is dying, eh?
C'mon, guys, you're just giving it right to the trolls...
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
So, EekkoBSD really is dying, eh?
I really need to learn to spellcheck my posts. It's EkkoBSD (or ekkoBSD?), not EekkoBSD.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Yet another crippling bombshell has hit the BSD community when CmdrTaco of Slashdot announced the death of EkkoBSD. The EkkoBSD homepage now contains a list of the people that worked on the project and their contributions. Although EkkoBSD is dead, this does not mean that BSD in general is dead any more than the Yankees losing last night means their season is dead. You have to try in order to succeed, and sometimes when you try, yuo fail it. But if no one ever failed it, no one would ever succeed it either, and we would still be running around in caves chasing wooly mammoths. To the EkkoBSD team your effort was not in vain.
ATTENTION METAMODERATORS: Please note the title of this story. This comment is not a troll, and it is certainly not offtopic, so if anyone has applied these moderations you should mark it "unfair." A Redundant mod, however, would be perfectly fair because I've basically just repeated what Taco said in the summary. Positive moderations are always appreciated, and should only be m2'd as "unfair" when someone mods up a blatant copy&paste troll or hidden goatse/lastmeasure link (neither of which describes this comment; I defy anyone to find a copy of this comment on the GNAA website or any other trolling website).
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
Somehow, "I told you so" doesn't quite say it!
How interesting.. not a single comment that actually has any information value at all.. I knew the standard was somewhat low here, but this low?
How is this news? Everyone knows BSD is dead, and as a consequence, EkkoBSD is dead (because it's a BSD)
Saying ekkoBSD's death is a "crippling bombshell" to the entire BSD community is analogous to saying that the burger some McDonalds patron dropped while walking home is a "crippling bombshell" to McDonalds itself. Nonsense. FreeBSD 5-CURRENT is steadily approaching a good level of stability, after which it will be a Linux-killer for most desktop and some server applications. NetBSD has been and always will be the best operating system for portability, and the 2 branch is making admirable progress into modern standards and functionality while retaining amazing stability and cleanliness. OpenBSD had some scalability issues which are resolved, and now is making way into modern SMP and other useful applications. DragonFlyBSD is making astonishing progress given its currently small (but talented and enthusiasatic) developer base, and is already very close to being a viable alternative to FreeBSD for those who want something different. None of the BSDs are 'dead'. Their developer bases are largely comprised of people who focus on their Operating System (yes, technical note, all BSDs are entire Operating Systems, unlike Linux which is a toy kernel often accompanied by a user space tool chain you can run anywhere, and some hackish utilities for interfacing with the kernel), not on how many file systems they can add barely-working support for, how many undocumented kernel options they can hack on without anyone's understanding, and how many tshirts they can sell for market saturation. Linux developers lost their goal as well, what began as a valiant and successful (even if more via media coverage than technical merit, as benchmarks of even 2.4 will show) development effort of a kernel from scratch, has become an orgy of random features, some to directly oppose Windows development, some for performance [on one machine in the world, with all else being much worse off], some for 'l33t points' which amount to nothing in the real world... look at all the different patch sets for the different versions of the Linux kernel, and it's hard to respect the project at all. Some of these will get integrated if they get enough hype, some will die away, some will set your machine on fire (or in my case of trying 2.6.7-mm6, completely misuse your standard 3Com 905B network adapter, which works in any other kernel). Most of the negative slander BSD gets is the few Linux-using trolls on Slashdot who post the same terrifyingly misinformed crap, many as Anonymous Coward. "NetCraft confirms: BSD is dying", and yet NetCraft servers run FreeBSD? Do your homework people. BSD is not dying. Neither is Windows, since even that has some place in the world, believe it or not. Linux is not a magic bullet. It is and, by design, always will be a curious project to see what features can be hacked on to a bootable kernel. It is not an Operating System. It only survives from amazing marketting and corporate sponsorship, the two being mutually sustainant. The most interesting aspect of all of this is how most BSD-haters have never actually properly used and administered a BSD machine (may as well be FreeBSD since that is ahead in ease-of-use and Linux-killing power). Most BSD users won't bother slandering Linux, but for once I'd like to. I've used it lots, watched the transition from 2.4 to 2.6 and so on, and at no stage did I consider it a work of art. The transition to FreeBSD was an utter bliss of administrative elegance and system design, to the point I never looked back [except to test emerging Linux kernel versions against FreeBSD-CURRENT, with Linux never being impressive]. Say what you want about the brilliance of Gentoo's Portage (based on the design of FreeBSD Ports and NetBSD pkgsrc, lest you forget), it is not Linux itself. Type up lengthly propaganda involving Linux' amazing growth in corporate and governmental applications, it only provides more evidence of globalisation at work, even if of free software. Post the same "BSD is dead" article over and over on /. with the kind of blind propaganda that would make a preacher blush, a
Sam ty sig.
I did a review of EkkoBSD right after its latest release, and was a bit disappointed because their main project goal, "to make it easy to install," was completly not met... but I forgave it a little because it was a beta. But now that's moot.
Oh well...
*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.
To: Secretary of State Colin Powell
July 16, 2004
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
Did any of Ekko make its way back to OpenBSD?
Good News Everyone!
Turns out that *BSD is stronger than ever!
According to an Inernetnews article, Netcraft has confirmed that *BSD has "dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
There has been a steady increase in *BSD developers over the past decade.
There are currently 307 FreeBSD developers as of the 2004 core team election.
You can read more about FreeBSD here
If you would like to try out a BSD, you can download: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, or DragonflyBSD
Enjoy!
Aren't all BSD variants dead already ? After all, it's a boring OS with all the fun that Linux has missing, the developers fight and bicker more than they do any programming. And performance is lackluster too.
They should have named it GeekoBSD, then it would have gotten some attention. Right now it looks just like a useless fork that some guy Ekko did just to boost his ego.
Move him into the sun--
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it awoke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds--
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved,--still warm,--too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
--O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
What is/was there to backport?
Well, thier stated goal was a more user-friendly spin-off of OpenBSD. Supposedly, they hacked up the install routine.
EkkoBSD is dead. Who cares. I'm not going to let it get me down. I just want to be remembered as a person who loved God, who served others more than he served himself, who was trying to grow in maturity and stability. I want to have more victories than defeats, yet here I am, almost 35, and I fail on a regular basis. My involvement with BSD has been no different. It seems that I'm a magnet for failed enterprises like BSD. Some investment advice for you -- look at my portfolio, then you'll know what stock not to buy.
Nothing much, there was a few additions to the base system, unfinished installers that didn't even make it into CVS. There was a BSD licensed clone of dialog (which lives with MirOS now).
So every time a linux distro is discontinued can we claim linux is dying?
It is perhaps anybody's guess as to which *BSD is the worst off of an admittedly suffering *BSD community. The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The erosion of user base for FreeBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral.
Consider that because of the many 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.
Every major marketing survey has shown that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are infinitesimally 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.
I did find this on one of the developer's, Dave Steinberg, website:
Zef
What about MEEPT?!?!
I did get a copy of it at one point and tried the installer, but I didn't see anything that looked different then the old installers..
What happened to the 'nice gui' they were striving for? Did it ever materialize and could it be updated to the main *BSD projects?
For the newbie the installers of the BSD's can be rather intimidating. Providing an 'pretty/easy' option for them might help grow the community.
---- Booth was a patriot ----