Slashdot Mirror
FreeBSD 5.3 on the Horizon
underpar writes "ZDNet UK is reporting that FreeBSD is nearing a code freeze. August 15th is the deadline which will be followed by the usual beta testing and a final release hoped for by October 1st. ZDNet interviewed the software engineer leading the release work, Scott Long, for the article. He says: 'The 5.3 release will be the first one where we see the real benefits of that. The multithreaded network stack will outperform everything we've done before, for running applications such as Apache or MySQL.' Status reports can be found on the FreeBSD website." I've been using the last technology release of FreeBSD for some time now, and am really looking forward to the 5.3 release, as well as the 5-STABLE branch that's rumored to follow soon after.
Observing that coders had found it difficult to distinguish in their software a rising sun from a setting sun, Benjamin Franklin once said: "I have often ... in the course of reading Slashdot ... looked at that sun behind FreeBSD without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now at length I have the sadness to know it is a setting and not a rising sun. FreeBSD is dying."
That's right; Ben Franklin confirms FreeBSD is dying.
Nothing starts a weekend right quite the way a wake does!
GNAA Announces Interview with Real Troll Talk
Osaka, Japan - In a worldwide first, GNAA founder and president timecop agreed to conduct an interview with Real Troll Talk, a Slashdot member documenting the ways and means of internet trolls worldwide.
Although meant to be a one on one interview, several GNAA members were present in the audience, and many "contributed" to the interview by shouting out points that timecop forgot and by calling him an asshole. "The interview went well," timecop said afterward, "I was very pleased with the interest in GNAA and the exposure we'll be getting through this. Real Troll Talk seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with the sexual aspects of GNAA, though."
GNAA member godspeed noted that "The interview was really good, and I have a strong feeling that Real Troll Talk may be a homosexual black man himself. You could say my gaynigdar was set off by that dude." Opened to other GNAA members for comment, vSKIZZILE was quick to add "HAHA FGTS! You are all gay, LOL @ WTC LOL @ JEWS!!!! FRIST POSTAGE FOR GNAA!"
A transcript of the interview is available in Real Troll Talk #6, available at Real Troll Talk's Slashdot journal
About Real Troll Talk:
Real Troll Talk is Slashdot member number 793436, and has been running a series of journal articles on internet trolling, seeming to take a particular interest in Slashdot and Kuro5hin. You can find back issues of "Real Troll Talk" at Real Troll Talk's Journal
About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.
Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?
If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America and the World! You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!
Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today! Upon submitting your application, you will be required to submit links to your successful First Post, and you will be tested on your knowledge of GAYNIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE.
If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is NiggerNET, and you can connect to irc.gnaa.us as our official server. Follow this link
Lamar Latrell
The well known civil rights group Gay Nigger Association of America(GNAA) is considering legal action against alleged trolling group Slashdot. GNAA claims that Slashdot has been constantly trolling the GNAA website with racist comments, anti-gay sentiment, and other despicable behavior
Our call to the District Attorney's office revealed that GNAA isn't the only organization with a beef against Slashdot. District Attorney Tallbird had this to say, "Slashdot is actually a borderline terrorist organization and after the GNAA is done gutting it financially in civil court the government's case in a criminal court will probably be going ahead. We believe that Slashdot has been secretly divulging sensitive information to Axis of Evil countries through its mindless mass of utterly useless forums."
Among recent allegations against Slashdot is the enormous crapflood of GNAA.US throughout the month of June. Included in this crapflood were papparazzi photos of Will Wheaton in various homoerotic situations. Many gayniggers were enormously offended by the incredibly small size of Wheaton's Dong.
The self proclaimed Slashdot commander and extreme geek, CmdrTaco, responded from Camp Shane, where he is spending this summer saying, "This is just another example of the Nigger's ongoing campaign to control the internet."He went on to say that our question had rudely interrupted his nice whale orgy with his gigantic wife who is also at the camp this summer. GNAA Chief Engineer, MrSchwul, had this to say about the impending lawsuit, "Hugely fat, white gayfags like CmdrTaco are relics of the past when things like slave pwnership was common practice. Everyone out there must recognize the huge battle we face when ridding the internet of garbage such as slashdot." Well known activist PenisBird had this to say, "ruin that rectum", possibly referring to the recent street riots involving huge groups of white-hooded slashdot users fighting masses of gayniggers, who are known for their special finishing move, rectum ruination.
About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.
Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?
If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America and the World! You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!
Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!
If Apple can provide a 1.4.2 JDK, certainly FreeBSD can as well. Please don't make me stick with Red Hat 9 of all things.
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
FreeBSD is dead.
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.
FreeBSD vs Linux - The Definitive Comparison
Flamewars between FreeBSD and Linux advocates occur all the time, so it's often hard to make a judgement. Our 500-employee company recently decided to convert fully to Open Source software and OSes; I was put in charge of making the decisions. It boiled down to FreeBSD and Linux, and without letting any bias or emotions get in the way, I established the following criteria.
Performance
This is a complicated issue, so let's consider these three types of machine (in use at our company):
Single CPU server: FreeBSD just edged ahead of Linux on this one. The differences weren't drastic, but large enough - consequently, score 1 for FreeBSD here.
Multi CPU server: With kernel 2.6, Linux performed considerably better than both FreeBSD 4.9 and 5.2.1. The updated SMP code and revised scheduler have worked wonders here, so 1 for Linux.
Desktop: Linux 2.6 is much faster than either FreeBSD, particularly when the system is heavily loaded. Application start times are slightly better, while responsiveness is remarkably superior to FreeBSD. Another 1 for Linux.
Result: FreeBSD 1, Linux 2
Stability
Linux distributions vary greatly in terms of stability, with Mandrake Linux and Fedora Core aiming for bleeding-edge desktop features, while Slackware and Debian put great emphasis on stability. FreeBSD is indeed a reliable OS, but the smaller development and testing community puts it behind Linux - additionally, there are more full-time Linux developers working with commercial companies on hardware support and core component testing.
Our Debian and Slackware systems have never crashed or suffered any other major glitches in five years of use, and we know of other individuals and companies that can say the same. With the correct distribution selection, Linux systems are extremely reliable. The far greater amount of testing by the community and companies gives Linux a boost here.
Result: FreeBSD 0, Linux 1
Support
Ease of updating: Although a third-party binary updaing system exists, it's not yet part of the official FreeBSD system (and consequently, problems with trust occur). Current FreeBSD releases rely on manual CVS updating, patch applying, compilation and installation. Debian GNU/Linux, conversely, only needs a single command to update; this is a major win for Linux, as it saves a huge amount of time on a large number of machines. 1 to Linux.
Length of support: Each FreeBSD point release is only supported for 12 months. The Debian Project supports each of its releases for over two years, and other distros such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux are supported for five years. Although upgrading FreeBSD is fairly simple, the changes in userland tools and Ports means that extensive re-testing of home-grown apps needs to be made. A major win for Linux here.
Commercial support: FreeBSD is significantly weaker on this front, with Linux vendors offering a much greater range and variety of support contracts than are available for FreeBSD. 1 to Linux.
Result: FreeBSD 0, Linux 3
Hardware
Server: FreeBSD's driver range for server-class machines is very good, and the drivers themselves are robust and well-tested. Linux is strong on this front too, but FreeBSD just pips it to the post. 1 to FreeBSD.
Desktop: Linux far surpasses FreeBSD in terms of desktop hardware support, with a gigantic range of drivers and subsystems from both kernel developers and third parties. 1 to Linux.
Other platforms: Debian supports more architectures than FreeBSD, although the gap is narrowing. NetBSD supports even more, but that involves throwing another BSD variant into the mix - this causes problems. 1 to Linux.
Result: FreeBSD 1, Linux 2
Or, when will any of this code make its way into Microsoft's code base, which in turn, will then be patented?!?
I just know I'm going to get flamed for this or at the very least modded down, but it has to be said.
I've heard and read absolutely fantastic things about FreeBSD. It looks like a nice stable platform to learn and test UNIX. However, I have one major problem with FreeBSD - its mascot.
As a life-long practicing Christian, active in my local church, with many practicing Christian friends, I just can not in good conscience use an operating system that uses an image of Satan as its mascot. Not only does it represent the source of evil, but if my family and/or friends were to catch wind of my using anything that uses an image of the Devil to represent itself with, I'd be at the center of controversy, if not out-right ostracized.
For the sake of myself and other good Christians and other religious believers, I hope that someday the FreeBSD Foundation chooses a new mascot, one that isn't offensive to hundreds of millions of potential users. However, until then, I suppose I'll have to stick with Microsoft Windows. Pity.
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, FreeBSD is dead.
Fact: FreeBSD is dying
The analysis reveals that this moribund operating system, in the throes of a long, agonizing death since approximately 1990, is only weeks away from death.
Why? Because FreeBSD is stealing code from Linux and the FreeBSD project will soon be named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the Free Software Foundation.
It comes as a shock to the entire Open Source community that the FreeBSD developers would resort to such measures, but, faced with the imment demise and subsequent rigor mortis of their labor of love, they have been driven to outright theft.
At this point, it's only a matter of weeks. This embattled, dying OS will soon be only a memory kept alive by tinkering hackers--as well as in the annals of shameful history, to be studied as an example of "what not to do" by software engineers and law students alike.
What is this 'FreeBSD' that you talk about ? Is it something like Linux ?
[eds. 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
You're a big boy now. High time you started acting like one.
You're a big boy now. High time you started acting like one.
- Laci Peterson
- Lori Hacking
- Nicole
Simpson
- FreeBSD
Submit your response along with a stamped self-addressed envelope.See contest rules for further details. Void where prohibited.
Now, Apache uses a BSD style license but they have an open development model which allows them to take advantage of a very large developer pool in order to stay ahead of their competition. In fact although proprietary versions of Apache exist which perform better than the official releases, SGI has put out some open source patches which generate even larger performance boosts. This is the reason why they have such a strong showing in terms of market share.
BSD once had potential but the procedural problems they are experiencing hurt it when it comes to the market. I suspect that this is probably in part because the BSD teams are not interested in such things, and that is a shame... In fact, although I labeled it as an inferior OS, this is not due to lack of progress within BSD -- it has been progressing somewhat, but rather because all the improvements they make tend to be quickly copied by their competitors AND they lack the developer pool to stay ahead of this game (a problem which does not exist in the Linux or Apache communities, though for somewhat different reasons).
I don't think that there is enough widespread support for BSD to save the operating system. What must be done is an opening up of the development process OR a GPL-style restriction on redistribution. In many ways I favor the former.
Even in a worst case scenario, I don't see BSD completely dying. I think the developers are less into competition and more into a sort of idealized cooperation. As a result, even if BSD becomes more marginalized, I don't think that it will die outright. Perhaps it will outlive Netware, for example.
Go with Sun for Java.
FreeBSD suffers from a couple of serious process flaws -- it is an operating system which is truly at home neither in the open-source nor the proprietary markets primarily because, although the source is open, the development team is not. Furthermore the license allows proprietary software to "steal" source code and use it.
It hurts 'n' stuff.
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 bureaucratic 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.
Once I had a cat who had feline leukemia, and we tried to keep him alive, with numerous trips to the vet. But, in the end, the disease just overwhelmed him. He had such a hard time. If I had another cat with the same diagnosis, then I would just have it put away immediately. Not being dismissive, but just realistic.
You are a very kind to have nursed FreeBSD along and looked after it. At least this pathetic OS is being looked after. It is not out there frantically searching for a "home". No, it's found it's final "resting place".
If FreeBSD does have to be euthanized, this is not a cruel act - it will pass away immediately without suffering.
FreeBSD is a toy operating system in this respect, unlike Longhorn which is a totally up-to-date OS. Longhorn, the next major revision of Windows has a subsystem called Windows Graphics Foundation (WGF).
This new architecture will usher in some major changes to how 3D graphics operations get handled by Longhorn. These changes extend well beyond Longhorn's Avalon technology, which will render the Windows Desktop using a GPU's 3D graphics processing power rather than the traditional 2D blitter.
Longhorn makes FreeBSD look like someone's grandpa with Alzheimer's disease. Adios FreeBSD.
FreeBSD is a toy operating system in this respect, unlike Longhorn which is a totally up-to-date OS. Longhorn, the next major revision of Windows has a subsystem called Windows Graphics Foundation (WGF).
This new architecture will usher in some major changes to how 3D graphics operations get handled by Longhorn. These changes extend well beyond Longhorn's Avalon technology, which will render the Windows Desktop using a GPU's 3D graphics processing power rather than the traditional 2D blitter.
Longhorn makes FreeBSD look like someone's grandpa with Alzheimer's disease. Adios FreeBSD. See you at the columbarium.
FreeBSD 5.3 is vaporware.
don't weep for me bsd fans...
the truth is I never lived.
BSD is dead... I burried a bunch of BSD CDs yesterday in my garden.
BSD is dead.