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The State of the Demon Address
Kelly McNeill writes "It's an exciting era in the Berkeley Software Distribution world; indeed, things started off with a litigious bang over a decade ago, but now BSD solutions are more varied than ever before and offer the user heretofore unprecedented choice and power. So many are the options today that it's time for a roll call from the various distributions. Paul Webb submitted the following editorial to osOpinion/osViews which takes a look at what each BSD has to offer and also looks at where each is going."
As a user of FreeBSD and OpenBSD, I must say that I have been quite satisfied with both, especially FreeBSD. While it could use some help in the ports and upgrading department, it is all around a wonderful piece of software, and it is quite interesting to watch the development of all the BSDs. Way to go!
This is one man spewing invalid opinions and using outdated information. He hits hard on NetBSD and OpenBSD as though they were evil or the spawns of some demon's loins.
He says of NetBSD, "...its desktop and production applications are so limited as to be nonexistent...," yet this is a foolish and downright insulting thing to say. Desktop applications are not dependant on Linux or FreeBSD as much as they are on X. The issue of production applications are a problem with companies, not the system itself. And even then there are means to emulate other systems to allow most programs for Linux to run on NetBSD.
Of OpenBSD he says: "Sticking with Intel and compatible chips is a safe bet as its Alpha and PowerPC ports are still in their infancy." I find this once again rediculous. The macppc and alpha ports are better than what FreeBSD has to offer and are pretty much comparable to the NetBSD ones (what with the code sharing). He also takes a personal slam at Theo de Raadt himself, not at all something to make his opinion more valid or acceptable.
Of Darwin he speaks as though it were a complete system and not an incomplete husk of one. He even calls it a Unix, while it is not. His views seem tainted and hazed by his own prejudices.
He does not even touch on DragonFlyBSD, a system which I find to be far more a BSD than Darwin considering Darwin uses Mach and not BSD for a kernel.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.