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FreeBSD 6.0 to Target Wireless Devices
BSDForums writes "FreeBSD is hoping to move beyond the server and desktop market by providing expanded wireless support. FreeBSD developer Scott Long said that 'one of the primary reasons for improving wireless support is to give companies the tools to put FreeBSD into their wireless devices. The guy at FreeBSD who is adding wireless support is under contract from wireless companies to do the work.'"
This is an interesting development. Companies have been using Linux in their wireless boxes due to the lack of any viable alternative. Due to the GPL, these companies were forced to publish their changes to the kernel, which has allowed the number of cool hacks we've been seing. Clearly, those companies would rather keep their changes proprietary, so BSD based systems are much more attractive to them. While it's nice to see improved hardware support to another free operating system, this might bring adverse consequences in the long run. We'll see...
The filesystem is the package manager
as someone who works for a company that uses many variants of linux in their products, i can tell you that most companies dont have a clue about the GPL and the parts about giving away _their_ code comes as a shock to them.
i see more and more companies turn to BSD licensed stuff, such as the *BSD OSes
(no linux vs BSD flame, please)
The beautiful part is that OpenBSD is NOT in a competition with anybody despite what your post asserts. The OpenBSD developers have goals that are in line with their ideals and they haven't strayed from them and the developers certainly aren't out to "corner wireless development."
You make it sound like 2 companies competing against each other when it's just FreeBSD's developers losing sight of their ideals and doing thing the easy, non-OpenSource way.
This guy is way out there
Well, since I can't load the page, I'll tell you how to fix it.
/etc/default/make.conf for the parts about DOITNOW_*, and copy all the DOITNOW_* stuff over to /etc/make.conf, making sure to change them from ="NO" to ="YES". Then make sure that FIXITNOW_ENABLE="YES". That'll fix your issues.
Just bodwangle the zapfor module, and then look at the
God help us if someone ran FreeBSD on routers, oops, oh wait, someone does. Some little company known as Juniper. JunOS is derived from FreeBSD.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Juniper uses FreeBSD (they call it 'JunOS'). Their routers have become quite popular for very high traffic installations, due in no small part to the efficient networking code of the FreeBSD kernel. Also, don't forget that the f-root name server (actualy a distributed network of servers) is exclusively FreeBSD.
Like many articles about BSD, this one will surely have a ton of comments along the lines of "Oh no, companies don't want to give away their code, so they're all going to use BSD licensed software and the world is going to end!". This arguement is, in almost all cases, bullshit. Why? Because usually it's not the operating system that matters so much as the software on top of it, and Company X has just as much control of their own program with Linux as with BSD (or Windows, etc.). Most products do not require significant changes to the OS, if any at all, and even in those products that do, far more of the products value comes from the company's own software.
So stop it people, the sky isn't falling.
This is not intended to be a flame as I really like FreeBSD as well. FreeBSD could learn a lot from the OpenBSD project in this area. I have been absolutely amazed at OpenBSD's out of the box wireless detection configuration. I installed OpenBSD on my laptop over my WPC11 wireless NIC without effort. I also had the same results with the WMP54G.
I posted something to this effect on the original CNet article
I work in embedded development myself (previously video game consoles, then DOCSIS cable modems, now video equipment), so I've seen the shift from expensive proprietary systems (like vxWorks) to free (as in money) systems like Linux.
The proprietary systems typically have high up-front costs, along with a per-unit royalty, which inflates the cost of the devices. Linux allows for cheaper devices (whether or not the savings are passed to the customer remains to be seen), at a cost (complying with the GPL). This can be somewhat mitigated by making modules that are not licensed under the GPL.
BSD entering the space will provide some good competition for Linux. Whether newer designs switch to BSD will depend on the chipmakers (like Broadcom), as they are the people who usually write the drivers. Most devices nowadays are just the reference design hardware tweaked a bit with the reference software. So, whatever OS is used for the reference designs is what will be the dominant OS in the embedded space.
Only time will tell, but if FreeBSD can pull this off, they'll definitely gain some traction.
-- Joe
Umm... I think you got the point reversed. The poster was talking about the fact that you can take BSD licensed code, make changes to it to support your product, and not be forced to give your work to anyone else (for example your competition).
While we all understand the idea behind the GPL, many businesses will simply not even consider using OS's based on it because of the forced nature of it. FreeBSD stands to get a lot of users because of this in the embedded space.
Now, the gamble with the BSD license is that people might use the code without ever contributing back. But the bet is that the big companies will give some sort of kickback to the projects, even if it is not the complete solution.
An example of this is practice would be Apple and KHTML. While Apple has not completely given everything it could have given, the KHTML project has benefited from Apple using a derivative of KHTML. We can argue about whether it is enough, but it is benefit that Apple would not have contributed if KHTML were GPL rather than BSD. Management would not have touched it with a 10 foot pole.
Actually, KHTML is LGPL.
I agree with your comment, but you mention that the bet is that companies will foster further development of the projects even if they're not forced to provide code back [I'd quote but I'm posting this from links]. I have my doubts.
The filesystem is the package manager
All BSD users do not fall in some "*BSD camp" that likes that. Please propose adding some unmodifiable binary-only code into OpenBSD and see what kind of reception you get. It won't be pretty.
Well, it might be for some, but I think that most companies would be fine with publishing any minor kernel modifications made to Linux. The real reason why companies are a little afraid of the GPL is that there is always the potential for lawsuits. Granted, it's a remote possibility, but a possibility all the same; most companies would rather not be bothered with the GPL if given a choice.
And this is where FreeBSD can give people a choice. And assuming it's just as good as Linux, it's a better choice due to legal issues.
One last thing about the GPL is that most companies don't see distributing changes as a free endeavor. Someone has to be in charge of overseeing the process - and labour isn't free. In addition, distributing the changes requires other resources (like bandwidth) which, while not very expensive, just add to the complexity of using Linux. While this might be a minor issue, it's still an issue that companies would rather avoid.
And what happens when the slashdot community burns a company for forgetting to post something, or posting modifications that are difficult to utilize. Remember Apple and Konqueror?
Oh well, but to respond to your last point, I don't think there will be many adverse consequences. The work currently being paid for by these companies is under the BSD license and I don't see them being that protective of the kernel. The GUI however is another story.
Willy
You may have your doubts but history simply proves that they do (not all of them, but quite a few still)
FreeBSD has a thing called netgraph, from its manpage:
HISTORY
The netgraph system was designed and first implemented at Whistle Commu-
nications, Inc. in a version of FreeBSD 2.2 customized for the Whistle
InterJet.
Then, from man jail:
AUTHORS
The jail feature was written by Poul-Henning Kamp for R&D Associates
http://www.rndassociates.com/ who contributed it to FreeBSD.
Of course PHK is a core member of the fbsd team, but that doesn't change that it was written and payed for by a commercial user of the system and then contributed to it.
There is a simple very good reason for companies to contribute their changes, given that they get accepted:
It saves them the cost on maintaining such a component and keeping up with the development of the system.