Slashdot Mirror
EuroBSDCon 2006, Nov. 10-12th 2006 in Milan
nezmar writes "'The 5th European BSD conference is the 2006 event held in European continent where developers can meet, share new ideas and show off the progress of their work. It is also a great place for business players to get in touch with the BSD products and the people behind them.' It will be held in Italy, in Milan, and will be a 3-day event from the 10th to the 12th of November. The first day will be dedicated to tutorials and the other two days to technical sessions. There's also a Call For Tutorials and Papers: abstracts are due before midnight CET on July 31st, 2006."
Don't let the fact that it's in Milan fool you, there won't be a single supermodel in attendance.
It's a total sausage fest, man. Count me out.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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 the Amazing 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
Milan is beautiful, whether the supermodels are in town or not. The food is great and it is easy to get around. EuroBSDCon would be a great reason to go. If I wasn't in the middle of a critical project through the end of February, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Viva la 'BSD
"Saying that Linux is inferior to Windows because more people use Windows is like saying that all restaurants are inferi
Visit Milan and spend all your time in seminars and convocations!
(end of post)
So why now? 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 personae?
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 shround over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.
(Number of positive slashdot comments = 2)*(Generous nonresponse bias adjustment = 10) + (best friends and spouses (if any) of organizers = 6) - (adjustments because that Real Doll isn't really your spouse, dude, and also because homeless Milanese ex-supermodels seeking shelter don't count = 3) = 23
Hope those 23 BSD dorks^H^H^H^H^H folks have a great con!
I use OpenBSD in text mode, as I am concerned that haxor are infiltrating my system using X11 buffer underuns and ()malloc calls in the kernelized graphics subsystem.
I may also be experiencing a DDOS, distributed denial of service attack, in part because of the discovery of the X11 "back door".
Some of the OpenBSD developers have contacted me, and informed me of another back door exploit that they are willing to show me in Italy.
I am looking forward to good times and good antipasto, because they say I will be tossing a salad for them as well.
DF