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A FreeBSD "Spork" With Touches of NeXT and OS X: NeXTBSD
There are a lot of open source operating systems out there; being open source, they lend themselves to forks, clones or near clones, and friendly offshoots. There are even services to let you customize, download, and (if you choose) bulk-install your own OS based on common components. Phoronix notes a new project called NeXTBSD that might turn more heads than most new open source OSes, in part because of the developers behind it, and in part because of the positive thoughts many people have toward the aesthetics of NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X. (And while it might be a fork of FreeBSD, the developers would rather call it a spork, instead.)
NeXTBSD was announced last week by Jordan Hubbard and Kip Macy at the Bay Area FreeBSD Users Group (BAFUG). NeXTBSD / FreeBSD X is based on the FreeBSD-CURRENT kernel while adding in Mach IPC, Libdispatch, notifyd, asld, launchd, and other components derived from Apple's open-source code for OS X. The basic launchd/notifyd/asld/libdispatch stack atop their "fork" of FreeBSD is working along with other basic components of their new design.
You can watch a recording of the announcement as well as a longer introduction linked from Phoronix's story.
Kind of interesting. From what I gather it's supposed to be the unstable rolling release branch of FreeBSD (-CURRENT), which presumably some Apple enhancements? Maybe the interface? I don't know, they're rather vague with what their ultimate goal is. The progressive part sounds like they intend for this to be something like Arch for Linux, but -CURRENT is not exactly a bastion of stability. It's the beta branch. Users won't want it because it's too unstable, and all the extras are going to make it unappealing for testing, I think. A neat idea, but I think this would be much better off if pulled from -STABLE or better yet, -RELEASE. THEN we'd have something quite interesting on our hands.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Afterstep? Or utilize Enlightenment for that composited OSX feel?
I'd love to see a desktop OS that builds on what NeXT did. I know Mac OS X is that to some degree, but I'm thinking of something more like the original NeXTstep GUI.
It's somewhat ironic that when GNUstep first started, one of the reasons why it didn't get much traction was the use of the "non-standard" Objective-C. As a result, effort was instead spent on KDE and then GNOME. If GNUstep became the standard, it could have changed Linux on the desktop as porting Mac OS X apps over would have been much easier. Of course, no-one knew that then.
Apple are no longer interested in maintaining xnu/darwin and see strategic benefits from re-basing iOS and OS/X upon FreeBSD?
I'd assume Apple still owns the trademark for NeXT, so I expect they'll rename it if it gets any traction.
Maybe NextBSD or nxBSD or something wouldn't fall foul of the trademark?
Why not just run / fork (okay, fine, "spork") Darwin?
-- Nathan
NetCraft wanted to confirm a fresh, new BSD corpse.
Systemd can replace all of that.
Wait, didnt' Apple open source the base OS as Darwin?
But also nearly universally reviled.
Why does everyone care about saving five seconds during boot that will be completely overshadowed by the time you spend in BIOS POST?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The direction that a project is going, is further away than where you want it to go.
Lets consider Android vs. GNU/Linux (Now I personally hate calling Linux "GNU/Linux", but I need to differentiate it ). They both use the Linux kernel, but the rest of the Operating systems are very different.
Android was forked so it can better suit a mobile system market. GNU/Linux was more towards the server and workstation.
As Android uses more direct frame-buffer technology, GNU/Linux focuses around X windows.
Android doesn't need to detect every piece of hardware, GNU/Linux does.
Android expect more gestures for its control, GNU/Linux is more keyboard and mouse.
Now on the BSD level. That is mostly server vs server, so the needs are not as large. However there is a fair amount of discussion on how defaults should be setup, what type of hardware should be supported, as moving to a virtual environments how many tasks needed to be running optimally....
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I downloaded the ISO on Friday night. Yesterday, I installed it ot a VM. Just got out of be a few minutes ago, and the VM is open in my right hand display, waiting for me to configure it. The network works right - I pinged Google from it. That's about all I know right now, since I've never installed a BSD before. I need to refer to some installation and setup guides next!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
... but that name was taken
I was thinking something similar, and to be fair it is called "NextBSD" but as far as i can tell from the GitHub repo it's some combination of FreeBSD and Darwin, the open-source base system that OS X runs on top of. I think the Next name just fit well.
Maybe this one will be more successful than the previous short lived attempts to make the Darwin sources into something useful... I'm not sure what exactly they are doing that is different though.
systemd envy.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
He knows what is best for us. Unix was broken so he is fixing it.
How exactly are Mach messeges different from sysv messeges in Linux? I've used Mach messeges before, but sysv messeges look pretty similar
I wouldn't call Android a 'fork' of Linux. Linux is just a kernel, a plug-in component used in many different operating systems, i.e. Debian, Slackware, SuSE, Ubuntu. Android didn't 'fork' from any of those operating systems. It just incorporated the Linux kernel. It isn't a linux 'distribution' because it's for the most part a unified whole, not a dogs-breakfast of misc. userland programs from all over, which is what most (all?) of the operating systems that call themselves 'Linux' are.
No systemd - they're using Apple's launchd instead.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Do you mean GNUStep? It's alive and kicking.
The GNU has most of the stuff to make NeXTSTEP now, but nothing is quite right.
* GNUStep ...
* GNU Mach
* GNU HURD
* GWorkspace
Richard Stallman was obviously trying to copy NeXT for a very long time.
My job keeps buying these shitty Gateway boxes and they used to have the slowest BIOS on the planet. I mean a good 15 seconds by the time it gets to the OS.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
A different asshole wanted to be in charge.
1. Jordan Hubbard was one of the original founders of FreeBSD. He didn't need to fork to be in charge.
2. Jordan is not an asshole. He is a friendly, outgoing, and helpful person. Perhaps you have him confused with Theo de Raadt.
Perhaps you don't understand what the word "harbor" means. It means to give a home or shelter to someone; in this usage, it implies doing so in secret. Allowing someone to contribute code openly (not in secret) is precisely the opposite. It keeps the person talking, thus revealing that person's location, and making it easier to bring that person to justice.
Besides, it's a bit like the ethical question of "tainted" money. If someone earns money through doing bad things, is it ethical to use that money for good? Maybe. To me, the answer comes down to whether doing so would encourage continued bad behavior. For example, it would be unethical to accept evidence obtained through an illegal search (fruit of the poisonous tree) because doing so would encourage police to ignore the legal process and get the evidence through any means necessary. But in this case, if what you described is accurate, it is one step removed from that, even. The coding wasn't gained through illegal or unethical means; accepting the code would probably not make the person more likely to do bad things in his personal life, because the two are largely unconnected aspects of the person in question.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Except the part where socially, we should shun unrepentant criminals. Being allowed to continue contributing allowed Kip to belong to a community and likely gave a lot of solace and sense to him that he wasn't a "bad guy".
One of the key points of prison time is being removed from community, much more so than lacking freedom.
We've seen what happens when you treat unrepentant criminals as outcasts. They remain unrepentant criminals. The recidivism rate in American prisons should be proof enough that such tactics don't work. Or take a look at countries that try to imprison the opposing forces after a civil war. Things never stabilize. Sometimes, forgiveness by others is the first step towards repentance—turn the other cheek, and all that.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Then even people who should know better will see it as just another CLI based OS. All the "Good feelings" garnered for pre 2009 OSX and NextStep etc, were based on their human interface component. The fact in this case, however, is that there'a a huge opportunity here to create a far better interface. Something less blocky than OSX and the "Next" interface, Something with all the good improvements of Finder and Explorer, as well as all the different Linux GUIs. Something that REALLY "just works" .. like Macs used to... Now *if* that can be smoothly integrated into a solid BSD underpinning..we'd have another BeOS ;-)
GM saw itself as the premier auto/truck maker in this country. And yet, they made some stupid mangament and engineering decisions that are slowly leading them into the corporate graveyard.
So you're saying the goal of these management decisions was to move people away from GM cars? I don't think so, just like RedHat's goal isn't to move users to Windows.
You do know that there is such a thing as false conviction, and the standard of "repentance or permanent ostracization"—remaining in glorious effect long after punishment by the state has run its course—effectively demands the the wrongfully convicted confess to crimes they never committed, in order to have any hope of returning to productive society ever again?
In general (absent subsequent evidence), we don't actually know who are the wrongfully convicted, or we wouldn't have convicted them in the first place.
Sometimes (for a value of "sometimes" with no fixed address) the rush to judgment really sucks ass. That ought to give you at least a moment's pause before this kind of sentiment as an anonymous coward. It's why we allow the state to assign punishment rather than throwing blemished produce at the town pillory (e.g. a perfectly edible cucumber that's not quite straight, or harbours somewhere a small scab).
Sure, he sounds like a royal douche. But is it really my job to see that he suffers forever-after on nothing but a thin gruel of second-hand story telling?
Has it never occurred to you that there's a downside to your unthoughtful bitterness?
It's "confidant" not "cosmonaut."
:sigh: another newbie... and since you posted AC, so also shall i...
Perhaps they forked it.
I think this would be a perfect new home for Leonart Poetering. It's a place were he could be productive and apreciated and the rest of us could be rid of him.
http://itsfoss.com/97-percent-worlds-top-500-supercomputers-run-linux/
97 Percent Of The World’s Top 500 Supercomputers Run Linux
Percentage of Supercomputers on the Desktop: 0%.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.