Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NetBSD released for iMacs and G3s

Posted by Hemos on from the comin-at-ya dept.

ChristianC writes "The latest release of NetBSD, 1.4, now supports iMacs and G3s. This is particulary interesting, as OS X is based on various BSD distributions, so NetBSD and OS X will be very similar under the hood. "

1 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Portability by maynard · · Score: 3

    I'd be looking more at what you want to do - AFAIK, the *BSD's have more emphasis on network throughput (ref: ftp.cdrom.com), whilst linux supports everything under the sun 8-)

    The NetBSD project doesn't state "Of course it runs NetBSD" for nothing. That OS is about the most portable *BSD around, and this is their primary objective (along with "correctness", whatever that means). I'd say NetBSD probably runs on more hardware platforms than Linux, though it's pretty close race.

    NetBSD is a great OS. I run it on my Sun 3/80's because nothing else will , reliably anyway. Who wants to run SunOS 4.1.1? :-)

    I'd say the primary difference between Linux and the *BSD's is not technical, because they're both pretty damn good, but one of licensing terms. The BSD's allow one to take the source and rework it into a completely commercial project, thus allowing re-distribution without releasing source. This is in stark contrast to Linux, released under the GPL, which requires those who both derive from from a GPL'd source tree AND distribute a new product based on said derivative, must also release the new source tree.

    I'm not a licensing zealot, so I think there's a place for both licensing schemes. For example, I suspect the *BSD's would make a better OS than Linux for commercial embedded devices simply because of their licensing terms. However, as an end user who prefers keeping a code base to my OS free and open, I prefer using an OS released under the GPL for my day to day work... so I run Linux on my PC's -- unless I don't have a choice (like with my 3/80's), then I'll run whatever's available. Just a personal preference which says nothing about the quality of the BSD codebase. Those who hack BSD because they prefer the additional freedom of the BSD license have every justification to do so. In fact, the success of BSD in attracting quality developers is in and of itself a validation of their licensing and development model, just as is the success of Linux.

    There. That's about as Politically Correct as I can get. :-)