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BSD: "The Net's stealth operating system"
conio writes "MSNBC has an excellent article about BSD titled "The Net's stealth operating system." It gives a brief history of BSD and discusses why it's not as mainstream as Linux. It also delves into the BSDL vs. GPL holy war, and talks about how BSD will soon work its way into the workstation market. It's both accurate and well-written. "
Linux != FSF. What is the goal of Linux, to write a free unix-like OS. What is the goal of BSD, to write a free unix-like OS. True both camps have chosen different methods of getting there, but in the end the goal is the same. Both strive to produce a secure, stable, and fast unix-like OS. IMHO, BSD is good for linux is good for BSD. If we'd stop worrying about whose dick is bigger and go back to writing software both camps would be happy. Although some comparison is good, ie if both are always trying to out-do each other, then we'll end up with two amazing families of OSes, which IMHO is a very good thing. I personally use linux, I've tried freebsd, i just felt more comfortable with linux, i'm sure it works the other way too. Who really cares which free OS someone is using. Atleast they aren't using NT.
-matt
I wanted to ask the question: what did the move of putting Linux under the GPL do for attracting developers? it would be great to get the response of kernel coders on this. I would speculate that the fact that the kernel belonged to the "community" at large thanks to the GPL and could not be co-opted into another proprietary OS(tcp stacks in NT for example) played a part in assuring developers about the ownership, rightful use, and legacy of their code.
The Inscrutable Gargoyle
That and who can't love the cute little Daemon logo? (:
The article says BSD stands for Berkeley Software Design. I've see other things that say it stands for Berkeley Standard Distribution. Is it the former, latter, or neither?
shhhh... I can almost hear the black helicopters coming.
Over the years, the UNIX/Unix/Free *nix community have been doing a great job at "sewing (sic) confusion in the minds of the public and IT management" all by themselves. They've never needed Microsoft's help before - why start now?
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I think that is what happens when a news(?) site begins to decay... The moderators and operators who are supposed to treat people and opinions equally begin to take sides based on their feelings and beliefs. Just because the moderator had a beef against FreeBSD, which a good majority of the Linux community appears to have, the article gets marked down. I do not understand what is with the BSD and Linux wars. People are entitled to their opinions and freedom to use whatever they want. I, myself, prefer FreeBSD as a server because some of its features such as saving system cores in kernel panics, its fast and efficent networking, its stability and ease of admining, and its logical layout. Unlike Linux, all the sources are nicely put before the operator in /usr/src, so you can find the source to ANYTHING on your system. Before people start bashing on Linux, BSD, and *even* Windows, I would hope they would at least have the decency to try it for a long enough period of time that they get a good opinion. The Linux community has dissappointed me lately because of behavior like this. I've even found myself branding things before I fully try them, such as Enlightenment, GNOME, and KDE. Would you try it before you rate it? I'm also tired of hearing about licenses. It doesn't matter if soemthing is put under the GPL or BSDL. Both licenses allow distribution. It should be the programmer's choice as to which he uses. I'm even okay with commercial licenses, if the software is good enough (such as WordPerfect). For those of you who claimed this story was Microsoft FUD to confuse the Linux community, I have not much to say to you. If you really think Microsoft would use one opensource operating system as a sword against another to defend their commercial box of exploding blue monkeys, you need help. Even if they did, we should not fall for such stupid things. For gods sakes, read the BSD license and then the GPL license, they have the same goals. They just have different guidelines in the way they reach the goals. Basicly, before you start replying with random crap to a story, think about what the hell the story is about and think about what you are saying. The Linux and BSD community could work together if the two sides would just quit picking fights with petty words like the comments I see attached to this article.
Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
- open source = source code
- manpage = documentation
- Enterprise = that spaceship from Star Trek
- binary edit = patch
- physical disk = hard drive
- box = computer
- mount point = hard drive
- file = binary file
- open source = shareware
- binaries = programs
- alpha = beta
- CGI scripts = CGIs
- partition = drive letter
- off the net = offline
- obvious = subtle
- MS-ASCII = text
- alpha = new technology
- computer secretary = admin
- logical disk = hard drive
- Evil One = Bill Gates
- program = script
- criminal = hacker
- bug fix = upgrade
- commonplace = ubiquitous
- programmer = software engineer
- floppy disk = disk
- luser = surfer
- network = web
- hide = protect
- computer scientist = mathematician
- net = web
- daemon = server
- legal extortion = per-seat licensing
- diskette = disk
- hacker = coder
- physical disk = drive letter
- secretary = HTML programmer
- sysadmin = sysop
- cracker = hacker
- IRC client = IRC browser
- computer = server
- memory = RAM
- logical disk = drive letter
- programmer = scripter
- mail messages = e-mails
- flexible = difficult
- beggarware = shareware
- paid bug fixes = updates
- disk drive = hard drive
- Internet Exploder = Internet Explorer
- eye trash = banner ads
- shell command = system call
- couldn't care less = could care less
- drive = hard drive
- greatest common factor = least common denominator
- Unix = UNIX
- Microsoft's mistakes = virii
- copy = upload
- competence = elitism
- monolithic program = application
- programming = scripting
- computer scientist = engineer
- fleeceware = software
- lying = marketing
- file system = hard drive
- controller = hard drive
- PC = home computer
- coredump = blue screen
- offline = away from the computer
- millennium = millenium
- partition = hard drive
- beginner = newbie
- business = enterprise
- competent = elite
- bloatware = apps
- fleeceware = commercial software
- function = command
- configurable = confusing
- Mordor = Redmond
- mail = e-mail
- challenging = impossible
- kernel = kernal
- disk controller = hard drive
- mails = sends e-mails
- executables = programs
- binaries = shareware
- crippleware = shareware
- buggy = beta
- mark-up language = programming language
- system call = command
- internal network = Intranet
- beta = production
- open source = freeware
- system call = operating system function
- copy = download
- fix = hire a consultant for
- luser = user
- disk space = memory
- code = software
- MS-HTML = HTML
- netiquette = useless manners
- newsreader = news browser
- IRC channel = chat room
- disk = hard drive
- Evil Empire = Microsoft
- GUI annoyance = wizard
- operating system = kernel
- kernel = operating system
- newsgroup = chat room
- editor = text editor
- bloatware = application
- patch = source edit
- file = text file
- file system = drive letter
- expert-hostile = user-friendly
- login = shell account
- mount point = drive letter
- connect to http://www.foo.com/ = logon to foo.com
- access the web = surf the net
Your job now is to write a program than converts from one lingo to the other, or vice versa.FreeBSD already runs most linux applications, except vmware, without a problem, and still companies port software for FreeBSD, including realplayer and Netscape. OS/2 was not helped by it's lack of apps, but it failed to gain use for other reasons as well. OS/2 was direct competition with NT (Old versions)and couldn't compete with the user base/support/already made apps for NT. Also OS/2's place amongst Geeks was removed by Linux and FreeBSD which are both superior to OS/2. Plus IBM didn't market or support OS/2 very well. Plus the author of the article (IMHO) is not trying to say that FreeBSD is vastly superior to Linux, but that it has it's place in the world, and that it soon may get a surge of new users.
Brian
P.S. It's the end of the day, and after working all day i'm too lazy to check for spelling/grammer mistakes
The following sentence is TRUE. The previous sentence is FALSE.
Sure. The Gartner Group had a test with NT, Linux and FreeBSD. NT sucked, of course. FreeBSD was first, with Linux a somewhat close second. The test, unfortunately, is not available on the web anymore.
What they benchmarked was the ability of the system to degrade gracefully underload. In other words, forget how fast your system is when everything is cached in RAM... when things get ugly, you have a lot of processes, and swap is heavy, during the "peaks" of your workload, how well does the system handle that? FreeBSD showed the best scores by far under the heavier loads, with the scores (err, FreeBSD and Linux) getting closer under lighter loads, and both NT and Linux surpassing FreeBSD under no load to speak of.
As it goes, they somehow reached the conclusion that Linux was the prefered server under a number of environments analysed, even though FreeBSD performed better and had none of the drawnbacks they found in Linux. Go figure.
Then, there is the Mindcraft benchmark. I'm told Linux performed significantly better than FreeBSD, with NT performed way better, and Solaris beating everyone. Alas, this test measured the perfomance of the system under very few processes, and everything cached. At least, as far as NT went. Gartner results say that if the environment of the test changed so that number of processes increased and swapping became necessary, NT would soon find itself trailing everyone.
(8-DCS)
'Nuff said.
:-).
I need Applix Office (or StarOffice if I have to, but I'd prefer not). WordPerfect would also be nice, but not critical.
Looking at the Linux emulation stuff it looks like I can get it to run, but trying to 'brand' all the individual little ELF binaries as 'Linux' did not make it work, so I gave up and switched back to Linux. I did make sure that the emulation worked by running a few little Linux binaries (running the Linux version of 'gnu tar' then feeding it through the FreeBSD version of 'gnu tar' was a blast
I think the guy had a valid point -- while FreeBSD may run many Linux binaries, it is by no means as easy to do for non-trivial programs as some people like to say. ("non-trivial" == "has more than one object module").
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
There do exist easy-to-find MP3 players in FreeBSD. Try 'splay'. Or 'freeamp' if you wish. Or even 'x11amp' if you don't care about that stupid license (its template is in /usr/ports).
Web browser: what's the beef? I installed KDE off the FreeBSD CD-ROM by using pkg_add (gosh, how horrible can that be!), then used its built-in web browser to download the FreeBSD version of Netscape off of ftp.netscape.com. What, you don't like Netscape? Tough, that's all you get on Linux too.
The only real problem I had with FreeBSD was that I could not get a commercial-quality office suite working. That's the only reason I switched back to Linux. Otherwise, it's fast, it's stable (more stable than Linux in fact -- the memory leak in the Netscape text input widget occasionally locks up my Linux machine, but all it did on FreeBSD was make Netscape core-dump once it reached the limits of virtual memory), and reasonably well laid out (though I prefer the way OpenBSD is laid out, to tell you the truth -- FreeBSD is trying to get too fancy nowdays).
Of course, there WERE some problems... I had to pull out the sound card I had in it (an Ensonique AudioPCI) and replace it with an old SoundBlaster pulled out my junk box in order to get sound support... but if I hadn't had four years of accumulated Applix files that I did not want to succumb to bit-rot(*), I would probably still be running FreeBSD.
-E
*bit-rot: what happens when a file can no longer be usably read, executed, or altered. Generally happens when the OS that the file was created for no longer will run on obtainable hardware, or when the applications software that it was created with will no longer run due to OS upgrades or etc.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I suggest you check your dictionary. They are two different words. People who are the true "elite", i.e., those who are the best or most skilled at what they do, generally do not engage in "elitism".
"elitism" means (to quote the American Heritage Dictionary): "Belief in rule or domination by an elite".
Frankly, I would prefer not to be ruled by a self-proclaimed "elite". Frankly, that reeks of www.stormfront.org, where you can read the rantings of these self-proclaimed "elites" who want to rule our nation. Ick.
-- E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I don't think so. BSD is a mature, intelligently designed OS, one that attempts to do things the right way, not force you into the way someone in Seattle thinks you should.
The complaints that Linux users have about BSD and vice versa are nothing like the complaints that folks have about NT. We'd be having Linux/BSD vs. NT wars.
One thing that the article missed is the pride of hackerdom. Nobody anywhere gets paid for maintaining a FAQ, or a mailing list, yet people do it everyday. Folks moderate newsgroups, release code, anything, just to make a name for themselves in the community. A box of software can be bought, the respect of your peers is priceless. And, as this very website shows, hackerdom can be it's own reward.
I think that the BSD v. Linux thing will go on, but it will be based on the relative merits of the two, not on the licensing differences.
Eric Brandwine
Eric Brandwine
An engineer is a person who solves a problem you did not know you had in a way that you do not u
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue33/bentson.html
Yeah, those Linux developers are just a bunch of college sophomores. Sure. College sophomores with PhD's and 10 years's experience.
'Nuff said.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I can just feel a flamewar coming on.
Flames can sometimes be useful. Most flamewars however, aren't constructive. They tend to be destructive, that's why they're named after a "destructive force."
And in this instance a flamewar would be pretty stupid. This isn't a case of who's better. The BSD's cover different areas, as does Linux. Is there a point to fighting? Its like saying, "My boat is faster than your car" or "My orange is sweeter than your apple."
The OSes in question are very powerful. What they do well they excell in. Its not like we're comparing Solaris (yay) to NT (boo!).
Before jumping into the BSD/GPL debate, think about it. We're all on the same side! We like solid OSes. We can have a few beers and start scoffing at the NT folk together.
Together. That is a word that both the BSD and Linux worlds should be using more often. Or at least we can hope.
What? Did they finally succeed in converting it to NT?
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
This article certainly carries the attitude that many BSD users seem to have -- that BSD of for real users, users with experience, users who care more about a robust, secure OS than what's currently hip; and that Linux users are "hackers" who jumped on the Linux bandwagon because it's the hip thing to do among hackers, rather than because Linux carries any advantages as an OS.
The truth is, Linux carries with it several advantages that the article only hints at. The article mentions the splits in BSD, but it doesn't discuss the problems these splits carry with them. It's nice to know that with Linux, when a new feature or better security is added to the kernel, that feature will be available to every users on many different platforms. I am certainly not an expert on BSD, so I'd appreciate it if someone who is more knowledgeable than I would tell me how often developments in FreeBSD are integrated into the development tree of NetBSD, for example.
Personally, I prefer Linux. As a student at a large university, I'm surrounded by Linux experts. I couldn't say the same about BSD. The other main advantage that Linux has for me is the applications that are being ported to Linux more and more. However, I would be willing to switch to BSD if I saw clear advantages. Unfortunately, this article seemed to be more interested in cashing in on the Linux hype by subtly bashing Linux rather than presenting the real advantages.
This wasn't accurate, it was just as uninformed as most articles. At least it's publicity, though.
I know that at least FreeBSD should be able to run linux binaries without too much trouble, just like Linux should be able to run, say, SCO binaries without too much work, etc. So it shouldn't really have fewer applications. Also, a lot of the same UNIX apps should be source-compatible anyhow, and some are released under the BSD license.
Since the owner of the source code can release it under multiple licenses anyhow, there's nothing wrong with making a kernel submission GPL'ed, and also releasing it to the *BSD's under their license, so I don't really see the argument there. The other arguments have been dealt with. Remember, the BSD license lets your competitors freely use your code too, and also lets people take that code and incorporate it into closed projects, which I don't think is necessarily a feature.
Past that, at least it's press. I don't believe that 70% of all ISP's figure, either. A lot of ISP's use Linux. Maybe if he meant the number, it would only take a few major ISP's to skew that figure. Still... that doesn't jive.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
.. Linux has a celebrity.
.. but she's heard of Linus Torvalds. The people who make the biggest splashes are the people that get the most press.
This is pretty much an extension of your comparison of the Linux community to a bunch of excited kids. Linus is a charismatic guy. He's funny, likeable, and direct. When it comes to PR, technical talent takes a back seat to some of the more interpersonal aspects. My sister, who is in nursing, doesn't even own a computer
Of course, this is not to say that the BSD community doesn't have its own important and colorful characters. But if you were to compare the number of Slashdotters who know who Linus Torvalds is against the number who know who, say, Theo DeRaadt is, you'd find a pretty evident bias.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
"Be" happy....I like it. I know you didnt mean that...but thats somewhat metaphoric
-Matt Jankowski
I don't think the lawsuit was all that important.
More important was the fact the Bill Jolitz, who released the original 386BSD wasn't really well suited for running a Bazaar-style project. At times, his (rare) messages didn't seem sane, and his "press officier" Jesus, Jr, didn't made it better. This meant that the project was delayed until first the NetBSD and later the FreeBSD groups got fed up waiting for him to reelase a new version, and broke away.
The most important thing, in my opinion, was that the BSD developers were highly competent operating system engineers making great personal sacrifices for the cause, while the Linux developers were a bunch of enthusiastic kids having great fun doing what they wanted to do. At least, that was the impression one got from the BSD and Linux newsgroups. There is even some of it left today.
I suspect a lot of potential developers felt like me: I'd rather hang out with the kids who are learning and having fun, than the self-important professionels who are making sacrifices.
Sad to say, I'm seriously considering this. Not because I'm disinterested in BSD, necessarily. It's just that every BSD story on Slashdot precipitates a roaring flame-fest. I'm not placing blame; I'm sure there's plenty to go around. But this really is getting ridiculous.
--
BSD is not UNIX(TM). In fact, BSD as you probably know it (4.4 Lite) is not derived from any original UNIX source code. In 1994, all code from the USL and Novell was removed and replaced with new code for a "lite" release. Browse http://www.unix-systems.org/ for more information. It's not the code heritage that makes a UNIX, it's whether you register yourself for the Open Group blessing and the branding rights.
A new poll idea:
Which is the kewlest Mascot/logo
1)GNU yacc/bison thing(I don't know what exactly it is)
2)BSD Daemon
3)Tux
4)That Salvidor Dali Window(M$ windows logo)
5)Pimp in the RedHat
6)That funky debian penguin
You don't exist. Go away. --SysVinit Halt
That article summed things up pretty well for me, though unwittingly, I think. I've toyed with *nix off and on for the last 6 years, only just a few months ago gone full-Linux, using RH. I played with FreeBSD 2.2.2 through that, and while it was nice, and stable, and easier to configure than I expected...no apps!
Maybe this has changed with the FreeBSD 3.x series, but for those of us out there who don't know how to mod our Linux apps (no matter how easy true hackers claim it to be) *BSD isn't worth it. No matter how stable an OS is, if it doesn't DO anything, it's useless.
Linux has the larger share of the publicity and market not because of the 'young hackers' but because it is the only *nix that Joe Average User has a change of understanding and _using_.
-- I'm sure this is amusing to someone.
Is that the same one who mentioned a number of Linux distributions, such as "Red Hat Linux", "Caldera OpenLinux", and "Deviant Linux"?
Tim (Jones) at EST says he's still looking for that "Deviant Linux" distribution. Think it maybe has pictures of nekkid penguins in it or something? Or maybe penguins doing unspeakable things to sheep? Or ???
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Linux and freeBSD could combine to form freeLSD
I think we used that for a server once, because when we installed it, the computers case started to melt. I tried to run a reboot to see if that would fix it but the india just stood there looking at the sun while Jimmy Hendrix tried to get the Midi interface drivers installed from a remote terminal that was located in the deserst. It had a nice interface though.
Ever consider the possibility that there are some Microsoft shills posting as Anonymous Cowards, trying to create conflicts in the free software community that don't actually exist?
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Funny, it describes the situation quite clear:
:-) and play at my machine. And here we go, the linux-folks is much more "innovative", got the straight target "world domination" instead of "high uptimes".
:-)
BSD crumpled under the struggle of copyright in 1993 (thats was right when I switched from BSD to Linux).
BSD is rockstable (I don`t say that linux isn`t stable, but maybe a little bit less).
But now the point: BSD is boring.
Simply said I don`t run a webserver all day and I don`t type "uptime" all day.
I actually try to work (to some extend
Beside of that both are very equal - it`s yet another *nix-lookalike. *nix is a tool, like toiletpaper. You use it, but you don`t arguee about it. But you may still prefer the pink one with funny penguins on it
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
Actually, Linux probably shares userland code a lot more than BSD does. That's because Linux really doesn't HAVE a userland -- Linux is a kernel, a few GNU tools necessary to boot, and a lot of little individual packages, most of which use the same code base. For example, there are not four different 'telnet' programs in the Linux world. Everybody uses the same "NetTools" package maintained by some guy whose name I can't remember (sigh). Similarly, everybody uses the same 'libc' library, it's all the same 'glibc' off of fsf.org, though everybody seems to be using a different revision of it (sigh). (even the old libc5 was that way, there was only one libc5, though some people, like Red Hat, for some inexplicable reason chose to ship an old version of it rather than the current version).
I like FreeBSD, but I'm posting this from SuSE Linux because I could not get Applix running despite branding all the ELF binaries in the Applix directory as Linux binaries and making sure the Linux emulation was compiled into the kernel. Bummer. I also did not have success getting WordPerfect 8 to run, though I've heard others say they managed to do it. I did run a couple of little Linux binaries to make sure the emulation was working, and they worked, so I do know the emulator works, but sometimes it's not easy to get multi-part apps to do right with it...
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
A typical inaccuracy was when they blithely repeated that Linux developers were a bunch of young kids and BSD developers a bunch of old pros, in blatant disregard of the facts.
l
See:
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue33/bentson.htm
for the details.
It does appear, though, that Linux has a whole lot of young kid ADVOCATES, some of who think it's, like, l33t (AGHH!!).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
"One thing that the article missed is the pride of hackerdom."
;-)
Quite so! A good UNIX war is about defending your pride rather than degrading your oponent.
One thing you might not realise too, is that like anything that comes from a University and the people deeply embedded in that culture, is that the focus and emphasis is on the small private clicks that form around the institutions, giving rise to that old adage "It's not what you know but who you know". So in BSD, you need to win popularity contests to get your stuff into the system. In linux, however, you only need to demonstrate the technical validity of your proposal. Thus, BSD lags behind in the development arena and has a pathetically small developer community to support it. I also imagine that the several forks of BSD are largely due to interested developers not being able to win popularity contests and thus being forced to fork off the code base in order to get their own stuff added.
Remember that what linus torvalds did was to capitalize on the Internet and the available talent. And he was wildly sucessful in creating a worldwide development team, which in turn has turned out a tremendous product. BSD can't do that because it's about popularity contests and dysfunctional politics. The artical says that the difference, as if it really means anything, is that BSD developers have degrees and 10 years of experience and are managers in their work, while Linux hackers are all unwashed masses without degrees (loosely interpreted). It said it as if that implies a certain quality of the code that won't be found in Linux. Bullshit. The focus should be on technical merits and not who has the more prestegious paper. And in the Linux world that is most certainly the case.
Linux is a truely open develop model that does not discriminate based on popularity contests or worthless peices of paper. It is not about who your sponsor is or what friends you have on the inside or who owes you favors. It's about technical merit.
Really? Hmm, what is GNU an acronym for again?
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
You can say the same about BSD, if you have different library versions on different machines you won't get the binaries to work right either. Linux systems have one thing in common, the same kernel. Will I have problems copying a binary linked against libfoo 1.5 to a system with libfoo 1.0? Yes. Is that Linux specific? No.
Have a look at the FreeBSD mailinglists sometime. I have a friend who's been using the OS for 5 or 6 years now, since back in the days of FreeBSD 1.x. He asked a rather difficult question on the -questions mailinglist a month or so ago, and was torn to shreds by the denizens of the list, who seem hell-bent on ego-stroking rather than offering any real help. He was treated as if he'd just installed the thing and he *certainly* was no "newbie" to the BSD scene.
Take a look at some of the comments here. I bet you'll see a lot of "Hah! I TOLD you so!"'s. Again, more blatant egomaniacal behavior offering little to no substance. Fun stuff.
This is the kind of crap I've come to expect from BSD people; I've come to the conclusion that, while a lot of linux users are clueless, a lot of BSD users are heartless, and it seems to be a pretty even trade-off.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I have an ancient Slackware box I've been upgrading diligently for the past few years by hand. The other day I needed a copy of sshd 1.x, but I was buggered if I was going to download the whole thing and recompile it (I already had all the other crap compiled). FTP'd over to my friend's Debian 2.1 box, grabbed his copy, it ran fine. I can run libc6 binaries from another friend's Redhat 6 machine on mine, and have done so. I can run my own libc5 binaries from another old machine if I need to. I routinely compile binaries on my machine and run them on others' machines. Saves me from having to drag all my source code over to their boxes (I only have a 56k modem link) and do it there. Never have I had a problem with it, and I've been doing this for years.
There is *one* Linux. There are *several* distributions. There is *one* Linux kernel. When you hear Alan Cox announce that he's forking the codebase, you can call me and we'll talk.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I really wish some of these articles would focus on the concept of using the best OS for a particular function. When we decided to get some network sniffers running for Intrusion Detection we went with OpenBSD for their security and top notch packet filter that tells an accurate assesment of the number of packets dropped. Linux will tell you it never drops any packets because it doesn't really know. Solaris is the same way.
However, when we needed a logging box running RAID and SMP, the documentation for *BSD (free versions) was not clear. Linux OTOH had both RAID and SMP support that was clean and ready to go.
To me, any ISP or serious admin will not restrict themselves to one OS as the solution to all their problems. Add free to functional as being the two biggest factors for a server OS to be implemented and your choices are Linux and *BSD. Do your research on what you need and then go with what fits.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
This is MS FUD at it's finest. Sure, split the *nix crowd even more. Point out to the unconverted that basically "Users of BSD and Linux hate each other and constantly gripe. Nothing ever gets done. Microsoft doesn't have any competitors, so there's nothing to argue with!"
I can see some IT manager/director reading this article and saying "Well, I certainly don't want to migrate our mission critical systems over to OS that are maintained by a bunch of pathetic whiners!". The reference to the 600 message thread on slashdot (i missed that one) was an interesting punch, too.
I believe that the bitterness and competition between Linux and the BSD camps are actually good for both communities. It keeps both camps from getting lazy, in a form of motivation unknown to MS (well, until recently)......COMPETITION. Competition is good. With competition comes innovation..trying to stay one step ahead of the other camp.
In a way, I got the impression Microslop is really, truely taking Linux as a serious threat. I really hope we're witnessing M$'s last stand with the Linux v.s Windoze war....