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Debian FreeBSD Distro?
antigen fiend wrote in to note that Debian Weekly News has a bit about a recent debate about a Debian port to the FreeBSD Kernel. There are several comments relating to licensing, ease of porting, and other relevant topics. Its definitely an interesting project, with a lot of political and technical snags. Any thoughts?
Getting the libraries ported would make supporting applications on both systems a dream. Also, the FreeBSD group could then take advantage of the ported glibc to increase interoperability.
We talk about freedom, yet all the major Free Software vendors are using the same kernel. If Debian pushed GNU/Linux, GNU/Hurd, and now GNU/FreeBSD, then we will eventually have the day that we can choose which kernel is the best for our purposes.
Few people use Linux for the kernel, they use it for the capabilities. I have a friend who loves his GNU/Solaris machine. Don't laugh, he administered Solaris machines for years, so his home PC has the Solaris x86 stuff on it, but all it runs is Free Software (and StarOffice).
Linux advocacy is silly. Advocating *nix, or even Free Software makes sense, but obsession with a kernel is silly. As Linus says, (I might be paraphrasing) "Linux sucks, it just sucks less than anything else out there."
The Linux kernel is fast, it is stable, but it isn't revolutionary. As I understand it, it is Microkernel-esque, although it still probably has remnants from its days as a monolithic kernel. I mean, when someone comes out with a solid exokernel, are we going to scream and yell about how Linux is still better?
Support free software, but support choice. In a free software world, we could pick our kernel without worrying about our apps breaking. This project has both technical and political merit. Although, if the BSD license allows you to do whatever you want with the code, can Debian release the GNU/FreeBSD system under the GPL? If they made the best FreeBSD distro and put it under the GPL, the license issues would be over. I'm not sure of the specifics of the BSD license, but if you can include it in proprietary licensed systems, I don't see why Debian's system couldn't be GPLed.
(For the curious, I am a FreeBSD user)
:).
There are several reasons I do not think DebianBSD is going to be advantageous:
1.) Most people using FreeBSD enjoy the less restrictive, more open BSD license.
2.) The FreeBSD Ports Collection is truly incredible; there little or no need or desire for a Debian package system.
3.) I personally love the fact that FreeBSD is *not* a distribution, it is a full featured, integrated Operating System. I think this allows FreeBSD to be more intelligently organized and to work more smoothly than the various Linux distributions forced to integrate an operating system beyond their control with software largely beyond their control. DebianBSD sacrifies this advantage.
4.) The licensing issues are difficult, if not impossible to resolve.
5.) Any variation on the name GNU/BSD is going to cause an uproar and permenantly doom any Debian based FreeBSD distribution.
6.) Finally, from quickly scanning the Debian mailing lists, it seems as if most of the Debian developers have no respect for FreeBSD. One called it "dying software" and others claimed it offered no advantages over Linux. While everyone is entitled to an opinion, however ill-informed and erroneous, I wonder how dedicated Debian could be to an operating system it does not like and does not respect; after all, part of the allure of working on open source software is being able to code for your own pleasure rather than someone else's.
In short, DebianBSD seems like an abortion from the start, althougth I am prepared to be surprised.
(Note, even if DebianBSD did come into existence I would never switch; Debian and the FSF irritate me with their holier-than-art-thou pronouncements on freedom. Sadly enough for DebianBSD, I have a feeling a large number of FreeBSD users will agree with me.)
I have recently switched to FreeBSD, since I beleive it is better than Linux. And I personally think that GNU/FreeBSD would be the worst thing possible for FBSD. Here's why:
/usr/ports//
.deb packages would start appearing for fbsd and there wen't good old pkg_add for anything you need... In addition to that, I'm afraid debian would make a sort of linux distribution around the fbsd kernel (actually, I sould say GNU in this case). This means that even at the absolute minimum, the install would fill up your HD with every available piece of free software, no matter how bad it is. In BSD, you get a clean, structured system.
FBSD is a whole lot better than Linux mainly because the distribution is centeralized. Just like only good code makes it into the Linux kernel, only good code makes it into the fbsd distribution - all of it. In fbsd, there are no 5 different libraries for a single task, and you can be sure there is a single good library all programs use. You can be sure all programs would run on your distro, since there is only one distro. In linux, you have to install 43 and half different libs for the same tasks just to be sure everything runs on it.
There is also one single distribution for fbsd, so you can be sure things work on it in any case - you can safley download binaries, unlike linux where you have binaries for redhat6-glibc2 redhat5-glibc2 redhat6-libc5 redhat5-libc5 slackware-libc5 slackware-glibc2 suse6-libc5 suse6-glibc2 and so on, you get the point. In addition to that, sources might not be compatible between distros, since they use different libs and in differend locations. Simply put, you must tweak the program to get it working, unless an archive is available for your distro especially.
When I switched from linux to fbsd, it was like entering heaven. Things are organized, code is better. No more tweaking. If I want a program, it's simply a matter of typing:
cd
make && make install
and presto, a network connection is established, the sources are downloaded, patches are applied, the code is built, and then installed. Also, all the neccessary dependancies are also downloaded and built. Or even simpler, just mount the packages cd and do a
pkg_add
All the binaries, libs, etc. will be installed, everything will be in place and registered for later uninstall, and without an error. This is all because of a centeralized distribution.
Now, if Debian (whom I do respect for their linux distro) were to make a Debian GNU/FreeBSD distro, things wouldn't work this way. First of all, glibc would probably be ported so fbsd would start having seperate binaries for glibc and fbsd libc. And probably seperate bins for debian and the official distro. In addition to that, debian would start using it's own sources for linux programs, which means ports loses a lot of it's value. And
Now, a point that *must* be emphasize: freebsd is an *operating system*, not a kernel. Linux is a kernel, fbsd is an os. Read this sentance ten times: fbsd is an os, linux is a kernel. Making a freebsd debian distro would be like taking window's solitair and building a linux distro around it. fbsd would lose alot since people would start using it just for it's kernel, and not the beutiful system it is.
It's been mentioned that this way in an open unix system you would be able to choose your kernel, libc, etc. But this is a plain wrong view! Have you seen a new linux distro with just libc5 or glibc2 on it? NO! You would need to have ALL the kernels, and ALL the libcs this way. This would also make things worst for the linux community... if libcs become interoperable, linux binaries are opt to show up with the fbsd libc, which means 3 libc's for linux, which means even more mess.
One last point I want to make is that the support gnu, debian, et al get from linus in the linux kernel might not repeat itself in fbsd if debian won't make sure the fbsd community wants this step - and my guess is we don't.
Please try to consider all sides to this before taking such drastic steps. Thanks.
--
Oren Sarig
sarig@bezeqint.net
Actually, there are other important things, too, but none of them are related to making the moronic masses happy. Sometimes they're about making adminstrators, programmers, engineers, and scientists happy; in other words, people who aren't afraid of thinking and who aren't afraid of learning, people who aren't looking so much for a flashy new toaster without an instruction manual or a redundant TV set to babysit the kiddies, but rather for a complete system that does precisely what it was designed to do, one solidly integrated and tested by time.
Other venues exist for the less technophilic--like hiring a secretary. :-)