Why is BSD Not As Popular As Linux?

hill writes "An article over on Economic Times explains why BSD is as not as popular as Linux. Both use an open-source model, but Linux demands the user community to disclose modifications on its source code, while BSD allows its users to make proprietary changes. The current size of the BSD community is estimated at 2 million, with Linux being around 10 million. This is definately worth the read for anyone interested in comparing the two operating systems. " I'm sure we have a few opinions on the subject.

Comments

The more the better

[core]

First, we should look at it this way: there are 12 million people that use a free unix-like operating system. Most if not all opensource applications run equally well on both. One (Linux) is an implementation from scratch, the other (Free/Net/OpenBSD) has royal blood as it is the direct descendant of 4.4BSD which itself descends from Unix. This should keep happy both the new army of coders that like to toy with new concepts, and the traditionalists for whom 30 year old code doesn't mean outdated, but proven and stable. Both points of view can be defended I think. We therefore have 12 million users and users-developers of free unixish applications, that's great and was absolutely unthinkable 10 years ago!

As for the technical side, I keep having to look at both the linux and freebsd kernels as part of my work; they are good references. Both have very good parts. I have to say that usually, the solution adopted by FreeBSD is simpler and a lot more commented/documented (take the bogomips case for example; people are starting to wonder what will happen if the cpu speed changes at runtime, how to detect and recalculate it, etc; freebsd spins simply by looking at changes in the hardware clock counter. simpler :). Same for NIC drivers usually (hello, donald becker, do comment weird things :-). But the linux kernel is full of good and new ideas.

So we need both if we want to keep the high standards we are used to have in the free unices now. That was my original point :) Long and happy life to all the linux and free/open/netbsd hackers, be it kernel or office applications writers :)

Two factors

[Bruce Perens]

I like the BSD system and might even do some commercial things with it. So please don't take this as anti-BSD propoganda.

1. Time. BSD was held back by the ATT lawsuit and Linux already had so much mindshare when that was over.

2. The BSD license doesn't enforce the quid-pro-quo. This is a real sticking point for me personally. When I put a lot of work into something, I like to be a partner in a free software development, not someone's unpaid employee dupe. But I feel like a dupe when somebody takes that work private, makes proprietary modifications to my work and doesn't return their modifications to me or the other free software authors who gave him our work.

Unfortunately, history shows that without a license requirement the return of code doesn't happen. Most of the workstation Unix systems are BSD-derived (although these days there is more System V in there) and all of their X servers are derived from software under a very similar license to the BSD. Try to get the source code for those systems. Sun only released its modifications to the BSD system recently, 10 years late, and then under a license that would not allow their reincorporation into the BSD system as free software! Most other workstation manufacturers didn't bother to release source at all.

So, I am more likely to put work into a GPL project. It is possible to take the BSD system and GPL it. The new BSD license and the GPL are compatible, and you can GPL all new work that you do, and in general establish a GPL source thread. But that would annoy a lot of the long-time BSD folks.

Thanks

Bruce

bsd didn't capture new users' interest

[poopie]

Life's not fair. I personally believe that linux has been so successful because:

it invited in more new users than BSD
it has a smart, savvy figurehead/spokesperson in the form of Linus, where BSD doesn't really have a single spokesperson for the media to contact, quote or interview.
it has been marketed as something new, as opposed to yet another fragmented version of unix. (how many forms have a unix checkbox and a linux checkbox?)
the linux community is more helpful to newbies, where the BSD community is more guru focused - RTFM!
timing - linux timing was right for a unix renaissance
random chance
number of developers involved in linux kernel development and testing created a snowball effect with number of end users.
confusion over the difference between FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. Maybe it would server BSD better (marketing-wise) to have a single name for their OS, and varying distributions
the mass quantity of resources that are mostly unix-generic that have linux in their name -- like the LDP and many unix apps that have linux in their name

Re:bsd didn't capture new users' interest

[Rilke]

To add to this:

• Linux has a cool name and a cool story. Folks (especially in the US) just eat up the whole Linus story.
• a major goal in the early days of Linux was "let's write a driver for everything". BSD never really pushed that goal, and today Linux runs on a whole lot more popular hardware than BSD does.
• Open development: Linus accepted patches from just about anyone. Kernel improvements on BSD always went "let's discuss it, and then one of the core developers will implement it". Linux discussions were always "send a patch in, and then we'll talk about it".
• The lawsuit, of course. Linux owes much of its early success to the CD-ROM, which was just getting popular. At the time of yggdrasil and early slackware, I don't remember seeing any complete easy-to-install BSD CD-ROMs (did walnut creek have one maybe?)
• Linus himself. He's directed the whole movement incredibly well, staying out of arguments when needed, and stepping in when necessary.

Source model? License model? User model!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons is that the Linux community is very inclusive, while the BSD community is highly insular. Visiting the FreeBSD web site and reviewing their mailing list archives, or visiting #freebsd and spending ten minutes watching the conversations is enough to prove the point.

This applies somewhat to users and to an extreme with developers. As a user, a question revealing that you don't know UNIX, not just *BSD, is enough to have you shouted out the door. As a developer, unless you're a 20 year BSD veteran, suggest an idea or ask where you can begin to help and you should be prepared to be stomped on. Hard and repeatedly. Largely by many of the project principals.

Review some of Matt Dillon's contributions to FreeBSD in the mailing lists. He's repeatedly helped to pull large portions of FreeBSD up to and even past their Linux equivalents. Then consider the rationale behind the community's treatment of him.

A similar type of treatment resulted in the split of NetBSD and OpenBSD. Again, reviewing their mailing list archives shows that this kind of childish animosity and cliquish cult behavior abounds.

To the contrary, it takes all of five minutes to find something to do for Linux and to find a mentor who will help you find your way to the in crowd the first few times you've got a core-level contribution to make. They give you the benefit of the doubt as a new contributor, reviewing and considering your contribution, not your credentials or your ability/willingness to pose as a BSD veteran long enough to be heard.

Frankly, it's surprising that this group exists outside of acedemia at all.

Re:Source model? License model? User model!

[Eivind Eklund]

This applies somewhat to users and to an extreme with developers. As a user, a question revealing that you don't know UNIX, not just *BSD, is enough to have you shouted out the door.

Can you back this up with references to actual incidents, as opposed to rumours? It do not match my impression at all, with the exception of #freebsd on efnet, which is an has always been a cesspool (from what I hear, #unix and #linux are very similar.)

As a developer, unless you're a 20 year BSD veteran, suggest an idea or ask where you can begin to help and you should be prepared to be stomped on. Hard and repeatedly. Largely by many of the project principals.

This is not true. It match the rumours I hear from the the Linux community, but they do not match the reality I've experienced.

I entered the FreeBSD community without having much Unix experience; I'd run Linux for a few months (on a machine somebody else set up for me), and had had a login on a couple of other machines (SGIs and Suns). I was welcomed as a mailing list participant without having done any hacking on Unix itself, and as a short time Unix user. I got commit privileges after having been active on the lists for a couple of months, continously feeling them as friendly and welcoming of suggestions.

I am now regarded as one of the 'project principals' (to use your term); I have never seen anybody being flamed for asking where to help. If I ever see a developer flame somebody for that, that developer will need to defend his commit privileges. I do not consider that kind of behaviour acceptable, and neither does (as far as I can tell) the community as a whole.

When it comes to ideas, I agree that there can sometimes come a backlash. This is usually in the form of 'Show me the patches' when somebody is suggesting someting that is a lot of work, but we do have people in the community that will pounce rather hard on proposals that are bad, and where the person proposing it could have found that out by spending a small amount of time.

Review some of Matt Dillon's contributions to FreeBSD in the mailing lists. He's repeatedly helped to pull large portions of FreeBSD up to and even past their Linux equivalents.

LOL! Matt has contributed a lot, sure, but he's not "pulled things beyond their Linux equivalents" - the things he has been working on has always been further ahead in FreeBSD than in Linux. They are some of our strongest pieces.

Then consider the rationale behind the community's treatment of him.

The treatment has mainly been to not accept that he should, on his own authority, refuse to accept advice from the rest of the community, and that he would not keep direct write access to the source tree (commit privileges) unless he learned to work with the community.

Would you want to have somebody that was contiually at war with Linus write to the Linux source tree, in opposition to what Linus said was OK? One that also fought with the rest of the Linux users? I suspect not - and the FreeBSD core team felt they could not accept that situation, either.

Note: I cooperate with Matt on FreeBSD development, and consider him a brilliant programmer. I also think that he should have commit privileges (which he has now). However, I don't think he has been mistreated - he has been behaving in a way that brought him repeatedly into conflicts with people, and that had to be handled.

Eivind.

Another big reason: college undergrads?

[belgin]

Well, I really had never heard of BSD to any great degree until after I had finished my undergrad degree in computer science. Linux was a topic of discussion amongst undergrads in the first and second years of college.

As self-fufilling prophecies go, this is another one. BSD continues to be less known, because it is less known. Over half of those same college undergrads I knew in computer science and engineering got hands on experience with Linux before they graduated, myself included.

BSD continued to languish in the realms of unknown software.

Many of the undergrads went out into the work force and are now doing jobs where they can at least provide knowledgable input about Linux. Many of them went to find jobs specifically where they could work on Linux systems. There was no similarly large pool of individuals who knew BSD amongst the dozens of fellow students I knew, including the systems operators (I was one) for our UNIX systems, or much in the faculty. Perhaps a few people seemed knowledgable about BSD, but they didn't talk about it much, because people knew more about and were already interested in Linux.

For the most part, colleges provide the ground where our next generations of individuals in the computer industry learn UNIX-based OS's and determine what technologies they will bring to their initial workplaces. If BSD is as absent from most colleges as it was from mine, BSD won't catch on, because many of the people who would use it will not know about it.

B. Elgin

The thing to understand.

[Amphigory]

One thing RMS is right about is that the Linux environment is about a lot more than a kernel. It is about userspace utilities. It is about X. It is about GNOME and KDE. It's about Mozilla and Opera. It's about apache, zeus, and sendmail.

And all of these things will run, mostly without modification, on BSD.

Who cares which kernel is used! That's a small (but very important) part of the whole picture. The important thing is that we are rapidly developing more and more user-space stuff that will run on any modern UNIXy platform -- whether its Linux, FreeBSD, or the Hurd.

Linux's success helps to insure BSD's long term viability. Don't forget it. From some stuff I've seen, I gather that the core *BSD teams are well aware of it.