I don't think that anyone can deny that the GPL has a definite political agenda behind it.
The BSDL is fairly free of politics, at least to the extent that any human interaction can be.
Both are "free", for some definition of the word free. These arguments are purely political.
Human beings have argued over politics since Thuack the Caveman smacked Oog over the head for leadership of the tribe. We might as well argue Democrat versus Republican, or capitalist versus communist, or Throbbing Gristle versus SPK.
I didn't choose my OS based on the license. I chose it because it was the right tool for the job I do. I would be perfectly happy to have FreeBSD available under the GPL. I would be perfectly happy to have Linux available under the BSDL. Under either license, users return code to the project.
Either way, as an end-user, I get software that doesn't suck. It might not be great, all the time, but it doesn't suck.
Perhaps Slashdot should open a new section: Political License Flaming.
But y2k is now past. We could safely use 2 digit years again!
Okay, fine, maybe that's a bit extreme. But I'm sure 3-digit years would be adequate. If people are still using my horrendous code in the year 3000, they deserve what they get.
Works perfectly here. I do most my work on this laptop, after adding another 128m of RAM. (StarOffice and Netscape used simultaneously with only 32 meg of RAM is *not* pretty, no matter what OS you have.;)
I've never had a bit of trouble with it, other than finding out where the BIOS configuration screen was.
A further update (someone might have posted this below my threshold; apologies if so)
I received another NSI spam at 10:30 AM EDT, and it was also a bit different than described above.
Specifically, it doesn't include the free email account.
It does state that blackhelicopters.org has received a free listing in the new dotcom directory. I wonder what services we're supposed to sell? Perhaps people would pay to be able to launch Black Helicopters(tm, pat. pend.) on people of their choice? Sorry, off-topic.
It also describes various domain registration bonus plans, and the "read our spam or else" threat.
Seriously. back in 1995 I worked for a national ISP that I won't name. We had to build news machines. A lot of news machines. We had quite a few ISP customers, and they all wanted news.
At the time, I was a Mac user. UNIX was the clunky thing I used to read my email and run traceroute with. I mention this only to show that I had no prior BSD/Linux bias.
After much pain, we got Linux going (Red Hat 3.2, I believe, but don't quote me). A pentium 200 filled about 20 meg, then leveled out. Not bad.
The FreeBSD 1.5 machine, with the same hardware, filled a DS3. (Boy, were those T1 customers hanging off that site *pissed*! But that's another story.) The FreeBSD box didn't so much as break a sweat.
So, we plugged it into an OC3.
The box finally leveled out at 80 meg. My gut reaction is that it was the cheap 100bT NIC that filled out.
Of course, we eventually smoked the SCSI arrays (remember back when an 8 gig array was impressive?) But the OS just kept going, and going, and going.
As a network engineer, FreeBSD earned my trust.
Now, most people don't need to soak an OC-3. But those of us who do (Best, Yahoo, etc) tend to run FreeBSD.
Your T-1 ISP? Either will work just fine.
Your desktop? Linux will support your goofy desktop hardware.
If you have a network-heavy application, the IP stack more than makes up the difference.
The SMP issues are being attacked in FreeBSD-current, and will be backported to -stable when possible. Check the freebsd-hackers mailing list archives for the gory details of the SMP discussions.
FWIW, I have a dual-processor 3.2-stable box, and it just flies.
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I don't think that anyone can deny that the GPL has a definite political agenda behind it.
The BSDL is fairly free of politics, at least to the extent that any human interaction can be.
Both are "free", for some definition of the word free. These arguments are purely political.
Human beings have argued over politics since Thuack the Caveman smacked Oog over the head for leadership of the tribe. We might as well argue Democrat versus Republican, or capitalist versus communist, or Throbbing Gristle versus SPK.
I didn't choose my OS based on the license. I chose it because it was the right tool for the job I do. I would be perfectly happy to have FreeBSD available under the GPL. I would be perfectly happy to have Linux available under the BSDL. Under either license, users return code to the project.
Either way, as an end-user, I get software that doesn't suck. It might not be great, all the time, but it doesn't suck.
Perhaps Slashdot should open a new section: Political License Flaming.
But y2k is now past. We could safely use 2 digit years again!
Okay, fine, maybe that's a bit extreme. But I'm sure 3-digit years would be adequate. If people are still using my horrendous code in the year 3000, they deserve what they get.
I live about half an hour from CmdrTaco. If everything goes to hell Saturday, I'll just go see him. Saves me the trouble of shopping beforehand.
Works perfectly here. I do most my work on this laptop, after adding another 128m of RAM. (StarOffice and Netscape used simultaneously with only 32 meg of RAM is *not* pretty, no matter what OS you have. ;)
I've never had a bit of trouble with it, other than finding out where the BIOS configuration screen was.
A further update (someone might have posted this below my threshold; apologies if so)
I received another NSI spam at 10:30 AM EDT, and it was also a bit different than described above.
Specifically, it doesn't include the free email account.
It does state that blackhelicopters.org has received a free listing in the new dotcom directory. I wonder what services we're supposed to sell? Perhaps people would pay to be able to launch Black Helicopters(tm, pat. pend.) on people of their choice? Sorry, off-topic.
It also describes various domain registration bonus plans, and the "read our spam or else" threat.
No password is included in the mail.
Good news for the Linux camp.
Due to the GPL's infectious nature, us BSD folks still won't be able to use large chunks of Linux code.
Slashdot, roasting on an open fire... ;)
Seriously. back in 1995 I worked for a national ISP that I won't name. We had to build news machines. A lot of news machines. We had quite a few ISP customers, and they all wanted news.
At the time, I was a Mac user. UNIX was the clunky thing I used to read my email and run traceroute with. I mention this only to show that I had no prior BSD/Linux bias.
After much pain, we got Linux going (Red Hat 3.2, I believe, but don't quote me). A pentium 200 filled about 20 meg, then leveled out. Not bad.
The FreeBSD 1.5 machine, with the same hardware, filled a DS3. (Boy, were those T1 customers hanging off that site *pissed*! But that's another story.) The FreeBSD box didn't so much as break a sweat.
So, we plugged it into an OC3.
The box finally leveled out at 80 meg. My gut reaction is that it was the cheap 100bT NIC that filled out.
Of course, we eventually smoked the SCSI arrays (remember back when an 8 gig array was impressive?) But the OS just kept going, and going, and going.
As a network engineer, FreeBSD earned my trust.
Now, most people don't need to soak an OC-3. But those of us who do (Best, Yahoo, etc) tend to run FreeBSD.
Your T-1 ISP? Either will work just fine.
Your desktop? Linux will support your goofy desktop hardware.
The SMP support in FreeBSD 3x is a little clunky.
If you have a network-heavy application, the IP stack more than makes up the difference.
The SMP issues are being attacked in FreeBSD-current, and will be backported to -stable when possible. Check the freebsd-hackers mailing list archives for the gory details of the SMP discussions.
FWIW, I have a dual-processor 3.2-stable box, and it just flies.