Um, because you're an idiot. I don't know who you are, but if you don't have basic respect for human life then your an idot, plain and simple. Whether you prefer BSD or Linux is a valid "opinion" that can be debated in a civilized manner. Whether you prefer Windows over Unix can also be debated, although I suspect the facts benefit one side much more than the other. Whether one should respect human life, the rule of law, and equal rights for all is not something that you will find most/. readers ready to debate you on, IMHO.
While I applaud your effort to set some facts straight I believe your article on Daemon News probably did more to inflame any anti-*BSD sentiment by Linux supporters than anything else. I personally have never run BSD, although I have a CD for FreeBSD 3.1 CD and now have sufficient bandwidth via my cable modem to download any distribution over night. However, I do know a "little bit" more than your average Linux bigot about the development of *BSD and Linux. I'm not going to attack you or make you feel uncomfortable, rather I'd like to explain how some of your words are inflamitory to the Linux community. Hopefully this will help you in communicating with the Linux community in the future in a less inflamitory way (you honestly sound like a "BSD bigot" even to someone who is rather open-minded about alternative operating systems).
"And while calls of fragmentation of the BSD community run rampant throughout the Linux world,Linux is a far more fragmented operating system. With over a hundred distributions, Linux is often unable to provide compatibility with itself even though "there is only one Linux kernel." I was bitten by this several years ago when I wrote a set of scripts to manage the startup rc files on a Slackware system. When the system was moved to Red Hat, the scripts broke. Thousands of others had problems when the move to glibc was rushed by Red Hat while other distributions remained cautious."
This is common misconception that many people, including Linux users, believe and causes problems. Unlike the FreeBSD "current" code tree there is no globally accepted recommendation to upgrade to the latest kernel or distribution. It's also a mistake to consider the various Linux distributions as the same operating system. Much like the various BSD OSs, the various distributions of Linux are designed for specific purposes. Caldera is squarely aimed at the corporate market. RedHat is the "average Joe" version. Turbo Linux is aimed at the asian market (with specific Japanese and Chinese versions). Slackware is for the Unix "guru" who has no problem with recompiling programs by hand. Failure to understand this is just that, a failure to understand the Linux marketplace. Similarly, distributions don't generally follow the "latest" releases, even when if comes to the standard releases. For example, RedHat 6.0 is still on the 2.2.5 kernel release while the official kernel is at version 2.2.12. While this is not "tying," as anyone with enough knowledge can run any software on any system and upgrade the their hearts content (I'm running 2.2.12 right now on a RedHat 6.0 box with PPTP patches, XFree86 3.3.4, gcc 2.7.2.3 (to compile the kernel) and gcc 2.95.1) it reinforces the concept that each distribution can generally be considered a "different" operating system much like the various *BSDs are.
One would have to ask though, why did you upgrade between Slackware and RedHat without investigating the differences? That's not a "normal" administrative move. It's actually more like reinstalling an operating system than upgrading. The differences in package methods should have given you a huge clue that the OSs were not the "same." That the rc scripts are different in various OSs is well know to any administrator. Solaris, HP-UX, *BSD, Unixware, and practically everyone else does it slightly different. Linux gives you both common methods of doing it. It's much like the perl programming language, "there's more than one way to do it." I really don't mean to imply that you're not a competant administrator, but I'm really surprised that you had this issue. Perhaps it wasn't your choice to make the "leap" between Slackware and RedHat. If that's the case, then the administrator who made the choice, especially on a production box, is at fault and probably should have had disceplenary action.
Lastly, I think it's fairly unreasonable to imply that there are "hundreds" of viable Linux distributions. A vast majority of those are only used by a very small number of users and for specific reasons. They can almost be thought of in the same vein as embedded systems (such as the "distribution" meant to use Linux as the OS for a router). There are actually only a few "large" distributions that the vast majority of the Linux community use. The number, while slightly larger than the number of *BSD "distributions" comes no where near "hundreds."
"Many others have mentioned that FreeBSD should quit complaining about the GPL while using GCC and other GNU tools. While it is true that a number of GNU utilities are used in FreeBSD, they comprise fewer than 8% of the utilities and 15% of the libraries. "
My personal view, which I suspect is shared by the vast majority of GNU fans, is that if BSD continues to use the gcc compiler then the percentage of other GNU tools that comprise a BSD system is relatively irrelavent. Most people I know view the C compiler in a Unix system to be one of the most important aspects of the system, much like the kernel. It would kind of, but not exactly, be like BSD using a HURD or Linux kernel and still insisting that it's BSD. This is in contrast to the GNU camp, which I think believes that the tools define the name of the OS and not necessarily the kernel (hence the GNU/Linux debate). It could still be argued that it shouldn't be called GNU/Linux in this case, but that's a side issue. I personally consider the kernel, C compiler, and C library as the main determining factors as far as what "kind" of system an OS is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's definately possible to grab the source for FreeBSD and recomile everything on a RedHat Linux system right? If so, does that transform the system into a BSD system, with the C library, compiler, and kernel based on RedHat Linux? I didn't think so.
"The Linux mindset can often be characterized as "code exists, throw it into the distribution.""
This is mildly offensive. I'm assuming that you are specifically talking about specific distributions instead of the kernel itself. If you're talking about the kernel then you are sadly mistaken. First, Linus has the ultimate say in what goes in the kernel. Second, there is a distinct development and stable kernel. The development kernel is NOT for your casual users and is expected to fail on a regular basis. Yes, code is often thrown into the development kernel so that it can be tested on "live" systems of the developers. This code is either tested to the point that it is considered stable or yanked out of the kernel before it is moved over to a stable version. To imply that untested code is "thrown into the distribution" is the offensive part. For example, I've been trying to get the new RAID code into the stable kernel but it was yanked at the last moment, even though it has been available and in test kernels for months, because a developer found what could have been a bug. While this was disappointing on my part, it shows that code is not "thrown into the distribution."
If you're talking about non-kernel parts of the distribution then I think you are mistaken also. As I mentioned, there are only a few different distributions that are used by the vast majority of the community. One of the reasons for the "fringe" distributions is the fact that the main distributions don't always update their code often enough for some on the leading (not bleeding) edge. That's why, for example, SGI Linux is basically RedHat with some updates. I belive another popular "fringe" distribution may be Mandrake, which is also based on RedHat with the latest updates for various packages. So, to claim that main distributions are just "throwing [code] into the distribution" is patently false. The fact that most Linux distributions make it extreamly easy for any old user with some experience to create a custom distribution is probably more of an example of the openness of Linux development than "fragmentation" or "code instability."
"Linux was developed by an undergraduate student at the University of Helsinki to correct the flaws of Minix. However, FreeBSD is based on the 4.4BSD distribution of Unix from the University of California at Berkeley released in 1994."
Here you imply that FreeBSD is somehow better because it was released by the high and mighty "University of California at Berkeley" while Linux development was started by a poor "undergraduate student" at the lowly University of Helsinki. While I don't believe that was your intention, at least I hope not, that's the way it comes off. I could care less about the University of California at Berkeley, much like I could care less about the University of Helsinki. They are both "institutions of higher learning." I don't think it's fair or logical to rate an OS on what University it blosomed out of. One can always ask the questions "what have you done for me lately!" In that regard, I suspect that the University of Helsinki gets my "vote" for the most innovative.
"The first widely used TCP/IP stack was included in 4.2BSD and was reused in dozens of other operating systems."
Here you imply that the Berkeley TCP/IP stack is used in Linux. Although I'm no expert on the matter, I believe this has been discussed ad infinitum and shown that the Linux stack is a "new" implementation. A comment I would also like to make is that you seem to imply that, since BSD has a long heritage that it is somehow "better." I, for one, don't believe that just because something has been around for so long that it's necessarily better. I'm not saying that everything must be constantly rearchitected, but has been shown that it is often necessary to rewrite from scratch from time to time instead of holding on to old code for the comfort factor. I believe there was an article referenced on/. or LinuxToday that I can dig up if you are interested...
"There are No Applications for FreeBSD"
I completely agree with you here as that statement makes as much sense as saying that there are no applications for Linux. I do think that the comment about performance improvements by running Linux applications under FreeBSD was unnecessary, even if true. I thought your article was supposed to be about correcting misinformation about FreeBSD rather than comparing FreeBSD and Linux and showing that FreeBSD was somehow "better."
"FreeBSD is a Dead End"
I liked this part, it was informative and didn't include any jabs at Linux users. I didn't know about PicoBSD and would be interested in learning more... (This is the tone that your whole article should have taken).
"The majority of FreeBSD is owned by the Regents of the University of California, where it was originally developed. Removing the existing license without the permission of the Regents would be no different that releasing a version of GCC with a BSD copyright in place of the GPL."
I think everyone knows this. So why not petition the Regents to release the original code under the GPL? That would seem to solve all problems, would it not. You CAN release code under multiple licenses. I don't see why, with the release of the license by the Regents, that FreeBSD could not be released under both the GPL and the BSD license, do you? Besides, I would think that much if not the vast majority of code that was released by the Regents has been modified to the extent of being all but replaced, no? (And please don't take this opportunity to say "no, because the BSD code has such a strong history that there was no need to modify the original code." Everyone know that there are bugs in almost all software, including FreeBSD and Linux. While there are probably areas of FreeBSD that have not been touched since the original release I'd find it hard to believe that it's in the majority. If so, I'd have to ask "what have you guys been doing since 1994?").
FreeBSD SHOULD GPL itself if it wants to use GPL code. I though that that's just obeying the law. If you're telling me that FreeBSD uses GPL code and does not release under the GPL then I think that's a surprise to a LOT of people. I don't think "we" are trying to convert "you" to GPL bigots (well some are but...), however, I don't think that the various factions (BSD/OS, Free, Open, Net) petitioning the Regents to release their code as GPL SO THAT YOU CAN INCLUDE other GPL CODE into your distributions would be viewed as a "victory" by the GNU camp. Sure, we would "get" the Regents code under the GPL, but you could STILL release FreeBSD under a non-GPL "Regents" BSD license as long as you didn't include any GPL code.
This would not split the code tree, as the only differences would be in the license attached to any distributions. The base code would be available in both BSD and GPL licenses. Any additions to the code would have to be released under the GPL license if it included GPL code. But, you stated that the reason you don't do this is because of the license from the Regents. You imply that you would have no problem releasing under a GPL license if only you could. If that's NOT the case, and you simply don't agree with the GPL license, then don't use our code. You have no "right" to use our code, and complaining about it will do you no good. It's like us wanting to use BSD code but making the decision to not because of the license. Some code, like X, is under a non-GPL license, but we, like everyone else, have the right to pick and choose what we decide to use. I don't see any inconsistancy of GNU folk insisting that you release under the GPL if you use GPL copyrighted works.
I really don't understand what the issue is. I think it's kind of like an ego trip for the Regents and "advertisement" by the University of California at Berkeley. That's honestly the only reason why I can think that they don't release under the GPL. I mean they don't get any money for derrived works, right? They only get the free advertising.
"Some FreeBSD users may indeed be jealous. But many are simply curious about why a new user would choose Linux over FreeBSD, despite FreeBSD's technical superiority."
Why the reason for this insult? A new user would choose Linux because it's more in the news. A new user would choose Linux if they wanted an OS that was under blazingly fast development. May be a hacker who wanted to check out some esoteric hardware. Or, may be a "average" user who would probably stick with a major distribution and not compile applications or the kernel themselves (instead waiting for bug fixes and enhancements from the distribution vendor, much like the BSD twice yearly release cycle with security fixes in between). Or may be because "official" support from a variety of vendors (such as database vendors) has been announced for Linux but not BSD (much like user who wanted to run a particular database would most likely choose RedHat instead of a "niche" distribution because "official" support is pretty much RedHat's domain right now) [Side Note: I may be wrong here, but I certainly am not aware of any press releases by any major database vendor, for instance, about official FreeBSD support. To say that the application could run under FreeBSD may be true, but then why worry about official support. Might as well run some custom kernel and compile all programs yourself if that's what you want.]
"In many ways, this is how Linux proponents view Windows users. Others do not care."
Oh, no, more insults. I honestly can't believe you made this comment. After explaining above that both BSD and Linux have as a common goal to provide a free Unix environment to users they you imply that Linux is SO far behind BSD that it's more like Windows!?! How, then can BSD be so much better if it's striving for the same goal? No, Windows has a fundamentally different goal in mind and I belive the vast majority of Linux and BSD supporters agree that it's a "BAD" thing. To take fundamental control away from even system administrators and try to "dumb down" the administrative skills required is just a bad thing to do. It puts too much responsibility on the correctness of OS code that can have devastating results. Given the industry track record, not even Microsoft's specifically, on software bugs I'd say this is a humongous mistake (just as integrating the GUI into the kernel was). I really don't know what to say here other than I hope you didn't mean what was so plainly implied.
"Unlike Linux advocates, FreeBSD advocates do not believe FreeBSD should be running on every microchip. Most FreeBSD advocates merely wish it see it perform best where it does best: Internet servers and high end workstations."
No, but you have OpenBSD, NetBSD, BSD/OS, and at least PicoBSD, which are designed to run in various situations. I think this statement comes from the misinformation you have about Linux and the assumption that there is only "one" Linux operating system. There are multiple. The main distributions, like RedHat, only run on "popular" "internet server and high end workstation" architectures such as PPC, Alpha, SPARC, HP-PA and Intel (RedHat may not even run on all of those). Smaller, niche distributions run on the Palm Pilot, and other embedded devices. Hey, that's kinda like the embedded PicoBSD, right?
Conclusion:
May be I'm reading way too much into the statements in your article and if I am then I appologize in advance. However, I obviously don't think this is the case. Hopefully I have provided some constructive criticism that you can use to hone your ability to "deal" with us wild Linux bigots. It would have been much more useful, IMHO, to do as your article was stated was it's goal and "clear up many of the misconceptions" instead of trying to pit Linux against BSD. If it was only focused on providing information to the Linux community about *BSD then that would have accomplished the goals set forth. I realize that Linux would have to be mentioned in some of the topics you chose to address. However, I don't think the confrontational tone was constructive at all. More information on the new features coming out in *BSD, such as PicoBSD, would have been helpful. Less "hauty" attitude about the origins of Linux and *BSD would have helped (like I said, most people just don't care that *BSD came out of Berkeley).
I would be interested in a reply to let me know how you took my email. As stated numberous times, the goal of this email was to inform you about how your statements could have been more inflamitory than you intended. Hopefully I accomplished my goal.
Well, you have to look at the "other side" as far as the QT "war" is concerned. The only reason we wanted a GPL based license was so that >OUR changes or additions to the library or programs that we built with it would be covered under the GPL and not be used for proprietary profit (nothing wrong with profit, but people shouldn't be able to make a profit on our work if they prohitbit other from doing the same). I think we could care less about Troll Tech releasing the license under BOTH their proprietary license and the GPL, so long as we could protect our own investment.
One aspect of better is that BSD encourages programers to think through what they are doing while linux is more of a quick hack. That is Linux is more release quickly and often where as BSD is get it right, then release. The only advantage is if it is wrong BSD makes it easier to throw away that code as it isn't released.
Does this also mean that it is harder to remove bad code if it does make it into a release?
I mostly agree with your post but take exception to your complaint about the Hotmail bashing. Microsoft deserved to get bashed for the Hotmail fiasco. Whether it was running on Solaris or NT is beside the point. They bought the company that provided the service and opened up a humongous security hole when they tried to "integrate" it into MSN with their passport "technology." If my understanding is incorrect please correct me. But if it is correct, then Microsoft deserves all the bashing delivered to it. Can you honestly think of a larger security hole? A simple URL that just about anyone could remember quickly and BOOM! you have instant access to anyone's email account? Come on, you can't complain about complaints about that!
I've asked this question on lk-ml but I'll re-ask it here. When will the RAID 0.90 code be forced into the official kernel? It was kinda disappointing to have it in 2.2.12-final only to be pulled in 2.2.12-forlinux. What's the major holdback? Is it the "upgrade" requirements? Do you see the RAID code getting to a state that is more like the ISDN fiasco? Will be only be able to upgrade RAID code during major release cycles (like 2.4, 2.6, 3.0, etc)?
Sorry to be a pest, but this is getting a little rediculous. People don't HAVE to upgrade their kernel to the latest stable release. Most people DON'T upgrade their kernel and only load the distribitions' releases (For instance, RedHat is still back on 2.2.5). What's the big deal?
fwr
Re:"Office.. i think i can hear someone....."
on
911 Calls Linux
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I haven't except when trying to patch the official kernel by hand with the 0.90 RAID patches (which Linus and Alan unfortunately rejected from 2.2.12 even though they were in 2.2.12-final). Fortunately you kinda have to know what you are doing in order to even get in that situation. Most people who don't know didly about programming should stick to the distribution released kernels...
Forget that proprietary crap. They are also used in OSPF routing, which is an open, industry standard, protocol. I suppose you prefer cisco's proprietary routing protocols to standard ones also?
Man, you need to get out a little more. There's more to life than netscape and xterm. Either your post was sarcasm or your one of those people who learn something real well and never learn anything else for the rest of your life....
What other chip did Intel come out with that has a comparable design? Forget the x86 architecture. What about their i960? Was that on the same level as the HP-PA, SPARC, Alpha, or PPC?
Why are HP push customers toward systems that are both HP-PA and IA-64 capable (recommending HP-PA until McKinley comes out) and being the first out with their Unix on Merced mutually exclusive? I think not. There is no reason that HP can't port HP-UX to Merced and recommend customers purchase their N class systems which reportedly are capable of supporting both HP-PA and IA-64. If their HP-PA CPUs out-perform Merced then it would only make sense to purchase those CPU's and exchange them for McKinley CPU's when they come out.
It's probably BECAUSE of performance concerns that they recommend HP-PA CPU's until McKinley comes out, skipping over Merced CPUs. They would be dis-honest if they did not recommend otherwise and you can be sure that they would get "caught in the act" if they tried to fudge the performance specs.
I've had no problems with the i740 in either Windows or Linux. In fact, I'm running it in Linux on my home computer right now (16BIT -- not COLOR -- mode in 1600x1200). Must be a user error...
Considering that every single person who owns a computer (at least Intel based) now a days is sure to have paid the Microsoft Tax on at least one of them, everyone already paid for all the TrueType fonts in Windows -- so just use those. I know I personally paid for at least four different copies of Windows - but only "actively" use two -- one on my wife's computer and one in a vmware session...
But it is all too simple to write off any licensing fees they pay to Microsoft which would "include" the cost of Windows in the price of their computers. Just like the salaries of employees building the computers is included. This is dishonest on the part of Dell.
Get a clue, if you used someone else's MAC then the switch would update it's FDB and any traffic to the user would be forwarded to you. That would cause the user to loose any connections that they had (IP/IPX/whatever) and that would definately cause them to think something is "up." I don't know of ANY vendor's switches that has room in their FDB to hold two ports for each MAC address. If you do I'd like to know.
True, if you're in the same VLAN you would see all broadcast/multicast traffic (unless the switch was capable of IGMP then you wouldn't even get all the multicast traffic). But, my experience is that broadcast/multicast traffic is not too useful for snooping passwords and such (at least for TCP/IP/unix connections and that's all we care about, right?).
Switches definately do not "guarantee security" but your method for snooping will not work. Even if you were able to get control of the conversation steering or port mirroring (or whatever your particular vendor calls it) capabilities of your switch there would be problems. First, you would have to be plugged into the same switch as the device you wanted to sniff. Second, you would probably only get half of the "conversation." A little know fact is that most switches are setup for auto-negotiation to 100BT full duplex. Most switches are unable to buffer frames while port mirroring. So if the device you are sniffing happens to be in full duplex mode and is sending a frame at the same time the switch is sending a frame to it you would only get one of the frames copied to your mirror port.
Besides, auto-negotiation does not always work and when it doesn't the results are not too pleasant. It varies between combinations of various vendor's switches and various NIC cards. Some combinations work excellent, some are intermittent, and some fail all the time. The end result is that some network engineers choose to force speed and duplex in all cases just so that there is no possibility of problems.
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Um, because you're an idiot. I don't know who you are, but if you don't have basic respect for human life then your an idot, plain and simple. Whether you prefer BSD or Linux is a valid "opinion" that can be debated in a civilized manner. Whether you prefer Windows over Unix can also be debated, although I suspect the facts benefit one side much more than the other. Whether one should respect human life, the rule of law, and equal rights for all is not something that you will find most /. readers ready to debate you on, IMHO.
End of transmission, troll elsewhere...
Hello,
/. or LinuxToday that I can dig up if you are
While I applaud your effort to set some facts straight I believe your article on Daemon News probably did more to inflame any anti-*BSD sentiment by Linux supporters than anything else. I personally have never run BSD, although I have a CD for FreeBSD 3.1 CD and now have sufficient bandwidth via my cable modem to download any distribution over night. However, I do know a "little bit" more than your average Linux bigot about the development of *BSD and Linux. I'm not going to attack you or make you feel uncomfortable, rather I'd like to explain how some of your words are inflamitory to the Linux community. Hopefully this will help you in communicating with the Linux community in the future in a less inflamitory way (you honestly sound like a "BSD bigot" even to someone who is rather open-minded about alternative operating systems).
"And while calls of fragmentation of the BSD community run rampant throughout the Linux world,Linux is a far more fragmented operating system. With over a hundred distributions, Linux is often unable to provide compatibility with itself even though "there is only one Linux kernel." I was bitten by this several years ago when I wrote a set of scripts to manage the startup rc files on a Slackware system. When the system was moved to Red Hat, the scripts broke. Thousands of others had problems when the move to glibc was rushed by Red Hat while other distributions remained cautious."
This is common misconception that many people, including Linux users, believe and causes problems. Unlike the FreeBSD "current" code tree there is no globally accepted recommendation to upgrade to the latest kernel or distribution. It's also a mistake to consider the various Linux distributions as the same operating system. Much like the various BSD OSs, the various distributions of Linux are designed for specific purposes. Caldera is squarely aimed at the corporate market. RedHat is the "average Joe" version. Turbo Linux is aimed at the asian market (with specific Japanese and Chinese versions). Slackware is for the Unix "guru" who has no problem with recompiling programs by hand. Failure to understand this is just that, a failure to understand the Linux marketplace. Similarly, distributions don't generally follow the "latest" releases, even when if comes to the standard releases. For example, RedHat 6.0 is still on the 2.2.5 kernel release while the official kernel is at version 2.2.12. While this is not "tying," as anyone with enough knowledge can run any software on any system and upgrade the their hearts content (I'm running 2.2.12 right now on a RedHat 6.0 box with PPTP patches, XFree86 3.3.4, gcc 2.7.2.3 (to compile the kernel) and gcc 2.95.1) it reinforces the concept that each distribution can generally be considered a "different" operating system much like the various *BSDs are.
One would have to ask though, why did you upgrade between Slackware and RedHat without investigating the differences? That's not a "normal" administrative move. It's actually more like reinstalling an operating system than upgrading. The differences in package methods should have given you a huge clue that the OSs were not the "same." That the rc scripts are different in various OSs is well know to any administrator. Solaris, HP-UX, *BSD, Unixware, and practically everyone else does it slightly different. Linux gives you both common methods of doing it. It's much like the perl programming language, "there's more than one way to do it." I really don't mean to imply that you're not a competant administrator, but I'm really surprised that you had this issue. Perhaps it wasn't your choice to make the "leap" between Slackware and RedHat. If that's the case, then the administrator who made the choice, especially on a production box, is at fault and probably should have had disceplenary action.
Lastly, I think it's fairly unreasonable to imply that there are "hundreds" of viable Linux distributions. A vast majority of those are only used by a very small number of users and for specific reasons. They can almost be thought of in the same vein as embedded systems (such as the "distribution" meant to use Linux as the OS for a router). There are actually only a few "large" distributions that the vast majority of the Linux community use. The number, while slightly larger than the number of *BSD "distributions" comes no where near "hundreds."
"Many others have mentioned that FreeBSD should quit complaining about the GPL while using GCC and other GNU tools. While it is true that a number of GNU utilities are used in FreeBSD, they comprise fewer than 8% of the utilities and 15% of the libraries. "
My personal view, which I suspect is shared by the vast majority of GNU fans, is that if BSD continues to use the gcc compiler then the percentage of other GNU tools that comprise a BSD system is relatively irrelavent. Most people I know view the C compiler in a Unix system to be one of the most important aspects of the system, much like the kernel. It would kind of, but not exactly, be like BSD using a HURD or Linux kernel and still insisting that it's BSD. This is in contrast to the GNU camp, which I think believes that the tools define the name of the OS and not necessarily the kernel (hence the GNU/Linux debate). It could still be argued that it shouldn't be called GNU/Linux in this case, but that's a side issue. I personally consider the kernel, C compiler, and C library as the main determining factors as far as what "kind" of system an OS is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's definately possible to grab the source for FreeBSD and recomile everything on a RedHat Linux system right? If so, does that transform the system into a BSD system, with the C library, compiler, and kernel based on RedHat Linux? I didn't think so.
"The Linux mindset can often be characterized as "code exists, throw it into the distribution.""
This is mildly offensive. I'm assuming that you are specifically talking about specific distributions instead of the kernel itself. If you're talking about the kernel then you are sadly mistaken. First, Linus has the ultimate say in what goes in the kernel. Second, there is a distinct development and stable kernel. The development kernel is NOT for your casual users and is expected to fail on a regular basis. Yes, code is often thrown into the development kernel so that it can be tested on "live" systems of the developers. This code is either tested to the point that it is considered stable or yanked out of the kernel before it is moved over to a stable version. To imply that untested code is "thrown into the distribution" is the offensive part. For example, I've been trying to get the new RAID code into the stable kernel but it was yanked at the last moment, even though it has been available and in test kernels for months, because a developer found what could have been a bug. While this was disappointing on my part, it shows that code is not "thrown into the distribution."
If you're talking about non-kernel parts of the distribution then I think you are mistaken also. As I mentioned, there are only a few different distributions that are used by the vast majority of the community. One of the reasons for the "fringe" distributions is the fact that the main distributions don't always update their code often enough for some on the leading (not bleeding) edge. That's why, for example, SGI Linux is basically RedHat with some updates. I belive another popular "fringe" distribution may be Mandrake, which is also based on RedHat with the latest updates for various packages. So, to claim that main distributions are just "throwing [code] into the distribution" is patently false. The fact that most Linux distributions make it extreamly easy for any old user with some experience to create a custom distribution is probably more of an example of the openness of Linux development than "fragmentation" or "code instability."
"Linux was developed by an undergraduate student at the University of Helsinki to correct the flaws of Minix. However, FreeBSD is based on the 4.4BSD distribution of Unix from the University of California at Berkeley released in 1994."
Here you imply that FreeBSD is somehow better because it was released by the high and mighty "University of California at Berkeley" while Linux development was started by a poor "undergraduate student" at the lowly University of Helsinki. While I don't believe that was your intention, at least I hope not, that's the way it comes off. I could care less about the University of California at Berkeley, much like I could care less about the University of Helsinki. They are both "institutions of higher learning." I don't think it's fair or logical to rate an OS on what University it blosomed out of. One can always ask the questions "what have you done for me lately!" In that regard, I suspect that the University of Helsinki gets my "vote" for the most innovative.
"The first widely used TCP/IP stack was included in 4.2BSD and was reused in dozens of other operating systems."
Here you imply that the Berkeley TCP/IP stack is used in Linux. Although I'm no expert on the matter, I believe this has been discussed ad infinitum and shown that the Linux stack is a "new" implementation. A comment I would also like to make is that you seem to imply that, since BSD has a long heritage that it is somehow "better." I, for one, don't believe that just because something has been around for so long that it's necessarily better. I'm not saying that everything must be constantly rearchitected, but has been shown that it is often necessary to rewrite from scratch from time to time instead of holding on to old code for the comfort factor. I believe there was an article referenced on
interested...
"There are No Applications for FreeBSD"
I completely agree with you here as that statement makes as much sense as saying that there are no applications for Linux. I do think that the comment about performance improvements by running Linux applications under FreeBSD was unnecessary, even if true. I thought your article was supposed to be about correcting misinformation about FreeBSD rather than comparing FreeBSD and Linux and showing that FreeBSD was somehow "better."
"FreeBSD is a Dead End"
I liked this part, it was informative and didn't include any jabs at Linux users. I didn't know about PicoBSD and would be interested in learning more... (This is the tone that your whole article should have taken).
"The majority of FreeBSD is owned by the Regents of the University of California, where it was originally developed. Removing the existing license without the permission of the Regents would be no different that releasing a version of GCC with a BSD copyright in place of the GPL."
I think everyone knows this. So why not petition the Regents to release the original code under the GPL? That would seem to solve all problems, would it not. You CAN release code under multiple licenses. I don't see why, with the release of the license by the Regents, that FreeBSD could not be released under both the GPL and the BSD license, do you? Besides, I would think that much if not the vast majority of code that was released by the Regents has been modified to the extent of being all but replaced, no? (And please don't take this opportunity to say "no, because the BSD code has such a strong history that there was no need to modify the original code." Everyone know that there are bugs in almost all software, including FreeBSD and Linux. While there are probably areas of FreeBSD that have not been touched since the original release I'd find it hard to believe that it's in the majority. If so, I'd have to ask "what have you guys been doing since 1994?").
FreeBSD SHOULD GPL itself if it wants to use GPL code. I though that that's just obeying the law. If you're telling me that FreeBSD uses GPL code and does not release under the GPL then I think that's a surprise to a LOT of people. I don't think "we" are trying to convert "you" to GPL bigots (well some are but...), however, I don't think that the various factions (BSD/OS, Free, Open, Net) petitioning the Regents to release their code as GPL SO THAT YOU CAN INCLUDE other GPL CODE into your distributions would be viewed as a "victory" by the GNU camp. Sure, we would "get" the Regents code under the GPL, but you could STILL release FreeBSD under a non-GPL "Regents" BSD license as long as you didn't include any GPL code.
This would not split the code tree, as the only differences would be in the license attached to any distributions. The base code would be available in both BSD and GPL licenses. Any additions to the code would have to be released under the GPL license if it included GPL code. But, you stated that the reason you don't do this is because of the license from the Regents. You imply that you would have no problem releasing under a GPL license if only you could. If that's NOT the case, and you simply don't agree with the GPL license, then don't use our code. You have no "right" to use our code, and complaining about it will do you no good. It's like us wanting to use BSD code but making the decision to not because of the license. Some code, like X, is under a non-GPL license, but we, like everyone else, have the right to pick and choose what we decide to use. I don't see any inconsistancy of GNU folk insisting that you release under the GPL if you use GPL copyrighted works.
I really don't understand what the issue is. I think it's kind of like an ego trip for the Regents and "advertisement" by the University of California at Berkeley. That's honestly the only reason why I can think that they don't release under the GPL. I mean they don't get any money for derrived works, right? They only get the free advertising.
"Some FreeBSD users may indeed be jealous. But many are simply curious about why a new user would choose Linux over FreeBSD, despite FreeBSD's technical superiority."
Why the reason for this insult? A new user would choose Linux because it's more in the news. A new user would choose Linux if they wanted an OS that was under blazingly fast development. May be a hacker who wanted to check out some esoteric hardware. Or, may be a "average" user who would probably stick with a major distribution and not compile applications or the kernel themselves (instead waiting for bug fixes and enhancements from the distribution vendor, much like the BSD twice yearly release cycle with security fixes in between). Or may be because "official" support from a variety of vendors (such as database vendors) has been announced for Linux but not BSD (much like user who wanted to run a particular database would most likely choose RedHat instead of a "niche" distribution because "official" support is pretty much RedHat's domain right now) [Side Note: I may be wrong here, but I certainly am not aware of any press releases by any major database vendor, for instance, about official FreeBSD support. To say that the application could run under FreeBSD may be true, but then why worry about official support. Might as well run some custom kernel and compile all programs yourself if that's what you want.]
"In many ways, this is how Linux proponents view Windows users. Others do not care."
Oh, no, more insults. I honestly can't believe you made this comment. After explaining above that both BSD and Linux have as a common goal to provide a free Unix environment to users they you imply that Linux is SO far behind BSD that it's more like Windows!?! How, then can BSD be so much better if it's striving for the same goal? No, Windows has a fundamentally different goal in mind and I belive the vast majority of Linux and BSD supporters agree that it's a "BAD" thing. To take fundamental control away from even system administrators and try to "dumb down" the administrative skills required is just a bad thing to do. It puts too much responsibility on the correctness of OS code that can have devastating results. Given the industry track record, not even Microsoft's specifically, on software bugs I'd say this is a humongous mistake (just as integrating the GUI into the kernel was). I really don't know what to say here other than I hope you didn't mean what was so plainly implied.
"Unlike Linux advocates, FreeBSD advocates do not believe FreeBSD should be running on every microchip. Most FreeBSD advocates merely wish it see it perform best where it does best: Internet servers and high end workstations."
No, but you have OpenBSD, NetBSD, BSD/OS, and at least PicoBSD, which are designed to run in various situations. I think this statement comes from the misinformation you have about Linux and the assumption that there is only "one" Linux operating system. There are multiple. The main distributions, like RedHat, only run on "popular" "internet server and high end workstation" architectures such as PPC, Alpha, SPARC, HP-PA and Intel (RedHat may not even run on all of those). Smaller, niche distributions run on the Palm Pilot, and other embedded devices. Hey, that's kinda like the embedded PicoBSD, right?
Conclusion:
May be I'm reading way too much into the statements in your article and if I am then I appologize in advance. However, I obviously don't think this is the case. Hopefully I have provided some constructive criticism that you can use to hone your ability to "deal" with us wild Linux bigots. It would have been much more useful, IMHO, to do as your article was stated was it's goal and "clear up many of the misconceptions" instead of trying to pit Linux against BSD. If it was only focused on providing information to the Linux community about *BSD then that would have accomplished the goals set forth. I realize that Linux would have to be mentioned in some of the topics you chose to address. However, I don't think the confrontational tone was constructive at all. More information on the new features coming out in *BSD, such as PicoBSD, would have been helpful. Less "hauty" attitude about the origins of Linux and *BSD would have helped (like I said, most people just don't care that *BSD came out of Berkeley).
I would be interested in a reply to let me know how you took my email. As stated numberous times, the goal of this email was to inform you about how your statements could have been more inflamitory than you intended. Hopefully I accomplished my goal.
Sincerely,
fwr
Well, you have to look at the "other side" as far as the QT "war" is concerned. The only reason we wanted a GPL based license was so that >OUR changes or additions to the library or programs that we built with it would be covered under the GPL and not be used for proprietary profit (nothing wrong with profit, but people shouldn't be able to make a profit on our work if they prohitbit other from doing the same). I think we could care less about Troll Tech releasing the license under BOTH their proprietary license and the GPL, so long as we could protect our own investment.
If you look at it this way, it's not so silly.
One aspect of better is that BSD encourages
programers to think through what they are doing while linux is more of a quick hack. That is Linux is more release quickly and often where as BSD is get
it right, then release. The only advantage is if it is wrong BSD makes it easier to throw away that code as it isn't released.
Does this also mean that it is harder to remove bad code if it does make it into a release?
Do you really think any patent officers have a clue about anything you just mentioned?
I mostly agree with your post but take exception to your complaint about the Hotmail bashing. Microsoft deserved to get bashed for the Hotmail fiasco. Whether it was running on Solaris or NT is beside the point. They bought the company that provided the service and opened up a humongous security hole when they tried to "integrate" it into MSN with their passport "technology." If my understanding is incorrect please correct me. But if it is correct, then Microsoft deserves all the bashing delivered to it. Can you honestly think of a larger security hole? A simple URL that just about anyone could remember quickly and BOOM! you have instant access to anyone's email account? Come on, you can't complain about complaints about that!
It would be interesting too see if someone takes the SDMI coded version and creates an MP3 version that misteriously gets distributed over the net...
I think they meant that MS is using FUD to >promote their own product. Like, look here what can happen if you don't use MS Passport!
Alan,
I've asked this question on lk-ml but I'll re-ask it here. When will the RAID 0.90 code be forced into the official kernel? It was kinda disappointing to have it in 2.2.12-final only to be pulled in 2.2.12-forlinux. What's the major holdback? Is it the "upgrade" requirements? Do you see the RAID code getting to a state that is more like the ISDN fiasco? Will be only be able to upgrade RAID code during major release cycles (like 2.4, 2.6, 3.0, etc)?
Sorry to be a pest, but this is getting a little rediculous. People don't HAVE to upgrade their kernel to the latest stable release. Most people DON'T upgrade their kernel and only load the distribitions' releases (For instance, RedHat is still back on 2.2.5). What's the big deal?
fwr
I haven't except when trying to patch the official kernel by hand with the 0.90 RAID patches (which Linus and Alan unfortunately rejected from 2.2.12 even though they were in 2.2.12-final). Fortunately you kinda have to know what you are doing in order to even get in that situation. Most people who don't know didly about programming should stick to the distribution released kernels...
Oh shoot, my flambait wrappers ( and ) didn't show up and I accidentally hit sumbit instead of preview! See! I told you so!
Forget that proprietary crap. They are also used in OSPF routing, which is an open, industry standard, protocol. I suppose you prefer cisco's proprietary routing protocols to standard ones also?
Grammar and spelling are usually considered two separate entities. One can have impeccable grammar and abhorent spelling concurrently.
Man, you need to get out a little more. There's more to life than netscape and xterm. Either your post was sarcasm or your one of those people who learn something real well and never learn anything else for the rest of your life....
Applicatoin programs should not be able to crash a system, period. If you believe otherwise you are the one that is incompetent.
Well if a screen saver can cause a crash of the whole OS then that's not a stable OS IMHO. If it just crashed your GUI, that I could see....
I would consider having to reboot because of a configuration change on a box that is not in the core OS (kernel) to be a "crash."
What other chip did Intel come out with that has a comparable design? Forget the x86 architecture. What about their i960? Was that on the same level as the HP-PA, SPARC, Alpha, or PPC?
You make some statements that are misleading.
Why are HP push customers toward systems that are both HP-PA and IA-64 capable (recommending HP-PA until McKinley comes out) and being the first out with their Unix on Merced mutually exclusive? I think not. There is no reason that HP can't port HP-UX to Merced and recommend customers purchase their N class systems which reportedly are capable of supporting both HP-PA and IA-64. If their HP-PA CPUs out-perform Merced then it would only make sense to purchase those CPU's and exchange them for McKinley CPU's when they come out.
It's probably BECAUSE of performance concerns that they recommend HP-PA CPU's until McKinley comes out, skipping over Merced CPUs. They would be dis-honest if they did not recommend otherwise and you can be sure that they would get "caught in the act" if they tried to fudge the performance specs.
I've had no problems with the i740 in either Windows or Linux. In fact, I'm running it in Linux on my home computer right now (16BIT -- not COLOR -- mode in 1600x1200). Must be a user error...
How about a unidiff next time... :-)
Considering that every single person who owns a computer (at least Intel based) now a days is sure to have paid the Microsoft Tax on at least one of them, everyone already paid for all the TrueType fonts in Windows -- so just use those. I know I personally paid for at least four different copies of Windows - but only "actively" use two -- one on my wife's computer and one in a vmware session...
But it is all too simple to write off any licensing fees they pay to Microsoft which would "include" the cost of Windows in the price of their computers. Just like the salaries of employees building the computers is included. This is dishonest on the part of Dell.
Get a clue, if you used someone else's MAC then the switch would update it's FDB and any traffic to the user would be forwarded to you. That would cause the user to loose any connections that they had (IP/IPX/whatever) and that would definately cause them to think something is "up." I don't know of ANY vendor's switches that has room in their FDB to hold two ports for each MAC address. If you do I'd like to know.
True, if you're in the same VLAN you would see all broadcast/multicast traffic (unless the switch was capable of IGMP then you wouldn't even get all the multicast traffic). But, my experience is that broadcast/multicast traffic is not too useful for snooping passwords and such (at least for TCP/IP/unix connections and that's all we care about, right?).
Switches definately do not "guarantee security" but your method for snooping will not work. Even if you were able to get control of the conversation steering or port mirroring (or whatever your particular vendor calls it) capabilities of your switch there would be problems. First, you would have to be plugged into the same switch as the device you wanted to sniff. Second, you would probably only get half of the "conversation." A little know fact is that most switches are setup for auto-negotiation to 100BT full duplex. Most switches are unable to buffer frames while port mirroring. So if the device you are sniffing happens to be in full duplex mode and is sending a frame at the same time the switch is sending a frame to it you would only get one of the frames copied to your mirror port.
Besides, auto-negotiation does not always work and when it doesn't the results are not too pleasant. It varies between combinations of various vendor's switches and various NIC cards. Some combinations work excellent, some are intermittent, and some fail all the time. The end result is that some network engineers choose to force speed and duplex in all cases just so that there is no possibility of problems.
Sun compared Microsoft to her, not her to Microsoft. There is a slight difference...