Articles from LinuxCon [LWN.net]

Articles from LinuxCon

Posted Aug 19, 2011 8:10 UTC (Fri) by imgx64 (guest, #78590)
Parent article: Articles from LinuxCon

I'm not a *BSD user, but the thing that bothers me the most is how they act like *BSD doesn't exist. They keep saying Linux does this, Linux does that, and I agree with them that Linux has a lot of advantages. However, if Linux didn't exist, then *BSD (probably FreeBSD) would've taken its place, and everything would've been the same today (except maybe the Android GPL violations problem).

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"everything would've been the same"

Posted Aug 19, 2011 11:35 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (2 responses)

Maybe, but probably not.

The lack of copyleft makes a difference. We don't have a time machine to go find out how profound the difference is, but it's clearly _some_ difference.

There have also been very important cultural differences. Again you could say that in the absence of Linux maybe there would have been cultural changes in FreeBSD but that would be pure speculation. Historically the BSDs have suffered schism, not once but several times, and the same hasn't happened to Linux. Is it just one man making that difference?

Very fundamentally, Linux is a kernel and the BSDs pride themselves on building whole operating systems. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing doesn't matter for this purpose - it's a mammoth difference.

"everything would've been the same"

Posted Aug 19, 2011 14:05 UTC (Fri) by djs_tx (guest, #29646) [Link] (1 responses)

Wow... that is the best single paragraph explaining the key differences between Linux and BSD.

The cohesive development enabled by a benevolent dictator. The licensing difference and the kernel vs. whole OS suite.

David

"everything would've been the same"

Posted Aug 19, 2011 17:04 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

The personality difference is, I believe, crucial.

Not only is Linus a benevolent dictator, he just wants "the kernel to be the best". He has no strong feelings as to what it should do or how it should do it, just that it should do it the best way possible.

Plus, he's a pragmatic engineer. "What's the point of error handling code in unusual situations? If you hit a hardware fault, just crash because there's no guarantee your error handling won't fail too!".

Yeah, I know it's not that simple, but he's happy to make engineering trade-offs, while most of the BSDs aim for mathematical perfection.

Cheers,
Wol

Articles from LinuxCon

Posted Aug 19, 2011 14:00 UTC (Fri) by cmorgan (guest, #71980) [Link] (4 responses)

They probably don't talk a lot about Windows either...

Articles from LinuxCon

Posted Aug 19, 2011 14:05 UTC (Fri) by cmorgan (guest, #71980) [Link] (2 responses)

And to clarify, I'm not surprised they leave BSD and others out. For whatever reason it appears that the BSDs never really caught on. Maybe marketing, maybe its a lack of copyleft as another person here mentioned. I do wonder if one of the other OSes (other than BSD) would have had a larger role. But yeah, you'd expect people at LinuxCon to talk mostly about Linux :-)

Articles from LinuxCon

Posted Aug 19, 2011 23:09 UTC (Fri) by smadu2 (guest, #54943) [Link] (1 responses)

BSDs never caught on ? Many companies still actively use it in their commercial products. Apple, Juniper, Citrix to name a few.

Well, that's the problem, isn't it?

Posted Aug 20, 2011 16:05 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Yes, Apple, Juniper, Citrix are using BSD to do development. But these all continue the line of "holistic approach": now it's not just an OS, but a hardware too.

You can not just grab BSD and go create something new with "two guys in a garage": you either need to accept some large design or you need huge effort to change it.

So BSD continue in niches it caught 10 years ago (sometimes it's moved to new ones - for example iPhone or iPad - but it's done by teams founded before XXI century), but new development is done with Linux almost exclusively.

Articles from LinuxCon

Posted Aug 19, 2011 18:35 UTC (Fri) by imgx64 (guest, #78590) [Link]

Actually, they did. This part is what made me make my comment:

>To address the question, "what would the world look like without Linux?" He started with a blue screen and then a Windows XP boot screen, then a boot screen again simulating a world that still runs only on Windows.

Articles from LinuxCon

Posted Aug 19, 2011 16:08 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link] (4 responses)

In the 13 years I've dabbled with Linux, the one thing I've noticed most is that the entire Linux Community¹ has never tried to compete with/against anyone. Not Microsoft Windows, not Apple OS X, not *BSD, not Solaris, ... Granted, there was some stated goal of "World Domination" (did Linus say this himself?), but I sensed some facetiousness in that remark.

This is a Good Thing™, as it keeps the development teams involved focused on creating the best operating system kernel there is, instead of trying too hard to match what the "other guys" are doing².

I strongly suspect that everyone in this community is well aware of the existence of the BSDs, and even acknowledge a debt to their precedence³, but, in a discussion of what the World would be like without Linux, it just doesn't seem fair to assume that only the BSDs would have prevailed. If Linux hadn't happened, might we have a GPL'ed "FOOnix"? ;-)

¹ I'm using the word "Community" in the broadest sense possible, i.e. Kernel development, distros, corporations using Linux, end users, etc.

² As I see it, this has been Microsoft's strategy for 27 years now. Anyone seen the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley?

³ I believe Linus' original goal was a "UNIX-like operating system capable of running on commodity desktop hardware [of the day]" (or similar). While he did mention BSD, I don't recall any of the BSDs being able to run on 386-era hardware back then (correct me if I'm wrong). Of course, licensing is a whole other discussion...

Articles from LinuxCon

Posted Aug 19, 2011 18:46 UTC (Fri) by imgx64 (guest, #78590) [Link] (1 responses)

> If Linux hadn't happened, might we have a GPL'ed "FOOnix"? ;-)

Or perhaps the Hurd wouldn't have stagnated.

Articles from LinuxCon

Posted Aug 19, 2011 22:49 UTC (Fri) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link]

Hurd was already stagnating when Linus started writing his "strictly a hobby" kernel in 1991. They got caught up in a bout of perfectionism about the design of the kernel, trying to make it "the best kernel ever" and "the wave of the future", as microkernels were thought to be at the time. It didn't help that they changed underlying microkernels several times. So, I don't think that the lack of Linux would have helped the Hurd effort at all.

Articles from LinuxCon

Posted Aug 20, 2011 20:24 UTC (Sat) by rfontana (subscriber, #52677) [Link]

386BSD (substantial precursor to the later free BSD projects) was a known free software project around the time Linus started with Linux, but was vaporware until early 1992, by which time Linux already had an active and rapidly growing contributor/user comunity. For a while the two projects seemed to have borrowed code from one another, though Linux benefited more for licensing reasons (note: view that BSD advertising clause was GPL-incompatible didn't arise till some time later). 386BSD was advanced in some ways (particularly networking) but for the most part Linux was technically superior, had a huge head start and had the momentum.

386BSD probably suffered somewhat from FUD surrounding the USL v. BSDi lawsuit but not clear that it played a major factor in the relative success of Linux.

Articles from LinuxCon

Posted Aug 20, 2011 20:59 UTC (Sat) by vonbrand (guest, #4458) [Link]

The "World domination. Fast." quip is Linus', in answer to a question. Tongue firmly in cheek, not to be taken seriously at all in 1995. Now things are quite different, Linux is taking the mobile space by storm after (almost) taking over the server room.

Articles from LinuxCon

Posted Aug 19, 2011 18:48 UTC (Fri) by amituttam (guest, #55962) [Link]

Actually...it could/should have been GNU Hurd dominating ;)