"everything would've been the same" [LWN.net]

"everything would've been the same"

Posted Aug 19, 2011 14:05 UTC (Fri) by djs_tx (guest, #29646)
In reply to: "everything would've been the same" by tialaramex
Parent article: Articles from LinuxCon

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

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"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