# Future of FreeBSD



## arnab (Mar 8, 2018)

Today I came through a very wired topic on YouTube. A guy was saying that the future of BSD os is in danger as we have lesser developers compared to Linux and also the code quality is poor compared to Linux distros. He also stated that when a bug is reported in Linux it is fixed within few days or weeks but BSD has many serious bugs over than a decade. And also due to permissive BSD licence it is loosing it's popularity. Here is the website which has posted an article on this subject.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3...dying-some-security-researchers-think-so.html

Now my question is if it is real or if becomes true in near future then what will happen to the diehard BSD users or common BSD fans like us? Even what will happen to those company who are using BSD for their business(WhatsApp/Netflix) or mostly to mac os as it has Darwin(based on FreeBSD) in it's core? I know that I/anyone can switch to Linux anytime but end of the day BSD is like home


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## Cthulhux (Mar 8, 2018)

arnab said:


> He also stated that when a bug is reported in Linux it is fixed within few days or weeks



Or years. Now what?

BSD has a history of 41 years. I don't think that the code quality in BSD (which one, by the way?) is lacking when compared to Linux.


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## ondra_knezour (Mar 8, 2018)

See here https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/what-are-your-thoughts-on-this-article.64346/


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## DenisVS (Mar 8, 2018)

These rumors are more than 15 years old. 
FreeBSD dies, dies, and still does not die


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## JWJones (Mar 8, 2018)

Clickbait. According to folks like that, the BSDs have been "dying" for at least the past 20-30 years, hahaha.

Speaking for myself, with the exception of Slackware and Gentoo (which both have supposedly been dying as well, for at least the past 10 years), I have moved from Linux to BSD. Linux just seems like a big, sloppy mess to me, and the big players seem intent on making it the next Windows.


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## arnab (Mar 8, 2018)

If all these news are not true/almost true then where and why they are coming form? Why any other will try to pull *BSD os down? Are they partial on some particular OS?
People are complaining that there is bad driver support for FreeBSD but forgetting that FreeBSD (like Linux) is a community effort and that no driver gets written by complaining but by actually writing one. 
Nothing in this world comes for free but for FreeBSD it is FREE


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## Wamphyre (Mar 8, 2018)

I was using GNU/Linux for over the last 10 years, also I'm working as SysAdmin, using Cloudlinux (this is inherent to the company I'm working, I don't really like Cloudlinux...) But, since the day I discovered FreeBSD (2 years ago) my life as user and SysAdmin changed forever. I use FreeBSD in all my machines and servers and I'm really happy. I can see a real difference here, all FreeBSD code is clean, inteligent and easy to understand (more easy than Linux) so, I don't think that *BSD would die, never.


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## Maxnix (Mar 8, 2018)

arnab said:


> A guy was saying that the future of BSD os is in danger


*Yawn*, trolls should change their arguments sometimes. Sigh, the lack of quality arrived there too... 


arnab said:


> as we have lesser developers compared to Linux


And initially Linux had lesser than Windows. 


arnab said:


> BSD has many serious bugs over than a decade. And also due to permissive BSD licence it is loosing it's popularity.





arnab said:


> the code quality is poor compared to Linux distros.


MHUWAAHAHAHA! These are the best jokes of the day!


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 8, 2018)

Oh. That guy. He wrote something equally outrageous a few months ago that I don't recall.

In any case, it was only a few years ago that Netflix switched all their video servers over to FreeBSD and that makes almost 40% of all internet traffic run through a FreeBSD server. Is he saying Netflix made a huge mistake and Netflix engineers are numbnuts?

Whatsapp is a 9-year old application and is hugely popular and runs on FreeBSD. Are those guys nuts, too?

Every few years someone comes here spouting about some article like this and it gets old real quick.


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## SirDice (Mar 8, 2018)

arnab said:


> He also stated that when a bug is reported in Linux it is fixed within few days or weeks but BSD has many serious bugs over than a decade.


Really? 
http://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/06/how-i-found-20-year-old-linux-kernel-bug.html
https://threatpost.com/serious-dirty-cow-linux-vulnerability-under-attack/121448/
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/23/linux_kernel_gets_patch_against_12yearold_bug/
Besides these, I also dug up a number of other serious issues in the Linux kernel that were present for 2-5 years. Apparently this guy has a pretty selective memory.

Please stop spreading this FUD.


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## vermaden (Mar 8, 2018)

arnab said:


> Today I came through a very wired topic on YouTube. A guy was saying that the future of BSD os is in danger as we have lesser developers compared to Linux and also the code quality is poor compared to Linux distros. He also stated that when a bug is reported in Linux it is fixed within few days or weeks but BSD has many serious bugs over than a decade. And also due to permissive BSD licence it is loosing it's popularity. Here is the website which has posted an article on this subject.



Have You recently used Linux? One of the things I do as a day job is that I use Enterprise class Linux every day, these are Red Hat Linux, CentOS Linux and Oracle Linux. This seems to be most stable and engineered (if You would believe their creators) most Enterprise class operating systems ... but they are not.

FreeBSD offers TONS of features over them, like:
- Deterministic start with rc(8) instead of random fsckup with systemd(8).
- Modern filesystem with data integrity (ZFS) compared to XFS from 1993 or not fully tested EXT4.
- ZFS Boot Environments for bulletproof upgrades/changes compared to nothing in the Linux side.
- Configuration of IP address with VLAN over aggregated interfaces takes 5 lines instead of 6 files with more then 10 lines each.
- Deterministic and reliable device daemon - devd(8).
- Reliable and actually useful documentation and man pages.
- Modern and well thought package manager pkg(8) along with ports(8) for compiling software/packages with customization versus RPM/yum tandem that does not allow You to compile anything, You can of course use EPEL and other repositories but that only leads to conflicts and problems. FreeBSD Ports/packages are at about 29000+ level, not many packages are available on CentOS/RHEL/Oracle Linux repositories.
- You can no upgrade RHEL 6.x to RHEL 7.x while You can upgrade FreeBSD to ANY version from ANY version.
- Tons more I do not have time to sit all day here and write them down ...

... but all that does not matter because Linux has companies support, Oracle Database works on Linux, not on FreeBSD, same for backup solutions like EMC Networker or IBM Spectrum Protect (TSM), same for Veritas InfoScale cluster, same for SAP HANA, Linux only.

Its even a hypocrisy from a lot of companies like EMC because EMC uses FreeBSD as their base for Isilon storage solutions, but EMC would not even provide a CLIENT for EMC Networker for FreeBSD ...

... and that is why, while being a lot more useful, stable and actually well-though FreeBSD is in a lot worse position then overhypped Linux, but that is how the world works, sh!t wins, million of flies cannot be wrong.


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## arnab (Mar 8, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Oh. That guy. He wrote something equally outrageous a few months ago that I don't recall.
> 
> In any case, it was only a few years ago that Netflix switched all their video servers over to FreeBSD and that makes almost 40% of all internet traffic run through a FreeBSD server. Is he saying Netflix made a huge mistake and Netflix engineers are numbnuts?
> 
> ...





SirDice said:


> Really?
> http://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/06/how-i-found-20-year-old-linux-kernel-bug.html
> https://threatpost.com/serious-dirty-cow-linux-vulnerability-under-attack/121448/
> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/23/linux_kernel_gets_patch_against_12yearold_bug/
> ...


Please don't take me wrong. I had no intention to create hype on this subject. I was going through YouTube and there a person was say with that website link which seemed wired to me that's why I posted that


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## SirDice (Mar 8, 2018)

arnab said:


> Please don't take me wrong. I had no intention to create hype on this subject. I was going through YouTube and there a person was say with that website link which seemed wired to me that's why I posted that


My remarks weren't directed at you, they were directed at the guy from the video.


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## ralphbsz (Mar 8, 2018)

vermaden said:


> Its even a hypocrisy from a lot of companies like EMC because EMC uses FreeBSD as their base for Isilon storage solutions, but EMC would not even provide a CLIENT for EMC Networker for FreeBSD ...



Careful: Isilon and EMC are really two different companies.  Isilon did all the engineering and development when they were a free-standing company, before being bought by EMC.  And even today, the corporate parent (Dell-)EMC does not take much direct technical influence over its Isilon division.  The story with NetWorker is similar: it was a product of Legato, fully developed, before the company was bought by EMC.  So Legato is not identical to EMC, even if it is owned by them.

One also has to remember that Legato NetWoker is at its core pretty old.  I looked it up, and they still have full client support for Irix and Tru64, and for HP-UX on PA-RISC, which are operating systems that have not been sold new in many years.  I know that Legato was a big company already 20 years ago; I used to see their building somewhere here in Silicon valley already long ago.  Isilon is comparatively young, a product of the scalout-storage wave of the early 2000s.  Neither company is located anywhere near EMC central (which has always been on the east coast).

So the fact that these two have very different views towards using FreeBSD should not surprise anyone.  And it is probably good that EMC isn't coming down as the corporate parent and trying to integrate these disparate entities, because such heavy-handed tactics would probably ruin these smaller companies.


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## ShelLuser (Mar 8, 2018)

arnab said:


> Now my question is if it is real or if becomes true in near future then what will happen to the diehard BSD users or common BSD fans like us?


Before you get caught up in a troll story again why not stop to think it through for a moment?

For example: how exactly does an open source project die?

Maybe when people stop using it? But even that doesn't always apply because I can come up with projects which have a very small userbase but which are - in comparison - going as strong as ever. I recently dug up some nostagia and discovered that even despite its drop in popularity the text adventures of the last century are still alive and kicking today. These days people like to refer to it as Interactive Fiction, aka IF, and there is even some seriously good software available to generate those, like this one: Inform7. The Windows variant (latest release is from 2016) even rivals modern development IDE's where user friendliness goes. It's even open source!

In comparison to a project such as FreeBSD one might be tempted to dub this a dead project, but if you look more closely you'll see that there's still quite an active community involved around it.

(the only reason I mention this is because I discovered Inform7 by accident last week, and it was thanks to the FreeBSD ports collection out of all things. so far this software has left me seriously impressed).

Which is another issue... People are so blindly focused on updates these days that they would even dub a project which hasn't had a release in a few years as obsolete or dead. But what if that project simply works as intended and there really isn't any valid reason to provide new updates? (also think about the famous Nethack game!).

FreeBSD has been around for years. I like to compare it to a turtle. It is slow, and in the eyes of some maybe useless. But if you look closer you'll notice that the turtle is actually extremely robust and solid. Sure, you can flip it over and "break" it but that's something you could do to pretty much everything. So if you then continue to observe said turtle you'll also notice that nothing really manages to divert it from its course. In fact: it's actually extremely reliable in what it's doing! Updates come out, new features get in (but slowly, in all due time) and from an outsiders perspective nothing really changes in there, while the people who work with said turtle can tell you that such observations are actually bogus.

But yeah... the main point here: how does an open source project die?


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## MarcoB (Mar 8, 2018)

ShelLuser said:


> But yeah... the main point here: how does an open source project die?


When users stop using it and developers stop developing it I guess.
But FreeBSD has so many users and developers (though not nearly as much as Linux) that I don't see it die soon. A bit more users and developers would be nice of course, but I prefer quality over quantity.


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## sidetone (Mar 8, 2018)

Criticize BSDs' code base all you want, but it is 1 billion times better than most Linux distributions.

It is wishful thinking of Linux fanatics to make unfounded claims, and to baselessly repeat them. I think it's an agenda to make that false claim, to keep repeating something so untrue.


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## k.jacker (Mar 8, 2018)

Again? Really?
Now, my braincells really start to ache.
Will it cure the pain if I become a little less critical?


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## tingo (Mar 8, 2018)

arnab said:


> Please don't take me wrong. I had no intention to create hype on this subject. I was going through YouTube and there a person was say with that website link which seemed wired to me that's why I posted that


And of course, everything you read or see on the net must be true - there is nothing like made up stories or fake news there.
Tell me; what do you do if find information that points in two opposite directions on the net? Do you have a mental breakdown because you can't figure out how the two different views / stories match up?
If everybody just could read and do a little research before writing about the next FUD story that they have found, everybody would realize that 
a) we have all heard the story before - it isn't new
b) it is only FUD, and the only reason for posting it again is that someone is bored
c) the person who writes about it again is going to look like a schoolchild who hasn't done his or hers homework

Please, everybody - inform yourself better!


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## Wozzeck.Live (Mar 9, 2018)

arnab said:


> If all these news are not true/almost true then where and why they are coming form? Why any other will try to pull *BSD os down? Are they partial on some particular OS?
> People are complaining that there is bad driver support for FreeBSD but forgetting that FreeBSD (like Linux) is a community effort and that no driver gets written by complaining but by actually writing one.
> Nothing in this world comes for free but for FreeBSD it is FREE




One must understand that there is a political *WAR* between BSD license style and GNU Licensing style through GPL  (Free Software Foundation). Many people of the Linux world WANT the death of BSD to kill the BSD licensing type.

I am surprised that many poeple in the BSD world are still not aware.

As far as you have understood that, you will have the explanation.

If I have personally choosen BSD, this is because I hate most of Linux people who are fanboys "cra...pping" everywehre,  on Windows, on BSD ... on everything even the Queen..
The Linux world always criticizes Microsoft, but they have the same attitude... they want the supremacy of the Linux system all over the galaxy and they only have an obsession.... having a desktop imitating the Bill Gates' one

We can say that there are more Linux developer than BSD, but saying that Linux code is better is a pure lie.

I have a friend technician working for a big ISP... he hates Linux because every day he sees Linux server crashing.

So *BSD are not perfect, and no OS is perfect in this world, but Linux is far not perfect too.

I have choosen BSD for his philosophy...... an "engineer" OS, where the construction is very impressive separating base system form port system. In a Linux system this is generally a "dump".

So who can claim seriously that BSD code would be of less quality ?
The quality of code is the "essence" of BSD world... in the Linux world there are a lot of quick and dirty job along with a very good job, just because Linux moves (too) fast, sometimes coming back..

The BSD world is more conservative and each critical evolution is well evaluated before any decision.

You want the truth ?
Linux world creates a lot of junk code, far more than the BSD world
Just imagine the number of filesystems created by the Linux world, each one claiming to be the best of the universe..

The BSD world just say... useless, by developing continuously UFS to adapt it from server to modern desktop use.
Microsoft has just developed NTFS along years, just replacing FAT32 with exFAT for mobile storage.

And so... is Microsoft dead ?

That means what that means.... the Linux world generates a lot of junk and useless code.
Linux does quantity yes, but certainly not quality.


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## rigoletto@ (Mar 9, 2018)

Another thing Linux people do far more than BSD ones is being permanently concerned of what OS other people are using.

Same for licensing war. If BSD people were really concerned about that, something like a "4-Clause BSD License" would already have appeared. Being the 4th Clause an anti-viral (GPL) one.


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## BSDAppentic3 (Mar 9, 2018)

Wamphyre said:


> so, I don't think that *BSD would die, never.



And if it does, then there will be someone that can use the code and make a new OS.
Nothing in a PC is alive, nothing in a PC can die. Remember that. Even progress, even work, even effort. All of they aren't wasted. Every piece inside a OS can be used for make some new. The good thing about information is that, it only needs some storage where it can "exists", for say it in some way.
The information, it's mutant. It is in constant change and renovation.


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## BSDAppentic3 (Mar 9, 2018)

Yep...there is a saying that says "do not judge a book by its cover", but this time, i think this article it's the classic clickbait.
Well, let's read what it says...at least, if someone spent time writing it, the less that i can do is read it, or not?


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## sidetone (Mar 9, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> Another thing Linux people do far more than BSD ones is being permanently concerned of what OS other people are using.
> 
> Same for licensing war. If BSD people were really concerned about that, something like a "4-Clause BSD License" would already have appeared. Being the 4th Clause an anti-viral (GPL) one.


That reminds me of how LGPL had to be created to use one of the BSD licenses.


Wozzeck.Live said:


> We can say that there are more Linux developer than BSD, but saying that Linux code is better is a pure lie.


I fail to see how non-fundamental redundancy 50 times for 1 piece of needed code or unused code is quality. This is what GPL encourages, when used for libraries, and not used for user end applications.


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## Datapanic (Mar 9, 2018)

The *.BSD's will be around for a long time, watching linux spread apart in dysfunctional illusions.  

But, I really want to see OpenSim 8.2 or 9.0 run on FreeBSD 11.1 with mono (let alone any version of BSD).  Ubuntu 16.04.4 does it just fine.  Why can't BSD?

// just sayin'


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## BSDAppentic3 (Mar 9, 2018)

So curious that you said that...Linux is actually spreading in an innumerable amount of distros, while BSD stays in a few.
And the two are still functioning. The substantial difference it's how each one works.


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## Datapanic (Mar 9, 2018)

Sometimes, replying without a quote doesn't really help make your point at all!


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## BSDAppentic3 (Mar 9, 2018)

Datapanic said:


> Sometimes, replying without a quote doesn't really help make your point at all!


What do you mean by quote? The appointment of above, or the "Quote" with a "+" on the left right?


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 9, 2018)

Datapanic said:


> Why can't BSD?


As I said somewhere, FreeBSD is not an application developer. Ask the OpenSim people why their code doesn't run on FreeBSD. FreeBSD has no influence in this.


Datapanic said:


> with mono


Why anyone wants Windows code to work on BSD is beyond me. And i don't care what anyone says or thinks about the usefulness of Mono and .NET. It's origins are for the Microsoft world, not BSD/Linux/Unix.

I understand Mono's usefulness in porting over Microsoft software in some cases but most talk of its use is not that. Mono is an inefficient infection in most cases and, if you noticed, Microsoft more and more is integrating Unix style software into Windows to the point where I see them dropping Windows core and running a Unix system. We'll see.


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## vermaden (Mar 9, 2018)

ralphbsz said:


> Careful: Isilon and EMC are really two different companies.  Isilon did all the engineering and development when they were a free-standing company, before being bought by EMC.  And even today, the corporate parent (Dell-)EMC does not take much direct technical influence over its Isilon division.  The story with NetWorker is similar: it was a product of Legato, fully developed, before the company was bought by EMC.  So Legato is not identical to EMC, even if it is owned by them.



I will start by saying that I do not want to convince You to my point of view.

Generally that is how Enterprises work, EMC bought Isilon, Data Domain, Legato (and renamed to Networker) then it was bought by DELL and now the rumors are that DELL EMC would be bought by VMware ... these are often financial optimization or to omit the taxes, HP bought DEC and Compaq, recently HPE (after split into HP and HPE) sold their software division to Micro Focus (which also owns SUSE) ... it never ends.

Going back to Isilon, EMC bought it 8 years ago, for me as EMC user it does not matter if it aquired some company or it developed it themselves, they have ALL REQUIRED INFORMATION to provide at least basic client for FreeBSD as they are using FreeBSD and even commiting to/developing the FreeBSD itself, so not providing a EMC Netowrker client for FreeBSD by EMC is a hypocrisy for me, that is how I interpret hypocrisy, you may interpret hypocrisy otherwise and I do not have problem with that.



ralphbsz said:


> One also has to remember that Legato NetWoker is at its core pretty old.  I looked it up, and they still have full client support for Irix and Tru64, and for HP-UX on PA-RISC, which are operating systems that have not been sold new in many years.  I know that Legato was a big company already 20 years ago; I used to see their building somewhere here in Silicon valley already long ago.  Isilon is comparatively young, a product of the scalout-storage wave of the early 2000s.  Neither company is located anywhere near EMC central (which has always been on the east coast).



Yes and no. EMC Networker 8.x and earlier codebase is old. In Networker 9.x most critical components are rewritten, some solutions migrated from file based database like solutions to PostgreSQL or SQLite databases. The very core of Networker 9.x has been rewritten, even Netowrker 8.2.3 and later uses that new core, Networker 8.2.2 and earlier uses the old 'Legato' core. Thus, after all these rewirites all Backup Policies has to be reimplemented when migrating from Networker 8.x to Netowrker 9.x, it cannot be just upgraded.


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## krisb (Mar 9, 2018)

arnab said:


> Today I came through a very wired topic on YouTube. A guy was saying that the future of BSD os is in danger as we have lesser developers compared to Linux and also the code quality is poor compared to Linux distros. He also stated that when a bug is reported in Linux it is fixed within few days or weeks but BSD has many serious bugs over than a decade. And also due to permissive BSD licence it is loosing it's popularity. Here is the website which has posted an article on this subject.
> 
> https://www.csoonline.com/article/3...dying-some-security-researchers-think-so.html
> 
> Now my question is if it is real or if becomes true in near future then what will happen to the diehard BSD users or common BSD fans like us? Even what will happen to those company who are using BSD for their business(WhatsApp/Netflix) or mostly to mac os as it has Darwin(based on FreeBSD) in it's core? I know that I/anyone can switch to Linux anytime but end of the day BSD is like home


buhahaha...
One famous quote comes to my mind: *“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”*


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## Spartrekus (Mar 21, 2018)

arnab said:


> Today I came through a very wired topic on YouTube. A guy was saying that the future of BSD os is in danger as we have lesser developers compared to Linux and also the code quality is poor compared to Linux distros. He also stated that when a bug is reported in Linux it is fixed within few days or weeks but BSD has many serious bugs over than a decade. And also due to permissive BSD licence it is loosing it's popularity. Here is the website which has posted an article on this subject.
> 
> https://www.csoonline.com/article/3...dying-some-security-researchers-think-so.html
> 
> Now my question is if it is real or if becomes true in near future then what will happen to the diehard BSD users or common BSD fans like us? Even what will happen to those company who are using BSD for their business(WhatsApp/Netflix) or mostly to mac os as it has Darwin(based on FreeBSD) in it's core? I know that I/anyone can switch to Linux anytime but end of the day BSD is like home



FreeBSD is not in danger, at all. 

Some number of excellent softwares in Linux have been derived from FreeBSD.

_A must to read really: _ https://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4linux/01  Nice quote, isn't it? 


> BSD is what you get when a bunch of Unix hackers sit down to try to port a Unix system to the PC. Linux is what you get when a bunch of PC hackers sit down and try to write a Unix system for the PC.





> BSD doesn't use GNU ls or GNU libc, it uses BSD's ls and BSD's libc,





> I've never in my life deployed a BSD system running _just_ what's in base, and I probably never will.


Me not! I do, my all applications are made using only a C compiler!! all softwares on my servers are on the base, which is clean, and coming from the C compiler only. Clean and reliable. There is no junk addon, unreliable, in my system at all, but it takes 3-10 minutes to compile. If there is a error or bug, I can fix it.



> Now, it's true that most Linux users install binary packages, and most BSD users install by building from source.





> This leads to a lot of differences. In a very real sense, BSD systems are constantly developed; I can always update my system to the absolute latest code, irrespective of "releases". In Linux, that doesn't really have as much meaning, because the release process is very different. I think the most appropriate verb for a Linux release is "assembled". A Linux release is assembled from version A.B of this program, plus version C.D of this program, plus version E.F of this program... all together with version X.Y.Z of the Linux kernel. In BSD, however, since the pieces are all developed together, the verb "cut" makes a lot more sense; a release is "cut" at a certain time.



True and true:


> BSD tends to always shy away from hackish solutions when there's even a hint of a proper solution in the wings. The theory is that it's far easier to wait for the clean answer, than to integrate the dirty answer now, for several reasons. For one thing, if you integrate the dirty answer, that reduces the incentive to implement a better one. For another, once you dirty up the architecture to integrate something it'll _never_ get cleaned up again.



However, (-) for FreeBSD, GCC is still being standard and begin used.


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## Oko (Mar 21, 2018)

Spartrekus said:


> *1/ Reasons:*
> The best softwares and core of Linux comes from FreeBSD.


Personally I read "the best" in your post as beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Apart of IPTables which is bastardized child of FreeBSD's IPFW there is nothing in Linux I can think of which comes from the FreeBSD. Actually there is almost nothing in FreeBSD which comes from FreeBSD in the past 10 years and that is why some (hopefully well-meaning) people are getting a bit concern about the future of this OS. All that being said I prefer to work with FreeBSD any time day or night over the Linux.

I couldn't find any facts in your post/rant. Everyone is entitled to her/his opinion but we should refrain  from presenting it as facts.


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## shepper (Mar 21, 2018)

Oko said:


> Actually there is almost nothing in FreeBSD which comes from FreeBSD in the past 10 years ...   .



1+

In my view, apart from the kernels, the main distinguishing feature of the BSD's is the core userland.

OpenBSD has distinguished itself by being critical of some of the userland applications and writing their own:
OpenSSH, LibreSSL, OpenNTP, OpenSMTP, PF.  I am not aware of any core userland utilities that have written or are being currently maintained by FreeBSD.


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## Oko (Mar 22, 2018)

shepper said:


> 1+
> 
> In my view, apart from the kernels, the main distinguishing feature of the BSD's is the core userland.
> 
> ...


IPFW since you listed PF although PF is the default firewall of OS X, Solaris (before untimely death) so it is really different thing. Junoos (customized FreeBSD) is using IPFilter IIRC. The last thing which came out of FreeBSD camp was ULE scheduler

http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~roper/ecs150/ULE.pdf

Other most exciting things came out of Solaris (ZFS, DTrace). However Jail (Indigenous FreeBSD technology)  and in particular VNET are not nearly as usable as Solaris zones and crossbow. I don't want to offend Bhyve developers but I think they are too late for the party. For me personally Bhyve is too little too late.

IIRC 10-15 years ago FreeBSD guys decided to stop any userland work. Until fairly recently even many of the basic UNIX filters were strait GNU utilities. This is no longer the case.


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## bryn1u (Mar 22, 2018)

I recommend HardenedBSD wich is of course based on FreeBSD.
https://hardenedbsd.org/content/easy-feature-comparison
There are so many security features included many security flags in packages.  Linux is a bag of exploits. One by one.

I hope that HBSD will have a great future. Functionallity from FreeBSD and great security from HardenedBSD. Maybe poeple can see this as a product which has "all" what servers need.


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## Spartrekus (Mar 22, 2018)

bryn1u said:


> I recommend HardenedBSD wich is of course based on FreeBSD.
> https://hardenedbsd.org/content/easy-feature-comparison
> There are so many security features included many security flags in packages.  Linux is a bag of exploits. One by one.
> 
> I hope that HBSD will have a great future. Functionallity from FreeBSD and great security from HardenedBSD. Maybe poeple can see this as a product which has "all" what servers need.



https://hardenedbsd.org/content/easy-feature-comparison 
it looks like a distro    indeed it is much "hardened".


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 22, 2018)

Spartrekus said:


> it looks like a distro


It's a fork of FreeBSD according to their About page. So, eventually, it might not resemble FreeBSD at all.


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## rigoletto@ (Mar 22, 2018)

HardenedBSD is a FreeBSD fork aimed to add and test security features and later bring those new features back to FreeBSD. The 'bring back' part does not seem to be really happening (don't ask me why).

So, it is more like a research OS, specially if you pay attention to they RELEASE model. OPNsense is built on top of HardenedBSD.


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## bryn1u (Mar 22, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> HardenedBSD is a FreeBSD fork aimed to add and test security features and later bring those new features back to FreeBSD. The 'bring back' part does not seem to be really happening (don't ask me why).
> 
> So, it is more like a research OS, specially if you pay attention to they RELEASE model. OPNsense is built on top of HardenedBSD.



The problem is add those features from HardendBSD to FreeBSD. It is not that easy. That's way HardenedBSD had to split and go own way. There are many solutions like hbsd-update, secadm etc. HardenedBSD is compiled with strong flags. Ports are compiled additionaly with SafeStack and will with CFI harden. Freebsd dosen't have it. I was reading Shawn Web (HardnedBSD creater)statment about ASLR in FreeBD and he said that implementation was sooo long and sooo hard. It was really complicated. This the one of the main reason why HardenedBSD has chosen own way. And Shawn say it was probably unavoidable. So now, you know why.


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## Oko (Mar 23, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> HardenedBSD is a FreeBSD fork aimed to add and test security features and later bring those new features back to FreeBSD. The 'bring back' part does not seem to be really happening (don't ask me why).


In my understanding fork has happened out of Shawn Web's frustration to get his ASLR into the FreeBSD proper. (Disclaimer Shawn and I had a lunch once and we didn't talk about politics at all. Whatever you read here are my own words). The same forces which prevented ASLR code in FreeBSD proper are holding the breaks on 'bring back' part. I don't know enough about FreeBSD internal politics nor I care for that matter but from outside it looks like ASLR and other security enhancements Shawn is championing serve no economic interest to the parties whose economic interests are served by FreeBSD. Sorry in this day and age FreeBSD altruism story is about as real as  Santa Claus.


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## ShelLuser (Mar 23, 2018)

Just be sure to always keep in mind that security isn't a product you "just" install, but an ongoing process. Using one OS over the other is never any guarantee that your setup will also be actually "safer", that's merely a ruse created by people in order to cater to their own agendas.


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## Datapanic (Mar 23, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> As I said somewhere, FreeBSD is not an application developer. Ask the OpenSim people why their code doesn't run on FreeBSD. FreeBSD has no influence in this.
> 
> Why anyone wants Windows code to work on BSD is beyond me. And i don't care what anyone says or thinks about the usefulness of Mono and .NET. It's origins are for the Microsoft world, not BSD/Linux/Unix.
> 
> I understand Mono's usefulness in porting over Microsoft software in some cases but most talk of its use is not that. Mono is an inefficient infection in most cases and, if you noticed, Microsoft more and more is integrating Unix style software into Windows to the point where I see them dropping Windows core and running a Unix system. We'll see.



I don't know, but I want portability for any program to run on any OS.  I don't give a donkey's hind excretes about the politics behind it.

On a lighter note, I have gotten OpenSim 0.9.0.0 release Standalone and Grid to run on FreeBSD 11.1-p8 with 144 Regions and over 20,000 assets with Percona SQL 5.7 server...  Emphasize, ALL ON FREEBSD.  That's no small accomplishment since the latest docs on how to do it are for FreeBSD 6.something and obviously don't work any more.  

To answer what the Doc said "FreeBSD is not an application developer"   Not.  It's whatever you can make it to be and to address the topic of this thread, it certainly has a future and for the doubters, go on over to Linux.


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## gnath (Mar 23, 2018)

Recently I came across the page https://vez.mrsk.me/freebsd-defaults.txt, specially port & pkg part of it. Also memory management is an important part for gurus. It is true that onion approach for security is good but lack of "how to harden freebsd" is not also good. This is my little understanding.  (daemon_computing 'core team.d' is not LISTENING , joke)


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## scottro (Mar 23, 2018)

Distrowatch (and I always consider links that give you no clue of where they're going to be a bit clickbaity, though one can hover the mouse over the link and see), will be the first to tell you that those numbers aren't to be taken seriously. As it says somewhere on Fedora's site, anyone making claims for open source numbers is either mistaken, lying, or trying to sell you something. 

That being said, yeah, Linux is a lot more popular and you'll have trouble getting a FreeBSD job--generally, you have to get a Linux one and try to get them to make a change if you see a valid reason.  However, it's even easier to get a Windows job.   If popularity is the true indicator of quality, then Windows wins.


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 23, 2018)

Datapanic said:


> To answer what the Doc said "FreeBSD is not an application developer" Not. It's whatever you can make it to be


You are not addressing what I said. By "FreeBSD", I mean the developers of the operating system. If one has problems with application software, looking to FreeBSD to fix those woes is the wrong place to be looking.


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## Spartrekus (Mar 23, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> HardenedBSD is a FreeBSD fork aimed to add and test security features and later bring those new features back to FreeBSD. The 'bring back' part does not seem to be really happening (don't ask me why).
> 
> So, it is more like a research OS, specially if you pay attention to they RELEASE model. OPNsense is built on top of HardenedBSD.



In other words, might it be good for FreeBSD for having a fork?


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## flipper_88 (Mar 23, 2018)

HPUnix,AIX Solaris (rip} osx and IRIX are  all directly derived from Kin Thompson and Dennis Richie's original reimplementation of the dinosaur named multix as well as Linux Torvald's Linux and the whole FOSS community.


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## Oko (Mar 24, 2018)

Spartrekus said:


> In other words, might it be good for FreeBSD for having a fork?


I respectfully disagree with you. FreeBSD has being already forked once in June 2003 by Matthew Dillon. As much as I love DragonFly and Matt as a programmer and a person the fork has never gained as much traction as originally thought. Quite on the contrary it seems that it peaked 2004-2006 and right now you can hear crickets on their mailing list. Bruised FreeBSD egos never allowed any of DragonFly technical innovations back into FreeBSD proper. So it is double loss for FreeBSD (core developer + many new technologies).  With all due respect Shawn Web is not in the same league as Matt Dillon. Probably the only person in FreeBSD camp who was as charismatic as Matt is Poul-Henning Kamp. Other people that come to mind when I speak about Matt are Fabrice Billard and Theo de Raadt.

I think Shawn is beating a dead horse. FreeBSD was never truly about security. That is neither bad nor good. It is just the fact that people who work on FreeBSD have different focus. That is one of the beautiful things about BSDs. Each one its four flavors is a truly a separate operating system which has a very narrow focus.

Out of 500 of something Linux distros on Distro Watch 350 are Ubuntu with custom wall paper, 100 are Debian derivatives and everybody uses the kernel developed by Red Hat. There are less than 10 truly interesting Linux distro and that is counting turn key appliances (Clonezilla, GParted, Parted Magic, SystemRescueCD, Proxmox, ThinStation, OSMC).  FreeBSD alone has four highly popular and very unique appliances pfSense, OPNsense, FreeNAS, NAS4Free far more interesting than Linux counterparts ( IPFire, Sophos UTM,  Untangle NG Firewall, OpenMediaVault).


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## ralphbsz (Mar 24, 2018)

Chipper8827 said:


> HPUnix,AIX Solaris (rip} osx and IRIX are  all directly derived from Kin Thompson and Dennis Richie's original reimplementation of the dinosaur named multix as well as Linux Torvald's Linux and the whole FOSS community.


It's Ken, not Kin.  In the bay area, you can meet him occasionally.  Unfortunately, Dennis has become swapped out, permanently.  Very sad.

Apple's OS X is not derived from Unix, nor is Linux or the BSDs that are available today, in the following sense: they contain no single line that was written by Dennis and Ken, and are not subject to the original Unix copyright.  One could say that Linux is a complete re-implementation of Unix; the history of BSD is much more complex (it contained Unix source code for a while, but it was removed again).

It's probably a mischaracterization to claim that Unix is a re-implementation of Multics.  Clearly, it was inspired by Multics, including its name being a pun on the name.  But to a large extent, it did things deliberately different, learning from the mistakes of Multics.  And the goal of the Unix project was not to implement a new Multics (nor was it to drive a new phototypesetter, which was a feeble bureaucratic excuse to get a budget for it).  Most likely one could say that the operating systems research group at Bell Labs (meaning: Dennis and Ken) needed a way to do research, and having lost access to the Multics project, they created their own little research OS.  About a decade later, when the group got bored with that, they abandoned Unix (which by then had become a success), and worked on Plan 9.


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## ShionKeys (Mar 24, 2018)

arnab said:


> Today I came through a very wired topic on YouTube. A guy was saying that the future of BSD os is in danger as we have lesser developers compared to Linux and also the code quality is poor compared to Linux distros. He also stated that when a bug is reported in Linux it is fixed within few days or weeks but BSD has many serious bugs over than a decade. And also due to permissive BSD licence it is loosing it's popularity. Here is the website which has posted an article on this subject.
> 
> https://www.csoonline.com/article/3...dying-some-security-researchers-think-so.html
> 
> Now my question is if it is real or if becomes true in near future then what will happen to the diehard BSD users or common BSD fans like us? Even what will happen to those company who are using BSD for their business(WhatsApp/Netflix) or mostly to mac os as it has Darwin(based on FreeBSD) in it's core? I know that I/anyone can switch to Linux anytime but end of the day BSD is like home



Many people praise freebsd for being safe. In my opinion, freebsd is just tutorials / wikis not keeping up with Linux, resulting in a shortage of users.

As an entrepreneur, I don't want to miss any good opportunity.
I want the freebsd team to consider joining the ShionKeys project to implement the ShionKeys project / program. I think the freebsd influence is enough to enable ShionKeys to find an investment to achieve production.

If the freebsd team joins in to enable ShionKeys to achieve production, the team will get a 10% stake.That's enough to revitalize freebsd.ShionKeys project is enough to revitalize freebsd.

People all over the world will see this, so I won't cheat at all.

All code for ShionKeys project to be maintained by freebsd. When the patent expires, it means that the ShionKeys project belongs to freebsd.Always follow GPL.

ShionKeys can make freebsd into everyone's life and make freebsd the most popular operating system, because in the future everyone will have ShionKeys.

Don't think ShionKeys is just a concept. Shion Keys isn't just a keyboard.

In my blueprint, ShionKeys will end up being a computer disguised as a keyboard, If the freebsd team joins ShionKeys. maybe the future ShionKeys will be a freebsd disguised as a keyboard.

The innovation of ShionKeys is not just what you see


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## ondra_knezour (Mar 24, 2018)

ShionKeys said:


> [...]I want the freebsd team to consider joining the ShionKeys project to implement the ShionKeys project / program.[...]



- FreeBSD do develop operating systems, FreeBSD doesn't develop keyboards
- Forum have minimal influence on what the FreeBSD project does
- FreeBSD tries to avoid GPL as much as possible

Please keep your funny keyboard in one thread and don't scatter it everywhere. Yes, we know, you are poor, oppressed etc. but it doesn't mean you are entitled to spam everywhere and everyone. You are free to develop your idea and all others are free to ignore it.


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## ShionKeys (Mar 24, 2018)

ondra_knezour said:


> - FreeBSD do develop operating systems, FreeBSD doesn't develop keyboards
> - Forum have minimal influence on what the FreeBSD project does
> - FreeBSD tries to avoid GPL as much as possible
> 
> Please keep your funny keyboard in one thread and don't scatter it everywhere. Yes, we know, you are poor, oppressed etc. but it doesn't mean you are entitled to spam everywhere and everyone. You are free to develop your idea and all others are free to ignore it.




This is for the freebsd team, and if you're speaking to me on behalf of freebsd, I'm disappointed. I'll stay away from freebsd.
If you don't represent freebsd, why don't you want me to speak at Off-Topic?

I'm pretty sure that freebsd can't compete with popular operating systems, 
But if freebsd were installed in ShionKeys by default, freebsd would be the most popular operating system, a household name


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## ShelLuser (Mar 24, 2018)

ShionKeys said:


> This is for the freebsd team, and if you're speaking to me on behalf of freebsd, I'm disappointed.


You should consider looking at the official contact details.



ShionKeys said:


> I'll stay away from freebsd.


Just my opinion obviously but this sounds like a great idea to me.


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 24, 2018)

ShionKeys said:


> In my opinion, freebsd is just tutorials / wikis not keeping up with Linux, resulting in a shortage of users.


Your opinion shows you aren't aware of the history of BSD making your whole post suspect.


ShionKeys said:


> I want the freebsd team to consider joining the ShionKeys project


Wrong forum. While the FreeBSD devs do come here, it's not where they hang out. You are preaching to users, not FreeBSD core developers or the FreeBSD Foundation.


ShionKeys said:


> If the freebsd team joins in to enable ShionKeys to achieve production, the team will get a 10% stake.


FreeBSD is not a public company interested in such things. The rest of your post is product endorsement, which I don't think is allowed here, but I've forgotten what ShionKeys is. 

If you want to make a pitch for your product, you are way off target with this post.


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## Freakbeat (Mar 24, 2018)

This guy is so funny.


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## Phishfry (Mar 24, 2018)

I feel empathy for him. A poor person trying to rise up.
Just doing it in the wrong place.

From a manufacturing standpoint plastic injection molds are very expensive.
No single individual could pull this off including myself with extensive background in the processes.
Do you know what a mold base costs? This saves you some money by using a pre-build mold stack.
You still need to form the part into your mold halves and that is usually an EDM process. Then hand worked to a highly polished finish. Then you have ejector pins and cooling lines...ect ect.. Then sent out for heat treatment and finish ground.

So lets say $50K for each mold minimum. You have keyboard housing, keys, and what about your key switch assemblies....
So many parts to make you probably would need multiple mold bases. Then where are you going to run these molds.
You would have to work out a deal with a local plastic injection mold shop and work a deal. Warning he is going to speak in terms of thosands of parts. Then who is going to assemble your box of parts?

The whole thing is ridiculous for anything other than a large company to handle.

This did make me laugh out loud.


ShionKeys said:


> But if freebsd were installed in ShionKeys by default, freebsd would be the most popular operating system, a household name


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## rigoletto@ (Mar 24, 2018)

Phishfry and those are just manufacturing steps. Still need marketing, logistics/distribution etc.

ShionKeys »MAY« have more lucky trying to convince Signature Plastics or WASD than in here.


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 24, 2018)

Well, I know what the future of this thread is.


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