FreeBSD 16 Retires the Last of Its GPL Code (phoronix.com) 134
FreeBSD 16 has removed the last GPL-licensed code from its base system, retiring the old GNU 'dialog' implementation after the installer moved to 'bsddialog' and the final dependency was disabled. Phoronix reports: This ticket to retire dialog was opened back in February while is now merged to the FreeBSD source tree for what will become FreeBSD 16.0. With dialog removed, the latest FreeBSD code now retires the GNU sub-tree of the FreeBSD base system now that no more GNU code remains. FreeBSD 16.0 is working its way toward release that is expected to happen in December 2027.
Context? (Score:2)
Re:Context? (Score:5, Funny)
If only there was something about FreeBSD that might provide a clue about what license they would be wanting the software to use...
Re:Context? (Score:5, Funny)
Eric.
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Re: Context? (Score:2)
BSD is one of the big three licenses (alongside GPL and MIT). If you don't know about the BSD license, you're not that into open source.
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Re: Context? (Score:2)
Wasn't the advertising clause determined to be non free and long since removed?
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The advertising clause wasn't "non-free" as much as a practical problem that was incompatible with the GPL's ban on additional restrictions. It was largely removed when much popular software switched from the 4-clause original BSD license to the 3-clause or 2-clause version.
The appropriate copyright notice clause remained in 3-clause and 2-clause BSD licenses. This clause is also present in GPLv2 and GPLv3.
Apple uses and supports FreeBSD (Score:3)
Curious actually to know whether FreeBSD is being used anywhere these days in a finished product?
Apple's macOS. Apple contributes code and employs some FreeBSD developers.
Re:Apple uses and supports FreeBSD (Score:4, Informative)
Its a little more complex. Apple does derive some of FreeBSDs userland and some services. However its a myth that the kernel is a modified FreeBS. Its a modified Mach microkernel, XNU (technically actually a hybrid, like most real world microkernels, that has a small amount of non core kernel in ring zero for performance reasons, that has some services that have FreeBSD derived code in it, namely the network stack, process model and IOKit.
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However its a myth that the kernel is a modified FreeBS. Its a modified Mach microkernel
Thanks for bringing up its microkernel nature. Another improvement over Linux. :-)
Re:Context? (Score:5, Informative)
Names you might recognize of include Juniper, Citrix and Netapp.
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Efficient IP's DDI/IPAM solution runs on top of FreeBSD 14.4
i tried paste the output of a CLI command to demonstrate but Slashdot will not let me post it
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If you have never heard of Juniper Networks, Citrix, or NetApp then you clearly haven't been working anywhere close to a real IT department in the last 20+ years.
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Citrix, more bugs that a feral dog.
NetApp, if you have to ask, you can't afford it.
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The macOS userland has been FreeBSD based since Mac OS X Server 1.0 shipped in 2001 or thereabouts.
In fact, 25 years later, I think Apple is still using some of the same decrepit versions of tools from that era due to GPLv3 being incompatible with their commercial licensing. Their versions of various utilities like `sed` are ass-old and basically need to be updated through Homebrew in order to be useful.
BSD started out taxpayer funded (Score:2)
Exactly. But you have to keep the original BSD license intact. You can modify the files, but you have to acknowledge, that you got them from FreeBSD. That's why many commercial companies like to base their systems on FreeBSD.
You're missing the point. Commercial companies can usurp the code without sharing back to the project that made their business possible.
"Usurp" is mistaken. BSD code was originally written by the University of California, a publicly funded entity. The BSD license reflects this making the code accessible and usable by ALL taxpayers, which includes commercial companies.
It's quite likely that a commercial company's version can dominate the market, thus strangling the original free version. In fact, this has happened many times. The GPL prevents that from happening.
By being less free, of taking away options. The GPL is based on the "benevolent ruler" concept, not freedom.
Also, the GPL does allow companies to "usurp" code, as long as the company does not distribute the binary of that code. Put the code on a server and only let the publi
Re: BSD started out taxpayer funded (Score:2)
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None of those commercial software operations pay taxes, you fool
Yes, I am a fool. My small company pays taxes to the federal government and the state of california. :-)
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That would come as news to Apple, who paid over $20B in taxes in 2025 to the US alone.
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Exactly. But you have to keep the original BSD license intact. You can modify the files, but you have to acknowledge, that you got them from FreeBSD. That's why many commercial companies like to base their systems on FreeBSD.
You're missing the point. Commercial companies can usurp the code without sharing back to the project that made their business possible. It's quite likely that a commercial company's version can dominate the market, thus strangling the original free version. In fact, this has happened many times. The GPL prevents that from happening.
Realistically, open source software that has a decent number of maintainers means that the quality is good and bugs get fixed, including security bugs. But what that also means is that when problems get fixed in the open source repo, those changes have to be pulled into the source code that companies are building into their products. The more they diverge from the open source version, the harder that becomes. So while a company theoretically could do what you are describing, the reality tends to be tht c
Re: Context? (Score:2)
One of the largest classes of hackable non mainstream software - wireless routers - is around because somebody sued to obtain GPL'ed code that the original publisher wouldn't have otherwise published.
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Absolutely. Even companies that try to switch licenses to "protect" their code, like MinIO did, run the risk of people quickly switching to or creating alternatives. Like RustFS was created specifically to deal with the frustration of MinIO's change.
AGPL is a plague. GPL, I tolerate, though I have a strong preference towards v2. But AGPL has no redeeming qualities. The hypothetical world where someone creates a closed-source fork of a web service, convinces everyone to use it, and then holds their data hostage just isn't particularly plausible.
Meanwhile, AGPL precludes any interesting integrations, custom in-house authentication systems, using custom database backends, and all sorts of other stuff that potentially is useful to keep company-proprieta
Re: Context? (Score:2)
... dominating the market ... is part of your definition of free?
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What does the free project care about "the market?" What you mean is that the commercial project isn't forced to contribute back to the free one. I also don't like that idea, but claiming that forcing someone to do something they don't want to is "more free" is weird.
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claiming that forcing someone to do something they don't want to is "more free" is weird.
Developers aren't "forced" to use GPL software. But once they do, they're obliged to follow the terms of the software's license. That's true for any software, not just GPL software.
Having freedom does not mean you can do anything you want. Any free society has rules that are designed to protect others. When you use GPL software, you enjoy certain freedoms, but cannot take those freedoms away from anyone else. Allowing developers to hide changes to the software would corrupt that freedom. That's why the GPL
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Yes, it does. It's clearly impossible for everyone to be that free, so reality forces compromises, not redefinition. Not permitting something is not "more free."
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In your restricted context, no country or society on earth is truly "free." Yet we all use the term to describe many such countries and societies and see no contradiction.
Freedom without rules is chaos. You would not feel "free" in such a state. You would feel fear.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
It's not "more free', it's better preserving the freedom of the user.
This is what GPL is about: the freedom of the user. Expressly different fro., and often in conflict with, the developer's freedom.
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The OP claimed that the BSD license is "not free" and the GPL is.
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... dominating the market ... is part of your definition of free?
No, silly wabbit. What on earth gave you that idea?
Commercial companies that use free software without sharing their changes can achieve a dominant position. They get a huge leg-up from a free-software project, and don't need to give a rat's ass about the software remaining free. In so doing, they usurp control of the software: everyone looks to the now-dominant commercial company for the development of the software, instead of the maintainers of the free version.
Free-software maintainers don't want to domi
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The author is allowed to not give a flying fig about that. Or anything else.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
There's "allowed" as in "legally", and as in "morally".
The GPL stance is that non-free software is immoral because it rndd up giving the developer power over the user that they shouldn't have.
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If the "Free" in its name means someone else can take the source-code, change it, and hide the changes from others, then it's no longer Free, is it?
You confuse the concept of "free" with a benevolent ruler who orders you to act in a certain way. Benevolence does not change the fact that you did not have the freedom to choose.
Also, if someone privately forks and does not share the code, no one has lost anything. The full code pre-fork is still available. Nothing contributed under a BSD license has been lost. Don't like what the fork author did, don't use their software, continue using the entirely free fork. See, you have a choice, that's freedom.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
This isn't about freedom of choice, it's about the user's freedom. Actually, about *specific* freedoms for the user, associated with the continued ability to use the software.
There's no freedom that BSD preserves here except the freedom of the deceloper to restrict the user.
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Again, you ignore the fact that the GPL also allows the developer to deny a user access to source code. All a developer needs to do is not supply a binary. Lock up the binary on a server behind a web interface and changes to GPL’d code remain proprietary.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
No, I'm not confuwing anything. I'm simply uaing the differentiate concepts as expressed, not pulling word games out of my hat.
And that the GPL "denies access" isn't true. It simply was defined at a time where such applications were highly irrelevant to mostly nonexistent, so it doesn't cover such cases.
As that became a thing, for that purpose you can look at the AGPL, which does what you'd expect.
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No, I'm not confuwing anything. I'm simply uaing the differentiate concepts as expressed, not pulling word games out of my hat.
You are using FSF's made up freedoms that are part of their dogma. Their well meaning, but they are essentially political dogma nonetheless,
And that the GPL "denies access" isn't true. It simply was defined at a time where such applications were highly irrelevant to mostly nonexistent, so it doesn't cover such cases.
Nope. Remote access was a thing long before the GPL. Yet they chose to focus on distribution of a binary executable to trigger their new rules.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
You're right. It's the BSD part of the name that is the clue, not the Free part.
At least in the past "Free" was the copy lefted part of OSS software, with many OSS puriwta believing a BSD type licence was more Free as others thought it was less so.
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Re: Context? (Score:2)
That was in the past. Nowadays, rampant copyright violation is the norm in America, so the distinction is moot. (sadly)
Which past... before it became a convenient stick to bash the scary AI with, nobody gave a crap about copyrighted works or intellectual property rights in general around here for damned sure, not ever.
All of a sudden everyone is a digital Karen crying "you need to pay for that" while perched on top their horde of pirated movies, music and audio books. Hey we should only have to pay for stuff if we really like it and the seller provides terms we like, and not if we weren't going to buy it anyway. Right ....
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No what we are saying is we shouldn't only abolish copyright for venture capitalists who have a few billion to throw around. If Joe consumer can be slapped with $250k per willful infraction for seeding a torrent, then let's hit up Google for a few trillion. Either that or do away with copyright altogether. I'd be cool with that too.
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It has always seemed a particularly strange argument that a restriction makes something more free. More ethical, maybe. A reasonable limitation in order to maintain some other goal, okay. It's not free if you can do this, no.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
Let me explain then.
One man's freedom is another man's restriction.
The game GPL is playing isn't about "more" freedom, it's about specific freedom for the user related to continued ability to use the software.
BSD doesn't expand, it actually restricts that freedom, by giving a different kind of freedom to the developer over the user.
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There, you nailed it. And that game convinces people, the OP in particular, that something with fewer restrictions is "not free." Not "not as good" but specifically "not free."
This is precisely the same game that let Engels and Lenin convince everyone that a social system based on general anarchy plus a wee bit of democracy where absolutely required that was supposed to come about naturally ACTUALLY required authoritarianism and violent revolution because.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
something with fewer restrictions is "not free." Not "not as good" but specifically "not free."
Frankly anyone who accepts this sentence as valid is a simplistic idiot, regardless of whether they agree with it or not.
The problem is the framing.
There's no such thing as a stand-alone "free".
There's alwaya a free to do something, or free from something, or free with regards to something.
Specifically with software, it's the freedom of the user to use it (for starers), then to study and modify it, and for it all to be meaningful, to share their work with others because modifying a realistically-sized softw
Re: Context? (Score:2)
If the "Free" in its name means someone else can take the source-code, change it, and hide the changes from others, then it's no longer Free, is it?
Try explaining to a five year old that the balloon animal you gave them is not free if they can make modifications and not share them back with you.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
"Free" doesn't stand in a vacuum. It's a term that aplies to something.
Changing the balloon is freedom of the artist. Using the baloon is freedom of the kid.
If the kid changes the baloon, they become an artist.
The GPL is expressly only interested in preserving freedom of children, not of artists. And only specific freedoms associated with continued ability to use the baloon, not all freedoms.
But those freedoms the GPL protects better than BSD, because they're elevated to absolute state - even before the fre
Re: Context? (Score:2)
The original source code is still free to anyone else who cares to use it. Nothing changed there so it isn't false advertising, as you allege.
Re:Context? (Score:4)
So the article says that it's now free of GPL. Great. So what was it moved to?
The one that the Regents of the University of California provided us so that publicly funded code would remain freely available to the entirety of the public, to all the taxpayers.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
They wanted to be sure our corporate overlords could grab all the code they want without having to give anything back.
Grabbing and giving back is a really funny way of looking at copying something. Pay for a copy or don't.
Re:Context? (Score:5, Insightful)
The GPL is (intentionally) coercive, forcing those that use it to do something one might otherwise not do
Nonsense. Nobody is "forced" to incorporate GPL code into their project.
(although in practice, many of the large FreeBSD using organizations do end up contributing back
They're not obliged to do so, and many don't. With GPL, they must. That keeps the software free for others to do the same.
Your freedom is not always my freedom.
Whatever "freedom" means for a piece of software is determined by its author, not the user.
I am sure all your code, and all your employers code, is open source and GPL (or equivalent), and if not, you, yourself, do not actually believe in the freedom you are claiming is better.
You should be careful about making such a claim. I can believe in the freedom of the GPL and still respect the wishes of my employer. And I have worked for companies that have used software under a variety of licenses, including GPL.
Must? (Score:2)
>>>With GPL, they must.
"Must" is doing an awful lot of work in that statement. I'm guessing that finding a blatant, longstanding, notorious GPL violator is easier than finding a penny on the street.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
Nonsense. Nobody is "forced" to incorporate GPL code into their project.
I may want to use the code modified and not share my modifications. The GPL prevents this.
Aside from the corner case of libraries incrementing proposed standards I think this is a plus, but it certainly is a restriction that a copy left license has and a BSD/MIT one doesn't.
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Nonsense. Nobody is "forced" to incorporate GPL code into their project.
I may want to use the code modified and not share my modifications. The GPL prevents this.
As long as you don't publically distribute a binary, it's perfectly okay to do that. But once you distribute a binary from modified source, you must share the source as well.
In any case, my point stands: nobody is forced to use GPL code. Once you do use GPL software, you accept the terms of the license. That's true for any licence, not just GPL.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
Whatever "freedom" means for a piece of software is determined by its author, not the user.
The GPL isn't built around a general concept of "freedom", it's built around very specific freedoms for the user , spelled out loud, and associated with the user's continued ability to use the software.
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Whatever "freedom" means for a piece of software is determined by its author, not the user.
The GPL isn't built around a general concept of "freedom", it's built around very specific freedoms for the user , spelled out loud, and associated with the user's continued ability to use the software.
Correct. And, as I said, the terms of that freedom are dictated by the author, not the user. Everyone enjoys the freedoms. But the author specifies what they are.
My post was a response to the AC's statement that "Your freedom is not always my freedom." I was emphasizing that the author can stipulate what that freedom is -- what you can and can't do with the source-code -- because the author holds the copyright for that source-code and can license it as s/he wishes.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
I was emphasizing that the author can stipulate what that freedom is
Doesn't this run counter to the very concept of "freedom"?
If you apply this to a person, can toh say "I acknowledge you're free, but I define what freedom means"?
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I was emphasizing that the author can stipulate what that freedom is
Doesn't this run counter to the very concept of "freedom"?
No. "Freedom" does not mean "no rules." Free societies still have rules. Why? To protect the freedom of everyone. In that, you may see a contradiction, but I see realism.
If you apply this to a person, can toh say "I acknowledge you're free, but I define what freedom means"?
If it has to do with my property, then yes: I can stipulate what you are "free" to do with it.
Re: Context? (Score:2)
Category error.
We're talking here specifically about moving within the regulation, not breaking it. Specifically about which regulation ("license") ia more suitable to preserve specific aspects of freedom.
The GPL aims to protect freedom for the user.
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Freedom can fall into different categories. But I see no category error. Who is talking about breaking regulations instead of moving within them?
One of those categories of freedom -- the one I think that the GPL truly aims to preserve -- is the freedom of the software. GPL software cannot be captured by anyone -- user or otherwise -- and made into a proprietary product. The software's design, as expressed in the source-code, is ensured to be open for all to see through all subsequent generations.
Users and d
Re: Context? (Score:2)
You're thinking wrong.
You don't have to speculate, the GPL says what it wants right there in the preamble (emphasis mine);
the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users
I think I started this (Score:5, Interesting)
27 years ago, I wrote a clean implementation of grep, specifically for this purpose. It has since been adopted by (at least) FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Haiku, Minix, MacOS, iOS, and who knows what else. So this is really cool to see this.
Re: I think I started this (Score:4, Funny)
Re: I think I started this (Score:4, Insightful)
HA!
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Weird that Haiku picked it up, what with actual BeOS having been chock-full of GNU utilities. I know because I did the first released port of GNU file for BeOS.
Re:I think I started this (Score:4, Informative)
I just remember someone emailing me as a courtesy to say it was added. As someone who has maybe 10 minutes total clocked between BeOS and Haiku, I would have to take their word for it.
Re:I think I started this (Score:5, Informative)
I wrote that line. But use the source. https://github.com/freebsd/fre... [github.com]
Re: I think I started this (Score:4, Informative)
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We must have joined the same day!
reg, howardjp - I'm just glad there are some of us 4-digit types still creeping (creaking by this point?) around here still. Nice to meet you!
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Still here, too.
If FreeBSD could perform as well as Linux+Lutris and/or Steam for the Windows games I like to play, I'd try it on bare metal.
netcraft? (Score:5, Funny)
I was told that BSD is dead! Netcraft confirmed it!
Motivations (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is the context: If you publish software under GPL license, then a third party the bundles your software must publish under GPL. This is the "viral" feature of GPL, and its intent is to prevent anyone making GPL'ed code proprietary
But sometimes, you want to be ripped, so that your implementation spreads everywhere, including in proprietary software. The BSD license allows that, the only duty for the ripper being to reproduce the BSD license when distributing its own software. The BSD license can be "viral", but in a very different way.
Some authors suggested TCP/IP would never have reached the status of interoperable standard, if numerous actors had not been able to copy the BSD implementation in their proprietary software
How will this change FreeBSD? (Score:3)
Will it change the Linux compatibility layer? Will all the software run just the same?
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GPL is viral, but in the sense of HIV, not herpes. You absolutely know when you're doing something that could cause your code to be controlled under the GPL. Specifically, incorporating GPL source-code into your project.
In short, if your code becomes licensed under the GPL, it's because you want it to. No excuses.
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No it is infectious and some thing to be avoided.
Oh, that explains why BSD which predates Linux is an also-ran, while Linux is the world's most popular operating system and many major contributors told us in so many words that they chose to contribute to Linux instead of BSD specifically because of the license.
Re:GPL is software herpes (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, that explains why BSD which predates Linux is an also-ran, while Linux is the world's most popular operating system and many major contributors told us in so many words that they chose to contribute to Linux instead of BSD specifically because of the license.
Some of it is the licensing, with the BSD license having fewer restrictions on reuse, but a lot of it was the early fighting over Unix copyrights, including between AT&T and BSD, when Unix proved to be a viable commercial OS, like with 386BSD (which I used - yes, I'm old :-) ), rather than just a research and university item. While companies were fighting over who would control and profit from Unix, Linux got a head start actually being used. Both have their pros and cons and places where one may be a better choice than the other.
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Some of it is the licensing, with the BSD license having fewer restrictions on reuse, but a lot of it was the early fighting over Unix copyrights, including between AT&T and BSD, when Unix proved to be a viable commercial OS
That was a thing, but it was resolved well before Linux became popular.
Both have their pros and cons and places where one may be a better choice than the other.
IME FreeBSD is realistically almost all drawbacks because development happens on Linux. OpenBSD has its selling point I guess, but my personal experiences with it taught me that if you aren't qualified to fix your own problems with e.g. the kernel, you should avoid it. NetBSD has some meaning as the last available OS for a lot of old hardware, so I guess there's that? In-kernel ZFS is cool but hardly worth the hassle unless what you are
What the world wants is Unix on commodity hardware (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, that explains why BSD which predates Linux is an also-ran ... ...
That is a complete fluke, an accident. What the world wanted was Unix running on inexpensive commodity PC hardware. That's it. A certain type of OS on a certain type of hardware. Most do not give sh*t about the license and any political baggage that comes with it.
Both BSD and Linux were on track for this goal. BSD got sidetracked by a major lawsuit, it stalled the project. It let Linux win the race. Linux won due to an externality, their competition stalled by lawyers. It had nothing to do with the GPL,
Re:What the world wants is Unix on commodity hardw (Score:4, Informative)
> That is a complete fluke, an accident
Are you sure about that?
The legal stuff was sorted out before either became popular, and BSD had the benefit of name recognition, 20 years of development (and thus a mature base), familiarity by academics across the world, and so on. While Linux was some hobby project written by an unknown programmer as a quick and dirty 32 bit replacement for the MINIX kernel so he could run MINIX with applications able to access gigabytes of RAM and be completely secured from one another.
The quick and dirty MINIX replacement somehow became the most popular operating system on Earth. While BSD was basically dead in the water by the early 2000s.
Is it just possible that the development environment mattered? That people contributed to Linux, causing it to become the universal OS compatible with almost every hardware environment with the RAM and processing power necessary, because they knew that their contributions would be more meaningful in an environment where people could copy it but never, ever, hide it and claim it as their own?
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The legal stuff was sorted out before either became popular
The lawsuit occurred at a critical moment as both FreeBSD and Linux were becoming useable, 1992. There was an injunction against distributing source code.Corporations reluctant to adopt it given the uncertainty. This was a massive opening for Linux. I started using Linux around 1993. It was a godsend for grad school, my university had a BSD based program. At work many engineers were desperate for Unix on PC hardware. And for school and work, Linux was a fine Unix.
most popular operating system on Earth. While BSD was basically dead in the water by the early 2000s.
BSD today is bigger than Linux. macOS uses F
Re: What the world wants is Unix on commodity hard (Score:2)
"BSD today is bigger than Linux."
Hahhahahahahahbahahabbahaha
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"BSD today is bigger than Linux."
Hahhahahahahahbahahabbahaha
LOL. You had to snip the desktop context, "BSD today is bigger than Linux. macOS uses FreeBSD. Apple contributes code and pay for some FreeBSD developers."
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LOL. You had to snip the desktop context
You inserted that into the conversation. Have fun with your mobile goalposts.
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LOL. You had to snip the desktop context
You inserted that into the conversation. Have fun with your mobile goalposts.
LOL. We were talking about how people wanted UNIX on the desktop.
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In the comment you posted at the top of this thread, you talked about servers, desktops, and mobile devices. Now you want the conversation to be only about desktops.
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In the comment you posted at the top of this thread, you talked about servers, desktops, and mobile devices. Now you want the conversation to be only about desktops.
And regarding servers I said Linux dominates as it was largely replacing boxes that were already Unix.
And regarding desktops I pointed out macOS (which uses BSD) is the most common desktop Unix.
And regarding smartphones, its just the kernel hosting the real OS which is Android.
LOL. So now we have two pieces of evidence showing you played with context to misrepresent.
Re: What the world wants is Unix on commodity hard (Score:3)
"That is a complete fluke, an accident."
Completely wrong.
"What the world wanted was Unix running on inexpensive commodity PC hardware. That's it."
Right, the average user does not give a shit about the license. But wrong, because how they got it was from people who do care. BSD already existed and they could already be contributing to it, but they chose not to. And they made that choice specifically based on the license, which we know because so many major contributors told us so. You are ignoring what they
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"That is a complete fluke, an accident."
Completely wrong.
Nope. Due to the lawsuit there was an injunction against distributing code. The lawsuit also caused corporation to pause BSD rollouts. That opened a rather big door for Linux.
"What the world wanted was Unix running on inexpensive commodity PC hardware. That's it."
Right, the average user does not give a shit about the license. But wrong, because how they got it was from people who do care.
Nope. Many developers were also motivated by the desired of Unix on PC hardware, and were license agnostic. Again, the lawsuit helped here too. Injunction, doubt about the project's future, that also led some developers to Linux. Developer support went the less legally encumbered path.
And they made that choice specifically based on the license, which we know because so many major contributors told us so.
That's just a cherry picked few that GPL advocates
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Linux is certainly in a lot of places -- including on the laptop I'm writing this from. But BSD is as well, including on tens to hundreds of millions of devices that are running it without explicitly mentioning it, and of course on everything running a contemporary version of MacOS. Not to mention all the systems that are running OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, or one of the other variants.
It would be an interesting exercise to try to enumerate all computing syste
Re: GPL is software herpes (Score:4, Funny)
You have the perfect nickname for a BSD enthusiast. The whole reason I wound up running Linux was BSDickhead elitism. I had done multiple installs of various Unixes including SunOS on a sun3, which is not only BSD, it's weird and you have to do weird shit to install it. But since the BSD documentation was shit at the time that told you nothing you needed to know, I found myself a little stuck on stupid shit like how big my partitions should be. I even know some FreeBSD users and as it turned out, they were fucking worthless and treated me like an idiot for asking questions the documentation would have answered if it were any good.
So I installed slackware and that was that, the install was trivial, the community was orders of magnitude more helpful and welcoming, the documentation was actually useful. I've installed a lot of different BSDs over the years (including on some IBM model 135s for example) and literally all of them were better than FreeBSD was then, even the ones that are older than that!
BSDicks can only blame themselves for Linux eating their lunch.
Re: GPL is software herpes (Score:4, Interesting)
The point, which you seemed to have missed entirely, is that regardless of what you're running and what I'm running, the world is running rather a lot of Linux and Unix on all kinds of hardware, and it's often under the hood so it's not readily obvious which is in play.
Re: (Score:2)
The point, which you seemed to have missed entirely, is that regardless of what you're running and what I'm running, the world is running rather a lot of Linux and Unix on all kinds of hardware, and it's often under the hood so it's not readily obvious which is in play.
Besides using fingerprinting for networked devices, mostly the information on what's being used is out there anyway. BSDs used to be massively popular because they were what ran on what you had when you had pretty much anything. Now that's Linux, some version of it anyway. And if anyone really cares, they can dust off those old architectures on some kernel version.
The BSD license was favorable enough in its time, and it led BSD to significant success. But it didn't protect the people and corporations willin
Re: (Score:2)
I've had the same experience with Linux enthusiasts.
Open Source projects attract a certain kind of personality. That's part of the reason I don't contribute anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
In OSS there's a certain desperation for quality code where a lot of bullshit has historically been tolerated.