Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 16:50:06 -0400 From: "Pedro F. Giffuni" <pfg1+@pitt.edu> To: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: beowulf, bsd, and linux (flamebait) Message-ID: <3AFAFEFE.5F9ABF58@pitt.edu> References: <20010510185510.A98528@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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fwiw, I talked with the project leader of MOSIX when it was only ported to BSDI. We talked fairly long about this... Factor's in favor of BSD: * Better structured development, no "let's rewrite the kernel today" or "who cares about backward compatibility". * Better networking stack, with proven performance. * Well designed kernel (well...at least designed). * License Factors against BSD: * Less commercial tools available * Less known when asked to the common people. His group then chose Linux for only one reason: bigger userbase..more possible funding for future projects. He then quoted a phrase (in spanish!) that I won't repeat here...the only thing clear was that he didn't like linux but everyone else used it. Nowadays I think they probably took the right choice; they had licensing clashes at first but they seem happy with Linux. I doubt they are making much money from it, and I doubt they have much contact with Linus, but they have never discussed abandoning it, afaik. FreeBSD has advanced on it's own in important ways. We are also much better known thanks to Mac OS X, so I don't doubt something like MOSIX will appear. And we have new tools in place now; if someone were thinking in porting MOSIX, or an advanced Beowulf type of thing, they should consider netgraph...I think. My $0.02 Pedro. j mckitrick wrote: > > I was doing research for a project on distributed computing and found this: > > One person in the audience asked why Donald used Linux as the kernel for > building up his Beowulf project instead of one of the BSD kernels. Donald > had an interesting answer to that question. First off, the BSD kernels were > not as stable as Linux, back when he started working on his project. He then > proceeded to complain that working with the BSD developers was very > difficult. They tend to hide the development process thus making it harder > to contribute the needed upgrades. (Remember that Donald had to work with > the internal data structures of the kernel in order to make his project > scale.) He then said that these BSD developers had very large egos. "Their > ego's would fill this room" he said, thus implying the difficulty of working > with them. He then went on to say that he was quite able to work with Linus. > Linus was a laid back guy. > > Ouch. > > Jonathon > -- > The beaten path is for the beaten man. > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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