Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 10:21:37 -0700 (PDT) From: Vincent Poy <vince@venus.GAIANET.NET> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: Tani Hosokawa <unknown@riverstyx.net>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: poor ethernet performance? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9907211015440.331-100000@venus.GAIANET.NET> In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.19990720203046.04430910@localhost>
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On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Brett Glass wrote: > At 02:30 PM 7/20/99 -0700, Tani Hosokawa wrote: > > >I'm curious -- How long has FreeBSD existed? > > The name "FreeBSD" was coined in 1993, IIRC. But BSD > UNIX has been around for decades, and free versions were > around quite awhile before FreeBSD as a project was started. > 386BSD, Net/2, Net/3, and NetBSD all pre-date FreeBSD, I > believe. FreeBSD is largely based on BSD 4.4-Lite, but has > diverged farther from it than NetBSD or OpenBSD. Actually, both FreeBSD and NetBSD were originally based on 386BSD which was BSD4.3 based. Then there was that famous BSD vs Unix Software Labs lawsuit. and then later, BSDI, NetBSD, FreeBSD all were rewritten from scratch with BSD4.4lite. I think this was done in version 2.1 of FreeBSD. > Linux was first released during a period when the legal > status of the BSDs was in doubt. But it was far, far behind > the BSDs at that point, and was still really a "toy" even > by the time the lawsuit was resolved. BSD, by contrast, was > already mature. I used Linux back in 1991-93 and I think Jordan did too. Tried 386bsd and didn't really like it. And then Jordan told me FreeBSD was out so i used it since 1.0-GAMMMA. > Linux passed the BSDs in installed base, features, and > device support due to evangelism and idealism -- "good > memes," as my friends who are into Memetics say. FreeBSD > is lagging behind because the nominal leaders of the project > have not adopted similar approaches. Even OpenBSD is gaining > on FreeBSD, albeit slowly, due to its reputation as a security- > focused OS at a time when security is becoming a big concern. > This is occurring despite a smaller development group, a > project leader with a reputation for abrasiveness (though I > personally like him), a less user-friendly install, less > optimization for the x86 platform (they need to remain > platform-independent, after all), and less widespread > distribution. The funny thing is that I haven't ran into people who use OpenBSD yet. I used to run into people who use NetBSD but it seems to be either Linux or FreeBSD now. Seems like Linux just has good marketing with all the different distributions. > I'm now working with some investors who seem as if they > might be interested in doing a heavily promoted, marketed, > and supported BSD OS distribution. They don't want to > reimplement the wheel or create a fragmentary effort, > and so want to track an existing code base. They're > currently torn between FreeBSD and OpenBSD as a basis > for that package. OpenBSD is missing a lot of things > FreeBSD has got, but frankly, they're worried about the > FreeBSD development team's antipathy toward evangelism. > > I'm rooting for FreeBSD as the final choice. So, I'm really > hoping that the FreeBSD team will be willing to accept, > if grudgingly, a more evangelistic approach to promoting > the OS by third parties. I would aim for FreeBSD as well. Cheers, Vince - vince@MCESTATE.COM - vince@GAIANET.NET ________ __ ____ Unix Networking Operations - FreeBSD-Real Unix for Free / / / / | / |[__ ] GaiaNet Corporation - M & C Estate / / / / | / | __] ] Beverly Hills, California USA 90210 / / / / / |/ / | __] ] HongKong Stars/Gravis UltraSound Mailing Lists Admin /_/_/_/_/|___/|_|[____] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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