Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 11:44:50 -0800 From: Kevin Oberman <rkoberman@gmail.com> To: kpneal@pobox.com Cc: John Marino <freebsdml@marino.st>, Roger Marquis <marquis@roble.com>, FreeBSD Mailing List <freebsd-ports@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Removing documentation Message-ID: <CAN6yY1u00uEPgCTMmUMra6zcyY0WT7bZOogqYfRq4go6pg52BQ@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <20160216155722.GA63934@neutralgood.org> References: <56C1E579.30303@marino.st> <20160215165952.6199743BFA@shepard.synsport.net> <56C2075A.5000409@marino.st> <20160216155722.GA63934@neutralgood.org>
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On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 7:57 AM, <kpneal@pobox.com> wrote: > On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 06:14:02PM +0100, John Marino wrote: > > And now the fully circle. This is FreeBSD's Godwin's law. You know the > > discussion is over when somebody says that "[issue] of the day" is the > > root cause of BSD being eclipsed by Linux. Since I've heard [issue] > > replaced about 200 times, I'm kind of doubting it. I guess it's purpose > > is to make everyone involved with "[issue]" to feel personally > > responsible and oh what could have been if you hadn't of made the wrong > > decision.... > > I was under the impression that what really hurt BSD vs Linux was the > AT&T vs UCB lawsuit. If that lawsuit hadn't happened Linus would not have > created Linux. He's said so himself. > -- > Kevin P. Neal http://www.pobox.com/~kpn/ > Yes, the license uncertainty of the period is why Linux exists and why it gained immediate popularity. Inertia can be a wonderful thing. But that was then and this is now and the popularity of Linux vs. BSD and of various distributions of them is driven by many factors. Linux has FAR more developers and has long been able to have support for newer devices much more quickly than BSD. This has, in turn, fed the growth of Linux. OTOH, BSD had become rather popular in the embedded systems space. Its license and strong support for servers and embedded systems has helped. I think systemd has been a big mistake for Linux and is moving many people to BSD, even those who had not previously used it. In recent years the distros seem to be intent on behaving like Windows. I look at the directions of e.g. Gnome and, to a lesser extent KDE as the result of devs who grew up with Windows as trying to make their environment more "Windows like". This is combined with a philosophy that allowing and even encouraging a wide variety of configuration changes as has traditionally been the norm for all UNIX-type systems was frightening off too many people. It is a combination of these and other factors that control the ebb and flow of OS and distro popularity. I think trying to be popular is best served by maximizing functionality and usability in general and for specific purposes. In general, I think FreeBSD is doing a pretty good job ATM and, while I don't always agree with everything, I think I'll probably continue using it as my OS of choice. I'll also continue to speak up when I disagree with the direction. I already see the looming battle over a future replacement of the init system with something both more functional and manageable. I think systemd went way too heavily toward "functional" and ignored the manageable side. I hope FreeBSD does better, especially in avoiding over-reach. I see much that I like (and a fair bit I don't) in launchd, for example and I really need to keep a better eye on what NextBSD is doing. It is certainly interesting and has some really good people working on it. -- Kevin Oberman, Part time kid herder and retired Network Engineer E-mail: rkoberman@gmail.com PGP Fingerprint: D03FB98AFA78E3B78C1694B318AB39EF1B055683
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