[PLUG] FreeBSD user group

[Michael Smith]

FreeBSD users vary just like Linux users.

But supposedly there is some rivalry because FreeBSD was here first but was
held back because of the lawsuit from AT&T because originally FreeBSD was
billed as being UNIX, UNIX being a licensed trademark of AT&T.  Now it's a
"UNIX workalike" just like Linux is.

The real difference is that FreeBSD is "republican", where there are
official developers and if you want to make a change, you submit a change
request to the official parties that be.  Linux is "anarcy", with every joe
out there making their own changes.

In reality, what happens is that Linux gets faster development and some
things just might be in a different state of repair from time to time.
Hence, BSD guys say it's shoddy code, poor presentation.  FreeBSD is just
rock-solid all the time, but it's frustrating to get the programs you want
in any kind of reasonable manner.  It's like the difference between Debian
stable and unstable.

Some *BSD advocates are jealous of the press that Linux is getting, because
they were there first and they think *BSD is a better product.  Linux guys
are quick to point out that because of the BSD license, which allows you to
take the source and close it for commercial ventures, BSD is just a tool
for Microsoft to steal code from.  There are parts of the WinXX code that
still has the Copyright for the Regents of the University of California
that nobody removed before they released it.  And we won't even talk about
what Apple's added to BSD to get OSX.  True, they turned alot of Darwin,
the "guts" back to the community, but the GUI (aqua) is still way
proprietary.

Not really a war, however, more like a "friendly" brotherly feud is how I
would sum it up.

--Mike

Ed Sawicki wrote:

> I read an email message yesterday, authored by a member of the local
> FreeBSD user group, that was hostile to Linux and Linux users. I thought
> we were all friendly. I have as high a regard for FreeBSD and FreeBSD
> users as I do for Linux. Yet, it seems there may be a war going on that
> nobody told me about. Is there general ill will between Linux and
> FreeBSD users or was this an aberration - someone having a bad day or
> getting upset that FreeBSD is not the household word that Linux is?
>
> Ed

--
"Ask a Soviet engineer to design a pair of shoes and he'll come up with
something that looks like the boxes that the shoes came in; ask him to make
something that will massacre Germans, and he turns into Thomas *Fscking*
Edison."  --Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon