GNU/Linux, FreeBSD (and other BSD) and Free Software. Your thoughts?

I keep thinking we should have a subforum marked something like I hate Linux, as it would be a convenient place to put many of these threads, say, any that has more than 3 I hate Linux posts in it.
We have that. It's called "Trash Can", but it needs moderator privileges to see it. ;)
 
The good thing with free software and free source code is that it is unlimited the possibilities and software range.

However most libraries that are public domain aren't efficient. Libraries use lot of processor,... and the whole system is slow.
Termcap is the king and build yourself you libs.
Compilers such as gcc,... are ok.

Well, graphics. gtk is okay, simple to use for everyone.

FreeBSD, Linux,... opensource Unix like, they look the same and they are very close.
NanoBSD is a good way to think.
 
The good thing with free software and free source code is that it is unlimited the possibilities and software range.
Nice theory. But 99.99% of all users of free software never even look at the source code, much less modify it. The unlimited possibilities simply don't interest them.

And the same is true of any turing-complete (ha ha) machine. If someone knows how to program well enough to modify Linux, Xwindows, KDE, or the C compiler, they don't absolutely need to start with free software. With a little more effort, they can write their own code on any machine that has a source code editor, compiler and linker. All free software does: it gives software developers a head start.

However most libraries that are public domain aren't efficient. Libraries use lot of processor,... and the whole system is slow.
Nonsense. People who run supercomputers really really care about efficiency. And 100% of all supercomputers (at least the 500 largest ones) run Linux. That pretty much proves that Linux is neither slow nor inefficient.
 
Nice theory. But 99.99% of all users of free software never even look at the source code, much less modify it. The unlimited possibilities simply don't interest them.
We do look at the source code I don't know where you got that from. The reason we want free software is exactly to look at the source code and change it how we want. We don't want free software to then not look at the code that would not make any sense. So I think you're wrong by saying the 99% don't. There are also a lot of people reverse engineering non-free software just for that. If we didn't care then there wouldn't be a free software movement at all.
 
The reason we want free software is exactly to look at the source code and change it how we want. We don't want free software to then not look at the code that would not make any sense.
Actually ralphbsz has a very good point there. Although I don't necessarily agree with his 99% fact of the matter is that for a large majority (definitely most non-tech) users of open source software the most important aspect is the "free as in beer" part.

Most people use open source software because it's gratis. No more, no less.

And there are many examples which showcase this. Take for example Debian's OpenSSL disaster. It took years before someone actually spotted the horrendous flaw. Not just that: the flaw sat within the actual SSL engine itself, which would be the part which people interested in the source code would study first.
 
Take for example Debian's OpenSSL disaster. It took years before someone actually spotted the horrendous flaw. Not just that: the flaw sat within the actual SSL engine itself, which would be the part which people interested in the source code would study first.
I could show many example of non-free software flaws. While there can be more people working on free software it's not 100% perfect, nothing is perfect. Some things can go unnoticed.
 
Nice theory. But 99.99% of all users of free software never even look at the source code, much less modify it. The unlimited possibilities simply don't interest them.

Very true. Or at least until the company drops support or goes bankrupt and they suddenly need to maintain the software themselves. Then they will need to look at the source code very hard to actually be able to build it. Otherwise they will never be able to access that weird old file format they "used to use".

We recently had to access an old CAD related file that the original manufacturer had long since dropped support of the software (and long since stopped trading). It was a proprietary system and whilst we could have run it in a ratty emulator (which would have been extremely hard because VMWare, VirtualBox, Hyper-V are absolutely crap when it comes to supporting Solaris 9), we luckily found a package containing the leaked source code of the original software.
Building it was hard. The build system was old and pretty much needed replacing entirely. Luckily it was written in C rather than some old stupid Java <1.5 or Python 1.x (Those kinds of languages are terrible when it comes to lifespan).
We probably broke some law but luckily no-one is around to sue us (Though I have also been vague on details just in case haha).

That said, having to break (piracy?) laws because some nitwit would rather take some old useless source code to the grave with them rather than release it just seems like a sloppy, broken idea to me. I don't really care what license it is under, so long as I can access the darn thing.

I got paid a small amount for the work. I guess I am no longer a Pirate but a Privateer :)
 
And 100% of all supercomputers (at least the 500 largest ones) run Linux. That pretty much proves that Linux is neither slow nor inefficient.

Debatable! Linux is a kernel - not an operating system. The Linux kernel is a derivative of UNIX, created by developers at AT&T and modified into many "flavors"
 
The Linux kernel is a derivative of UNIX
The Linux kernel is a derivative of Minix, or at least modeled after Minix, not ATT UNIX like FreeBSD is as a descendant.

Wikipedia
Torvalds began the development of the Linux kernel on MINIX and applications written for MINIX were also used on Linux.

Torvalds himself said:
I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).
 
Linux contains none of the Minix code same as FreeBSD contains none of the Unix code. Torvalds did get his ideas from Minix though. Linux is a very good kernel with good hardware support Linux+GNU makes it a very good full operating system. As for FreeBSD I think it looks closer to Unix, well, Unix System V that is, it's the only one I tried so far and my experience was very similar to that of FreeBSD.
 
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