OS Popularity on Wikipedia Pages

Eponasoft said:
I use FreeBSD for all of my robotics projects, including my incredibly large one, G.Project, which is to be a highly capable autonomous human-like robot.
Click to expand...
Keen to read more about these. Do you publish your work anywhere?
 
expl said:
Darwin uses less BSD code than most people think. It's mostly VFS and network stack that have been directly taken from FreeBSD, rest of the system is quite different.
Click to expand...

I haven't looked through Darwin's code, but I saved this page off apple's site a few years ago: http://gly.ath.cx/misc/osx_is_freebsd.html. From the text, "The upgraded kernel, based on FreeBSD 5.x....". Maybe things have changed since then?
 
fonz said:
Glad to have made you laugh. My point however is that Wikipedia is great if you understand a) what it can or cannot do and b) how to properly use it. When I see people ridiculing Wikipedia they usually do so out of ignorance, rarely do they actually truly understand Wikipedia's merits and/or shortcomings.

Fonz (FreeBSD afficionado and Wikipedian)

P.S. For example, the English version of Wikipedia is generally pretty anal about verifiability (that's the whole [citation needed] thing), which makes it a great "source of sources". Several of those cited sources are authoritative enough even for scientific research, go figure. Even if you don't trust Wikipedia itself directly, which is quite understandable if you actually know why you don't, you can often still find {{RS|reliable sources}} that are trustworthy.
Click to expand...

Heh, every time someone dismisses the wiki out of hand, I think of Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, where he (only half-jokingly, I think) mentioned that after writing for print encyclopedias and dealing with their supposedly superior "fact checking", he no longer had a problem with Wikipedia.

Someone who deals with FOSS should understand something about the value of a collaborative effort. :P
 
At least half of everything on Wikipedia about the Star Wars movies was written by my son. I can verify all the fretting and gnashing of teeth that went into every word and verification.

OT - George Lucas is a regular at the restaurant he works at.
 
fender0107401 said:
Just ask, can it know I run FreeBSD if I run IPFW too?
Click to expand...
Most browsers tell the server what operating system they are running on. There are ways around that, but ipfw(8) probably isn't one of them.

Fonz
 
i do not understand why BSD is not the OS preferred by USA/canada people...why windows...why windows...why win...are people robotized?

btw vermaden...going to visit/post on u forum!
 
d_mon said:
i do not understand why BSD is not the OS preferred by USA/canada people...why windows...why windows...why win...are people robotized?
Click to expand...

What region of the world doesn't "prefer" windows? http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-201006-201106 (requires flash). In fact, Windows might have less of a share in the USA/Canada relative to other countries if this source is accurate.

EDIT (Off topic Bit): Why do you lump USA/Canada together? Aside from our computing preferences, we are different cultures in many respects. It was always frustrating in Europe to introduce myself as Canadian and be referred to as American (not North American) by that same person a few minutes later. That's like referring to a Dutch person as German or a Swiss.
 
d_mon said:
i do not understand why BSD [edit: color and bold face removed] is not the OS preferred by USA/canada people
Click to expand...
I don't think USA/Canada is much different from the rest of the world (not regarding to this, at least). Some reasons why people stick with Windows:
  • Learning curve
    Windows 3.11 may have been not much more than a cheap knock-off of the Macintosh UI but over the years Windows has evolved into a system that's easy to learn for people who just want to browse the Web, send e-mail, make office documents and watch videos. Even a monkey can be trained to use Windows. My brother is only just technically inclined enough to plug a power cord into a wall socket and flip a power switch but he can use Windows. Properly using FreeBSD (as well as several flavors of Linux) tends to require more technical knowledge. Something that many people don't have and most of those can't be bothered to acquire.
  • Vendor lock-in.
    Windows often comes bundled with the computer and most people simply aren't even aware that there are alternatives. Also, once you've committed to Microsoft there's often no easy way out.
  • Market share
    Windows is still by far the most dominant OS on desktop computers. Being different (by running another OS) introduces several compatibility problems that often require a certain degree of technical skill to overcome. This is a particularly big problem in business. Even at the university I see (computer science) students having trouble exchanging (office) documents.
  • Hardware support
    Pretty much every piece of hardware comes shipped with (optimized, specifically written) drivers for Windows. Some manufacturers also provide Linux drivers (although not always open source) but often enough the open source community has to reverse engineer the whole thing and write their own drivers. Manufacturer support for FreeBSD is even less than for Linux.
  • Application availability
    There is some pretty impressive free and/or open source software out there, but there simply is a whole lot more software available for Windows than for most other systems, even including MacOS. For example, I'm pretty sure that Maplesoft could make a native FreeBSD version of Maple if they wanted to, but it's probably just not feasible from a business point of view due to the relatively small userbase. Fortunately I can use Maple on FreeBSD via the Linux emulation layer, but as much as I'd like it I don't see a native FreeBSD version coming out anytime soon.
  • Games
    See the previous point, but multiplied by at least a factor 100. This is a bit of a vicious circle: since most people use Windows (or to a lesser extent MacOS) it often simply isn't profitable to release commercial-quality games for other platforms. It's simple economics, unfortunately. In fact, I vaguely remember the maker of Doom saying about the Linux version that he did it "because Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue."
  • Marketing
    Because Microsoft (and to a seemingly increasing extent Apple) are such big companies they can afford extensive (and expensive) marketing campaigns. FreeBSD is not a commercial product and therefore cannot afford to license a Rolling Stones song to be played over a commercial aired during half time of the Superbowl (or UEFA Champions League final, if you live in Europe).
As much as most of the people here on this forum probably loathe Windows, it's a fact of life and unless you have several millions of euros/dollars to donate to the FreeBSD project this isn't likely to change anytime soon.

Fonz
 
You should probably add a tl;dr to that, because someone doesn't like to read that much.
 
DutchDaemon said:
You should probably add a tl;dr to that, because someone doesn't like to read that much.
Click to expand...
You're probably right and I didn't intend on writing such a long post (which will indeed probably fall mostly on deaf ears anyway), but I guess I was just on a roll... :P

Fonz (forget I said anything)
 
Eponasoft said:
I use FreeBSD for all of my robotics projects, including my incredibly large one, G.Project, which is to be a highly capable autonomous human-like robot. However, I can't think of anything in the wild currently that uses it... the price scanners at the grocery stores here all run Windows CE, and the ATMs are either running OS/2 or Linux.
Click to expand...

How about TVs and HDD-Recorders? My girlfriend's family bought one (TV with HDD-Rec.) recently. Good her father read the specs. :-)
 
fonz said:
I don't think USA/Canada is much different from the rest of the world (not regarding to this, at least). Some reasons why people stick with Windows:

  • ...
  • Application availability
    There is some pretty impressive free and/or open source software out there, but there simply is a whole lot more software available for Windows than for most other systems, even including MacOS. For example, I'm pretty sure that Maplesoft could make a native FreeBSD version of Maple if they wanted to, but it's probably just not feasible from a business point of view due to the relatively small userbase. Fortunately I can use Maple on FreeBSD via the Linux emulation layer, but as much as I'd like it I don't see a native FreeBSD version coming out anytime soon.
  • Games
    See the previous point, but multiplied by at least a factor 100. This is a bit of a vicious circle: since most people use Windows (or to a lesser extent MacOS) it often simply isn't profitable to release commercial-quality games for other platforms. It's simple economics, unfortunately. In fact, I vaguely remember the maker of Doom saying about the Linux version that he did it "because Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue."
Fonz
Click to expand...

Yeah this. There are a few applications for which the GNU/Linux alternative is lacking at best. For example, the only Windows machines in our team where I work were to run the Altera FPGA synthesis design software. Yes they release a free GNU/Linux version, but it's just not as good as the Windows one.

I have *nothing* against commercial applications in GNU/Linux or FreeBSD. I see no issue with a company paying for a license to use have solid native FreeBSD version (still really talking about Altera/Xilinx here - but it extends to games).
 
Bellum said:
Heh, you'd think the big bold bullet points would be enough. :P
Click to expand...
Heh. Although as I said I was just on a roll and churned out a bigger post than I intended, I did have the common sense to use a bullet list so it shouldn't be that hard to read ;)

Fonz
 
When I posted the tl;dr remark, I was thinking about a specific someone on the forums. Don't take it generally, please ;)
 
Gotcha

DutchDaemon said:
When I posted the tl;dr remark, I was thinking about a specific someone on the forums.
Click to expand...
I figured as much ;) And I didn't mean to pollute (to the extent that this is possible in Off-Topic in the first place).

Fonz
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top