Why the BSD family is rejected by the industry? (besides the all big ones that everybody knows)

kpedersen said:
But it also has more compromises. For example FreeBSD tends to support older hardware for longer than Linux. Similar in concept to Windows. FreeBSD supports way more hardware than Windows 11 for example. With all the industry backing in the world.

Big companies want people to consume, and it is affecting Linux quite negatively.

One of the best things about BSD is that it hasn't been rinsed and extorted by the "industry". It has very much remained true to the same goals as research operating systems it evolved from.
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Bay Trail GPU support has died on FreeBSD...why?!??? Cruel world....
 
I don't believe that BSD OSes are rejected by industries, but many corporations are scared and concerned about the BSD licenses and the return of investment. A lot of Linux folks think that BSD and Linux are essentially the same thing so the don't even care to learn more about it. RMS use Linux. The Linux ecosystem invest more money in marketing...
 
License. Always interesting always confusing. My opinions/understanding/very simplified:

BSD has always been (very simplified) you can take this modify it sell it but there is no support
GPL/LGPL has always been (again very very simplified) "all your modifications belong to us and there is no support"

So BSD (and similar MIT and a few others) have been more business friendly in that you can take BSD source modify it and sell products but there is no impetus to provide those modifications to the community as a whole.

GPL/LGPL: you can modify, you can sell, but you MUST provide your modifications to the community as a whole.

Yeah, I know very over simplified, but "close enough".

So as a for profit business, which is better?
 
mer said:
So as a for profit business, which is better?
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While this sounds very appealing, corps prefer GPL because they can use it as a watchdog to avoid others to take advantages... Even though Amazon has thought to everybody that with GPL is still possible just rebranding a GPL software and selling it as is.

Eventually I do prefer the BSD but the GPL really empowered the Beggar Barons:

The Beggar Barons

The rise of the trillionaire beggars.
zedshaw.com zedshaw.com
 
kpedersen said:
Wait 10 years and BSD will be the only one that still supports it.
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I just want to know how we can bring it back. Right when they release the 32-bit efi for 64-bit cpus they drop bay trail support. I don't even know how all that works on FreeBSD. Is it just a single person mainntaining support for these things? Was support dropped upstream? :/
 
LibreQuest said:
I just want to know how we can bring it back. Right when they release the 32-bit efi for 64-bit cpus they drop bay trail support. I don't even know how all that works on FreeBSD. Is it just a single person mainntaining support for these things? Was support dropped upstream? :/
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Admittedly FreeBSD's approach is different to OpenBSD. It goes straight for (almost) upstream Mesa / DRM, etc.
OpenBSD however takes a more manual approach, so, whilst it often lags behind, can have a bit more control and stage things properly to prevent regressions.

For example my ancient Intel GMA915 broke on FreeBSD a number of years back. But last time I checked was still working fine on OpenBSD.
 
6502 said:
What are current relations between OpenBSD and FreeBSD - is OpenBSD using every new FreeBSD kernel adding their specific changes or they have separate clone from older FreeBSD and improve it separately?
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They have diverged quite a bit. OpenBSD forked from NetBSD in the early days.
The biggest difference is that OpenBSD doesn't support kernel modules unlike FreeBSD. So whilst they do share some code (especially for WiFi), they are quite different implementations.

For graphics, OpenBSD, again is quite different to FreeBSD (albeit similar to NetBSD). It has wscons/wsdisplay rather than syscons or vt. So setting up a i.e DRM framebuffer is a little different. This is fundamental for X11/Wayland drivers.
 
mer said:
License. Always interesting always confusing. My opinions/understanding/very simplified:

BSD has always been (very simplified) you can take this modify it sell it but there is no support
GPL/LGPL has always been (again very very simplified) "all your modifications belong to us and there is no support"

So BSD (and similar MIT and a few others) have been more business friendly in that you can take BSD source modify it and sell products but there is no impetus to provide those modifications to the community as a whole.

GPL/LGPL: you can modify, you can sell, but you MUST provide your modifications to the community as a whole.

Yeah, I know very over simplified, but "close enough".

So as a for profit business, which is better?
Click to expand...
To introduce 3rd party codes into proprietary products, especially there are some 2nd party codes requiring NDA to obtain and use, BSD is the safe license. Because introducing GPL'ed codes with static linking (or mixing up in single object) clearly forces disclosing the modified source codes, even if it include NDA'ed part in it. It's "fatal" for business.

On the other hand, to distribute software developed "purely" in the organization but not essential for their business, GPL would be the way to go, as the organization can force any "free riders" to disclose the modifications, especially when the "free rider" is their competitor(s), even if the modifications include NDA'ed codes, that is fatal for the competitor in the specific case (disclosing NDA'ed codes with GPL!).
 
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There are no "NDA codes" - there is proprietary software, i.e. copyright owner. You cannot make copy of software without permission from owner.
 
I meant, "not available without NDA". Stricter than usual proprietary codes.
Not purely limited with implemented code itself, but information mandatory for developements should be in scope, i.e., design and implementations of hardwares needed to develope device drivers.
 
Here in Denmark and Europe, we rarely hear about FreeBSD anymore. The jobs are often about sorting out messy Windows or Linux infrastructures, that are in desperate need of proper system administration (by under-manned departments).

It has been decades, since we had active user groups and conferences, that demonstrated and discussed FreeBSD, its amazing modern features and professional as well as personal application.

I wish, that this could be changed, so FreeBSD could become more commonly known, backed up by communities and user groups, and applied to professional and personal infrastructures.
 
Micski said:
Here in Denmark and Europe, we rarely hear about FreeBSD anymore. The jobs are often about sorting out messy Windows or Linux infrastructures, that are in desperate need of proper system administration (by under-manned departments).
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Those sound like the best positions to introduce FreeBSD in!
 
Micski said:
Here in Denmark and Europe, we rarely hear about FreeBSD anymore. The jobs are often about sorting out messy Windows or Linux infrastructures, that are in desperate need of proper system administration (by under-manned departments).

It has been decades, since we had active user groups and conferences, that demonstrated and discussed FreeBSD, its amazing modern features and professional as well as personal application.

I wish, that this could be changed, so FreeBSD could become more commonly known, backed up by communities and user groups, and applied to professional and personal infrastructures.
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Same here in Italy. I've been professionally involved in IT for more than thirty years and it's been decades since I saw my last BSD machine in a production environment (unless embedded in a network appliance).
 
I just did a look in my country , radius 30 km.
Not one IT job has the keyword "freebsd". Only 4 with the keyword "unix". 1 with the keyword solaris.
50 jobs with the keyword linux. 129 with the keyword windows.
Well that's the job market.

It does not say if something is good or bad. Only says the things people use to make money
 
kpedersen said:
Admittedly FreeBSD's approach is different to OpenBSD. It goes straight for (almost) upstream Mesa / DRM, etc.
OpenBSD however takes a more manual approach, so, whilst it often lags behind, can have a bit more control and stage things properly to prevent regressions.

For example my ancient Intel GMA915 broke on FreeBSD a number of years back. But last time I checked was still working fine on OpenBSD.
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Yes, last I checked it worked fine on OpenBSD as well. There should be increased sharing between OpenBSD and FreeBSD regarding these chips perhaps. :/
 
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