[nycbug-talk] Meeting Feeler: Non-BSD projects Using BSD software

[Pete Wright]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 12:21:10PM -0400, Matthew Story wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 11:30 AM, Edward Capriolo <edlinuxguru at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
> > The Apache v2 license is a BSD style one. Our shop is a very high %
> > apache software. I am not sure if you want to count that.
> >
> 
> My focus here was intended to be more on software produced by *BSD projects
> (such as the FreeBSD SMPng kernel, NetBSD Almquist shell, or more
> generally the POSIX 2008.1 compliant-ish shell and utilities user-land),
> and how portions of *BSD OSes can be usefully incorporated into other
> systems to the benefit of all.  I think that Apache licensed software is
> useful fodder for discussion, but not for a *BSD User Group necessarily
> (unless it's software created by|for *BSD projects that happens to make use
> of an Apache license).
> 

how about closed/propritary systems which use BSD code.  I think that
is one of the greatest benefits of the BSD code in the real world.
While things like GNU/kFreeBSD are interesting to look at - the list of
very high profile systems running real production traffic that
incorporate BSD is code is both long and impressive:

(off top of my head)
- NetApp Data OnTap
- Citrix netscalers
- bluecoat systems
- juniper systems

this does not even touch companies that run modified BSD code in their
own systems with out advertising it.

> While I will continue to run FreeBSD personally, and very much like the
> fact that it is a complete OS, with a coherent and non-political objective
> ... as a system, I think that *BSD projects could benefit from encouraging
> those who are interested in running components of this system (either
> kernel or userland) married with other components.  Conversely, I think
> those involved with other projects could benefit greatly by marrying
> portions of *BSD systems into their own systems.
>

i personally am uneasy with projects like GNU/kFreeBSD and the like.
one of the other huge benefits of a BSD unix is that it *is* a complete
OS, not a kernel with bolted on userland.  as such i've never understood
the utility of GNU/kFreeBSD.  i'm probably biased, but after working on
a Nexenta system (which seems pretty similar to gnu/kfbsd) i ran crying
as fast as i could and just put solaris back on the hardware.  it always
seemed like so much was lost just so someone could say that bash was the
default shell, and look it has apt.

-p

-- 
Pete Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org