| From: | Rafael Vicar�a Alloza |
| Date: | 21 Sep 2000 at 19:17:24 |
| Subject: | Re: AMIOPEN: Amiga on NetBSD? |
Hello Arto,
On Thursday, 21-Sep-00, 09:49:50,
<open@amiga.com> wrote about:
Re: AMIOPEN: Amiga on NetBSD?:
> On 21-Syy-00, Rafael wrote:
>>> Personally I'd like the SDK to run on FreeBSD, not tried it under
>>> the Linux emulation on there yet though :/
>> I'd like OpenBSD better, but doesn't matter really, once ported to
>> one of the *BSD, a big part of the porting job is done for the rest
>> of *BSD.
>> FreeBSD is the most extended (x86), OpenBSD is the most secure,
>> NetBSD is the most portable. So I've read.
> Well, I haven't really invested time in using all of the *BSD but have
> understood that the picture is not quite as clear as above, although
> those are mostly the basic characteristics.
I shall elaborate.
> One of things I've noticed most striking is the difference between
> FreeBSD and NetBSD release schedules, and the release philosophy in
> general. FreeBSD seems to be quickly developing, making new releases
> often, adding new features at a speed to the releases. On the other
> hand, NetBSD releases seldom but attempting still to deliver a lot of
> features in a new release (the requirement of making new features not
> "hacks" but real, robust quality).
The above could be explained with things like "installed base". FreeBSD
runs only on x86, alpha support was recently added, IIRC. Big Internet
services companies run on it, like yahoo, walnut creek and hotmail.
Performance is the priority in FreeBSD.
http://www.freebsd.org
NetBSD runs on sixteen different platforms, some of them really old like
VAX, SUN3, Atari, Amiga, Mac68k, etc. The number of those in actual use
cannot be compared to the ocean of x86 users. There must be a similar
difference in the number of developers, hence the difference in
releases. Portability is the priority in NetBSD.
http://www.netbsd.org
OpenBSD is released every six months, fixed schedule. v2.4 released in
December 1998, v2.5 June 1999, v2.6 Dec 1999, v2.7 June 2000, v2.8 Dec
2000, and so on. Forked from NetBSD, in runs in quite a number of
platforms (6), compared to FreeBSD. The core code has been audited for
security. Security is the priority in Open bsd.
http://www.openbsd.org
> Its a differenet philosophy behind all those three. And then again the
> philosphy behind Linux is something different altogether.
And that's a really a good thing. It allows the "crosspollinisation" to
happen. I mean, the advances in the code of one of the *BSD can be
extended to the others, so all of them can benefit the others (you can
always read the source code). And all of them can run linux binaries
too, through linux emulation, built in.
For example, think of FreeBSD introducing new features, the OpenBSD guys
auditing the code for security holes, and the NetBSD guys porting them in a portable manner. Or
any other possibility...
There's one key difference though, between keeping up to date Linux and
*BSD. The *BSD have a central server for updates and patches, making the
task of keeping your OS up to date much easier, compared to all the
distros and updates all over the Net in Linux. And there's another key
difference as well, last but not least. BSD versus GPL licensing.
> Naturally, this discussion is getting sidetracked and has nothing to
> do with the list anymore... (but so seem some of the other discussion
> on the list :(
I agree entirely, but I had to get all this off my chest...
Hopefully it wasn't very boring... B-)
Best regards
--Rafa
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