Post #211,653
6/19/05 5:34:58 AM
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OpenBSD guy blasts Linux quality
[link|http://www.forbes.com/intelligentinfrastructure/2005/06/16/linux-bsd-unix-cz_dl_0616theo.html|Is Linux For Losers?]
Theo de Raadt is a pioneer of the open source software movement and a huge proponent of free software. But he is no fan of the open source Linux operating system.
"It's terrible," De Raadt says. "Everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, 'This is garbage and we should fix it.'"
De Raadt makes a rival open source operating system called OpenBSD.
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Post #211,655
6/19/05 9:49:54 AM
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DeRaadt... well.
He has sour grapes. The BSD Lawsuit flummoxed *BSD.
Linux, well it maybe 10 years behind in code quality, but thre is a significant difference.
Torvalds is all about making things work, with making the best of things that need to get done, and nearly always "Good Enough" wins (very close to 100% but I digress).
DeRaadt is all about correcting "Good Enough" and making it "perfect". Not worried about the here and now, which is what the users want. OpenBSD has about the cleanest code base I've seen, by far. Let me akin it to the NASA Space Shuttle Operating System Software. There are only about 5 millions lines of code in the SSOS, Heavily refactored, Heavily Tested, Much Testing Code accounts for the 5 million lines, Code is Clean, well documented, very well thought out. Perhaps maybe 0 bugs in actual Production code. Costs (over the life of the project so far) in excess of $5B. This is far outside what is considered reasonable. Sort of like what DeRaadt is talking.
Granted the idea is excellent, but the effort required is not reasonable.
Also, why would Forbes take this oppourtunity to Publish stuff by DeRaadt. They typically do not like to hear from Extremists, which DeRaadt is. Me thinks there is another hand pushing this.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
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Post #211,664
6/19/05 12:08:33 PM
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He's a fool.
Elsewhere in that interview, he admits that he hasn't used Linux.
BSD is nice and all, but the only place it's going to survive is in OS X.
In 2005, the freely distributable *BSD operating systems offer no significant technical or economic advantages over Linux; their relative obscurity means that there are business reasons to favour Linux (or, indeed, proprietary UNIX) over *BSD.
This is a very, very bitter pill for the *BSD people to swallow.
Peter
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Post #211,665
6/19/05 12:21:15 PM
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Slightly disagreement on the economic aspect.
Since *BSD isn't encumbered by the GPL, people can (in principle) make proprietary software out of it and make $GINORMOUS profits. Thus following the model:
1) Take BSD OS or software.
2) Modify it, making unique, closed-source solution.
3) ???
4) $GINORMOUS Profit!
One can't do #2 and distribute the result (the GPL forbids it).
However, since there isn't (AFAIK) any BSD software that doesn't have a GPL work-alike, there's the issue of competing with free software. So it's not a very successful business model (the exception being OS X which, as you note, is unique to Apple's hardware. But, of course, the BSD-ness is only in the Darwin kernel.).
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #211,666
6/19/05 12:26:35 PM
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Fair cop :-)
I know and you know that I know that you know that that's not the context that I was talking about :-)
But you are 100% correct for the case where what you want is not necessarily an off-the-shelf operating system but rather a codebase to assimilate into a company's proprietary product.
Peter
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Post #211,667
6/19/05 12:44:50 PM
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a lot of the spamguard/antivirus edge solutions are bsd base
All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett
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Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep
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Post #211,668
6/19/05 12:51:40 PM
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SpamAssassin & ClamAV'll run on owt :-)
Peter
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Post #211,748
6/20/05 12:25:52 PM
8/21/07 12:46:01 PM
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OS X kernel
the kernel on os x is not the bsd kernel. It is the mach kernel. The rest of it is an amalgam of the best of Open/Free/Net BSDs.
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
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Post #211,751
6/20/05 12:31:43 PM
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D'oh. That's right. Thanks.
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Post #211,759
6/20/05 1:28:07 PM
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Point.
self.slap();
Peter
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Post #212,972
6/29/05 5:06:56 AM
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Re: OpenBSD guy blasts Linux quality
If only he was more specific about how exactly the code is worst. His comments would have actually been helpful
Bad code = bugs, why doesn't he point out the bugs!
Or design limitations or whatever ...
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Post #213,050
6/29/05 12:51:20 PM
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Well...
There are other articles he has written and tremendously long mailing list articles, on these subject.
Granted he has never USED linux since pre2.0, but even then it was only a momentary thing.
He has looked at code that is in the Linux kernel for quite a while. Things are significantly worse in some areas than pre2.0 and some areas significantly better. Most are just better.
He looks at Code Formatting, Structure, Readability and Practices, but tells him nothing about the "why it was chosen".
So, as you can see, though his code is very purty and technically well done, performs about or slightly better than Linux, they have spent far to long on making things this way and have slowed down development by being retentive. Ferchrissake, using Jalopy on CVS commits or some other code formatting tools will cure about 75% of his gripes.
--
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