On Thu, 5 Oct 2000, Bruce McCulley wrote:
> With all the smoke blowing around about OpenBSD, I've got a serious
> question about that system.
Is that allowed on this list? ;-)
> Question is, how convenient is the architecture, and the development
> environment, for taking software from another system and porting it?
Actually, one of the biggest problems is often the license.
The BSD license is designed to promote code reuse, first and foremost. It
pretty much allows you to do anything you want with a piece of software,
including incorporate it into other programs under other licenses.
The GPL license is designed to keep the source code from being locked up in
a proprietary package. Maximizing source code reuse is only a secondary goal.
Thus, relicensing GPL code generally isn't possible.
Since the GPL requires any program using GPL code to also be distributed
under the GPL license, if one of the BSDs were to incorporate some Linux
kernel code, they would have to distribute the rest of their kernel under the
GPL as well. This is a license condition of using said GPL code. The BSD
folks naturally don't like that. This means that, historically, Linux has
been able to incorporate BSD code, but the BSDs cannot incorporate Linux code.
This is unfair, and I don't really think anyone, even RMS, truly wishes it to
be, but that is the price for ensuring your "software freedoms" (as the FSF
calls them).
> Is it a completely unique beast, or is it just the same basic architecture
> with careful design and implementation to assure that there are no
> unintended "features" introduced down in the details of coding?
All of the free Unixes share quite a bit in terms of design, and many of
them share implementation details as well. Indeed, most anything that smells
like Unix can likely trace its roots back to the original AT&T Unix
Time-Sharing System, if not the Berkeley Software Distribution. Exactly how
much old Unix code is preserved in today's proprietary Unixes, no one person
knows, but I'm betting it is not insignificant.
As far as the three currently popular BSD distributions go, all of them
trace their ancestry almost directly to 386BSD, so there are a lot of
similarities and even identical code sections. A lot of the holes the OpenBSD
audit found were quickly patched in the other two as well. The three BSDs
have a lot more in common then some Linux distributions do.
There's a Really Cool(TM) "map" of Unix source development here:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/levenez/unix/
> Also, how does OpenBSD compare with NetBSD and FreeBSD in terms of both
> code portability and device support?
The goals of the three projects are:
FreeBSD - Best performance on i386 (and now DEC Alpha) systems
NetBSD - Run on the most platforms possible
OpenBSD - Security
All three have done pretty well overall, and all three have also excelled in
their chosen niche. FreeBSD is used by the busiest netsites in the world
(Yahoo! and the Walnut Creek Archive). NetBSD has a huge list of ports, and
unlike Linux, their distribution actually compiles and runs on all the
"stable" platforms without patches. :-) OpenBSD... well, we've been over
that. :)
Their respective websites are quite good if you're looking for more
information, or even a download. :)
Hope this helps,
--
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
| "Knowledge is always of value, and the value is never predictable. What |
| will come of it, we cannot know." -- Larry Niven |
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