[KLUG Members] Difference

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> >you could consider Darwin/Mac OS X a distribution of BSD.
> Yes.  In fact, One of the founding members f freeBSD now works for 
> Apple's Open Source project.

True, but honestly, OS/X is as much BSD as AIX is.  BSD is the
historical parent of both.  OS/X has bolted things like the netinfo
subsystem in to make it very much a current technology OS.  I suppose
where it is/is-not BSD depends on where you draw the line between OS and
application (is xinetd, nss, etc.. part of the OS or are they
applications?)  I tend to draw the line higher (above things like NSS,
glibc, but just below things like xinetd) so I don't think OS/X is BSD.
But you can make just as good an argument that the line is lower and
that OS/X is a Mach based BSD implementation.  This is definitely a
topic where multiple opinions are "correct".

Ever seen a UNIX that uses resource forks like a Mac does?  Forks are
very much anti traditional-UNIX-paradigm.

> >>> Hi!
> >>> What is a difference between Linux,FreeBSD,NetBSD,OpenBSD licence ?
> >> Linux is GPL'd, it cannnot be closed.  AFAIK, none of the BSDs are 
> >> under
> >> GPL.  Their licenses are more restrictive.  But more importantly the
> >> lead team on the BSD projects score higher on the arrogant scale,  so
> >> they just can generate the same amount of momentum.
> BSD's are not under GPL under the theory that GPL is not completely 
> free.  OpenBSD goes as far as not allowing "non-free" code from being 
> used at all. At least that is my understanding of it.

If anyone is intersted in the license wars see-
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html
http://www.newtolinux.org.uk/articles/licenses.shtml

> >> It took years for the installers, wizards, etc... to evolve to where
> >> they are today on Linux.  BSDs have never made a similair effort,
> >> hardware support is worse (for the reason sighted above).  And I 
> >> diddled
> >> with BSD awhile ago, generally like a bad commercial version of UNIX. 
> >> It takes a long time to bring one up to a state of usability with a
> >> robust tool kit.  BSD *HAD* some performance advantages under high 
> >> load
> >> or intense network traffic,  but with the release of 2.6 I fully 
> >> expect
> >> Linux to surpass them after which they will slowly die on the vine (if
> Although I primarily use Linux (Debian/GNU Linux), there are some good 
> things about the BSD's especially on the security side -- Oh, whee 

I read about this once,  but it seemed that with the advent of iptables
much of the touted advantage dissipated.

> would I be with out OpenSSH(openBSD)!!

? OpenSSH is implemented on just about every 32 bit platform there is.

> Also, the BSD's, weather free or commercial, are UNIX not Linux -- 

Linux is too UNIX! Ask SCO... :)

> although the screen might seem the same, different stuff is happening!

That is true of AIX, Linux2.0, Linux2.2, Linux2.4, & Linux2.6  Not to
mention libc5 (gack!) and glibc.  Or an NT4 box running GNOME with the
UNIX resource kit installed (which I actually saw the other day, one
sick puppy).  

Whether being "UNIX" is a plus or minus is yet another philosophical
debate.