The Boston Globe has a feature article on Jordon Hubbard, one of the founders of the FreeBSD project, who now works for Apple: "[OS X] is what I've been waiting for the past 20 years ... I never thought about working for Apple before, and now I was saying, 'How do I join?'"
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Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing
dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dead
What is your point?
Stating observations and statistics is good, but not without a relevant point. If this was a Daemon News forum, you would probably be considered flame bait.
But here, the above post does not make obvious or relavant the life of *BSD's impact to the Mac OS X community.
I can draw my own conclusions, but why don't you just state what yours are so that your post can be read as more of a complete though.
...was smart, and not just because he joined Apple. Hubbard clearly saw the writing on the wall, and probably got incredibly tired of the infighting and political c*** that goes on within the BSD community. His snarky "six pack of jolt cola" said it all.
Do you really even understand what you saying?
BSD, for the most part has very little commercial involvment. Open Source/Free Software projects never really die even if a large chunk of their users go elsewhere. As long as anyone continues to use/develop an open source app, project, os, etc. then it will live on even if there are large empty periods the code never ceases to be free. Some projects may fade into irrelevancy, but that is not death at all.
I use Linux, Mac OS X, OpenBSD, and to some extent Windows. OpenBSD makes an excellent firewall as the software is very secure out of the box, is sanely designed, and has a very nice packet filter system. Is OpenBSD the largest OS out there? No. Does that detract from its usefulness? No. Most people don't use software products b/c they are good they use products b/c it is widespread and what they are given. Hence, the continuing popularity of Windows.
Also, the statistics on use of Linux/*BSD OS products are a joke because they usually only take into account sold copies which is not the primary distribution method. (I netinstall all my boxes). Or they as the IT Director/CIO/or some such who often has no idea that there are BSD or Linux servers in their organization.
*BSD OS will be a force probably for years to come...
Bill
That post is proof that:
A: The Mac isn't dead
B: *BSD isn't dead, since OS X is a *BSD
Why? The troll has moved from Slashdot to MacNN. Exact same post that posted on nearly every *BSD story on the main Slashdot storyboad site.
people, ignore the original post, it's a word for word post from Slashdot that has been posted by TROLLS for the past few years. i didn't ever think it would make it here, but it's usually posted by linux TROLLS trying to do some FUD.
anyway, it's also irrelevant when talking about OS X. even if bsd is "dying" compared to linux, OS X is supported by apple with third party software support by the biggest software vendors out there, microsoft, adobe, macromedia, etc. like the article said, will we ever see office for linux? will we ever see photoshop for linux? how about flash (the app, not the player), or director, or pro tools, or peak, or fcp, or etc etc etc. yeah didn't think so.
Do you really even understand what you saying?
BSD, for the most part has very little commercial involvment. Open Source/Free Software projects never really die even if a large chunk of their users go elsewhere. As long as anyone continues to use/develop an open source app, project, os, etc. then it will live on even if there are large empty periods the code never ceases to be free. Some projects may fade into irrelevancy, but that is not death at all.
I use Linux, Mac OS X, OpenBSD, and to some extent Windows. OpenBSD makes an excellent firewall as the software is very secure out of the box, is sanely designed, and has a very nice packet filter system. Is OpenBSD the largest OS out there? No. Does that detract from its usefulness? No. Most people don't use software products b/c they are good they use products b/c it is widespread and what they are given. Hence, the continuing popularity of Windows.
Also, the statistics on use of Linux/*BSD OS products are a joke because they usually only take into account sold copies which is not the primary distribution method. (I netinstall all my boxes). Or they as the IT Director/CIO/or some such who often has no idea that there are BSD or Linux servers in their organization.
*BSD OS will be a force probably for years to come...
Bill
Sorry I double posted everyone, don't know quite what happened...
Anyway. I don't see why Linux TROLLS would want to come post here. I use Linux, *BSD, and Mac OS X. They all have their area of specialty. Mac OS X has closed the gap to where I can use about the same knowledge on all of my systems. *BSD works well as a server and I think that OpenBSD's pf (packet filter) is nicer than what I have seen from Linux 2.4. Linux is probably closer to a workstation than any of the BSDs due to the fact that more GUI apps originate there and are easily installable. But, it also functions well as a server.
In this case, one OS doesn't need to fall for the other to rise. Also, I ignore all the GPL v. BSD license c***. They both give me code and the ability to modify/distribute. I couldn't be happier :)
Bill
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Decent article.
Good read. I want to work at Apple, too.