In article <09ink4-0l8.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mark Kent <mark.kent@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Except for the whole of the GNU tool chain which is used to create
> modern linux distros, as well as the GPL itself, which is the reason why
> Linux has been so successful when compared with the BSDs.
The main reasons the BSDs were not as successful as Linux had little or
nothing to do with GPL. There were two main reasons:
(1) the legal dispute with AT&T, which made the whole status of the BSD
projects uncertain for quite a while, and
(2) poor early attitude toward non-server hardware. At the time I
started running Linux, for example, I tried FreeBSD, and it did not
support IDE CD-ROM drives (making installation hard) because servers
would use SCSI drives so, according to the FreeBSD people, so should
everyone. It also did not port the common PC partitioning system. It
wanted to use its own partitioning system *completely*, rather than
putting all its stuff in regular PC partitions. This meant it could not
coexist on a dual boot system with Linux or DOS or Windows, unless you
had two disks and a way to boot from both of them. Basically, FreeBSD
assumed you were willing to build your machine for it, whereas Linux
assumed you wanted to run it on what you had.
--
--Tim Smith
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