[colecampbell666]

http://www.forbes.com/2005/06/16/linux-bsd-unix-cz_dl_0616theo.html

NEW YORK - 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. Unlike Linux, which is a clone of Unix, OpenBSD is based on an actual Unix variant called Berkeley Software Distribution. BSD powers two of the best operating systems in the world--Solaris from Sun Microsystems (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ) and OS X from Apple Computer (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ).

There are three open source flavors of BSD--FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD, the one De Raadt develops, which is best-known for its security features. In a sort of hacker equivalent of the Ford-versus-Chevy rivalry, BSD guys make fun of Linux on message boards and Web sites, the gist being that BSD guys are a lot like Linux guys, except they have kissed girls.

Sour grapes? Maybe. Linux is immensely more popular than all of the open source BSD versions.

De Raadt says that's partly because Linux gets support from big hardware makers like Hewlett-Packard (nasdaq: HPQ - news - people ) and IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ), which he says have turned Linux hackers into an unpaid workforce.

"These companies used to have to pay to develop Unix. They had in-house engineers who wrote new features when customers wanted them. Now they just allow the user community to do their own little hacks and features, trying to get to the same functionality level, and they're just putting pennies into it," De Raadt says.

De Raadt says his crack 60-person team of programmers, working in a tightly focused fashion and starting with a core of tried-and-true Unix, puts out better code than the slapdash Linux movement.

"I think our code quality is higher, just because that's really a big focus for us," De Raadt says. "Linux has never been about quality. There are so many parts of the system that are just these cheap little hacks, and it happens to run." As for Linus Torvalds, who created Linux and oversees development, De Raadt says, "I don't know what his focus is at all anymore, but it isn't quality."

Torvalds, via e-mail, says De Raadt is "difficult" and declined to comment further.

De Raadt blames Linux's development structure, in which thousands of coders feed bits of code to "maintainers," who in turn pass pieces to Torvalds and a handful of top lieutenants.

The involvement of big companies also creates problems, De Raadt says, since companies push their own agendas and end up squabbling--as happened recently when a Red Hat (nasdaq: RHAT - news - people ) coder published an essay criticizing IBM's Linux programmers.

There's also a difference in motivation. "Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft. We do what we do because we love Unix," De Raadt says. The irony, however, is that while noisy Linux fanatics make a great deal out of their hatred for Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), De Raadt says their beloved program is starting to look a lot like what Microsoft puts out. "They have the same rapid development cycle, which leads to crap," he says.

De Raadt says BSD could have become the world's most popular open source operating system, except that a lawsuit over BSD scared away developers, who went off to work on Linux and stayed there even after BSD was deemed legal. "It's really very sad," he says. "It is taking a long time for the Linux code base to get where BSD was ten years ago."

Lok Technologies, a San Jose, Calif.-based maker of networking gear, started out using Linux in its equipment but switched to OpenBSD four years ago after company founder Simon Lok, who holds a doctorate in computer science, took a close look at the Linux source code.

"You know what I found? Right in the kernel, in the heart of the operating system, I found a developer's comment that said, 'Does this belong here?' "Lok says. "What kind of confidence does that inspire? Right then I knew it was time to switch."

I assume he's using some out of the way distro made by a 12 year old as his example or something. Or is the Linux codebase/average distro like that?

And what's a good replacement for Ubuntu? PCLOS? Fedora?

[achtung]

Fedora!

[Mars]

He's a big OpenBSD guy.

[Nuke]

sounds like he makes some good points, but ive never used a bsd operating system, so i wouldn't know if hes full of **** or spot on.

[karajorma]

Not hard to see why this guy was kicked off the NetBSD team is it?

From what I know of it (and that's not much) BSD is in many ways better than Linux but lacks the popularity that Linux has.

[Wobble73]

Not hard to see why this guy was kicked off the NetBSD team is it?

From what I know of it (and that's not much) BSD is in many ways better than Linux but lacks the popularity that Linux has.

Therefore, lacking in any real driver support? 

[Grizzly]

This guy reminds me of some game developper for some reason...

[Hellstryker]

Well theres 8800 GTS drivers for BSD 

[Wobble73]

I've just noticed, maybe it's not popular because it's called BSD, a little too close to BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) 

[BloodEagle]

I've just noticed, maybe it's not popular because it's called BSD, a little too close to BSDM. 

Fixed. 

[Col. Fishguts]

Fixing. You fail it.

[Woolie Wool]

In fact, he broke it. It's actually "BDSM".

[Kazan]

he's a donkey's behind

[edit]
bet you $10 there is a scarier comment in the BSD source

bet you the "does this belong here" in the linux source was on something like a kernel preemption disabler that may or may not have been needed (may have been surrounding a call that is atomic)

[WMCoolmon]

"You know what I found? Right in the kernel, in the heart of the operating system, I found a developer's comment that said, 'Does this belong here?' "Lok says. "What kind of confidence does that inspire? Right then I knew it was time to switch."

This kind of mentality pisses me off, and I would never want to use something managed by someone who actually believes this. Source code comments are not meant to express confidence, they're meant to express the reality of things. Leave the unrealistic confidence of how awesome a product is to the marketing guys. If there's a piece of code that seems like it could cause problems, but has been rigorously tested and there's never actually been a problem with it, and there's no better option, maybe the comment does belong there. That piece of code may never be a problem, save for one isolated case. That comment could mean the difference between days of searching and testing and a hack or a few minutes of searching and a proper fix.

For that matter, the comment may simply have been, "This function doesn't contain anything other than this one arithmetic operation. Does this belong here?" Taking comments out of context like that is what's known as a straw man in some circles.

[WMCoolmon]

And while he makes some valid points, they're carried to such an extreme overgeneralized stage that I'm not sure that they're even valid anymore.

[karajorma]

There are many reasons to switch operating systems. A single fairly innocent comment in the source code is not one of them.