8 ms·

Because the people who pay folks to work on systems dont like to pay enough money to get that level of talent.

• chrisseaton 7y ago
  > Because the people who pay folks to work on systems dont like to pay enough money to get that level of talent. People like Google can't pay enough? Do all the BSD developers work as front-end quants or something? How are they all earning so much that nobody can afford them?
  • geggam 7y ago
    Google doesn't use BSD. (to my knowledge) Yahoo! did but they also had BSD developers on the payroll. Any Silicon Valley company will pay enough but that is why when you leave Silicon Valley or a big tech hub everything is windows. The pay attracts the talent.
    • chrisseaton 7y ago
      You said the reason people don't use BSD was because the people who work on it are were too expensive. I know Google don't use BSD, but your idea that it's because they couldn't afford to pay BSD developers doesn't seem to add up, since Google happily pays Linux kernel developers maybe half a million dollars or more. Are the BSD developers really paid so much that Google can't afford them over the Linux developers? That doesn't seem likely to me. I think the reason they're not using BSD is something other than what you're suggesting.
      • geggam 7y ago
        when I said "Work on the systems" I meant support maintain care and feed. Linux has become mainstream so there are more people in the talent pool to pay to support it. Windows ... has more so it is cheaper BSD simply doesn't have enough people who know the system well enough to support it Paying 5 developers to build something cool doesn't mean you have the support system to run it.... You actually need people who understand your product to use it as a business system
        • cat199 7y ago
          there's only slightly more learning curve between Linux Distro X vs BSD Y as there is between Linux Distro X and Linux Distro Y. In some ways & depending on the situation, moreso, since linux distros are often trying to do things drastically different from each other in order to differentiate themselves, whereas BSD's are often sharing code because of the small developer base, sharing-compatible license, and lack of bottom-line oriented corporate sponsorship.
          • geggam 7y ago
            Having worked in the industry for a couple decades and been interviewing people for the last decade I can tell you the number of people who understand low level systems management is not high. Used to be a system admin could modify a kernel module in linux. These days its getting hard to find one who can use the CLI properly
    • zdw 7y ago
      To speak to the specific case, Google does use some BSD components - large portions of the C library in android are OpenBSD sourced: https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140506132000 https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20140506132000 Google also has donated to the OpenBSD foundation historically in relatively small amounts: https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/contributors.html https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/contributors.html