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It’s my understanding that many organizations prefer *BSDs over Linux not because BSD is more performant ... but because you’re way more likely to get your orga
by tiffanyh 7y ago
It’s my understanding that many organizations prefer *BSDs over Linux not because BSD is more performant ... but because you’re way more likely to get your organizations patch accepted into the upstream than Linux.
- bsder 7y agoI doubt that is the case. The FreeBSD guys can be just as hardass about submissions as the Linux folks. However, there are considerations: 1) GPL vs BSD licenses. Companies like BSD licenses much more than GPL licenses. GPL adherents can whine all they want, but this is simply true. 2) BSD has a long history of having very good networking stacks--albeit on specific hardware. Linux supported everything initially--including really cheap crap--and consequently its networking stack was a lot more ad hoc. FreeBSD chose specific hardware for stability--but then supported that much more completely. 3) FreeBSD has a long history of being the servers in Internet infrastructure. There are specific architectural choices in the kernel because of this. There is probably still some inertia, too, in that the kind of old guard people who REALLY grok networking are still more comfortable on FreeBSD machines. Consequently, it is hardly surprising that an advanced networking development would take place on FreeBSD.
- throw0101a 7y agoRe: 1 and 2. Given that there are vendors that use FreeBSD for their appliances, they really don't want to have to send out techs to customers sites to fix things. So when the appliance makers choose hardware, they talk to component vendors about quality. It's no surprise that you see commits from Intel and Chelsio employees in the FreeBSD logs: companies like Netflix, Isilon, NetApp, and Juniper partner with them to make sure things aren't buggy. These collaborations lead to point 3.