Introduction to Free Software - SELF | Sharing Knowledge about ...
Introduction to Free Software - SELF | Sharing Knowledge about ...
Introduction to Free Software - SELF | Sharing Knowledge about ...
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© FUOC • P07/M2101/02709 138 <strong>Free</strong> <strong>Software</strong><br />
on <strong>Free</strong>BSD (from the distribution itself <strong>to</strong> t-shirts, magazines, books, etc.),<br />
and announce third-party products on its website and provide professional<br />
<strong>Free</strong>BSD support.<br />
In March 2000, BSDi and Walnut Creek merged under the name BSDi <strong>to</strong> work<br />
<strong>to</strong>gether against the Linux phenomenon, which was clearly leaving BSD sys-<br />
tems in general and <strong>Free</strong>BSD particularly, standing in the shadows. A year la-<br />
ter, in May 2001, Wind River purchased the part that was dedicated <strong>to</strong> genera-<br />
ting the BSDi software, with the clear intention of boosting the development<br />
of <strong>Free</strong>BSD for its use in embedded systems and intelligent devices connected<br />
<strong>to</strong> the Network.<br />
9.2.5. Current status of <strong>Free</strong>BSD<br />
According <strong>to</strong> the latest data from the poll that Netcraft performs periodically,<br />
the number of web servers that run <strong>Free</strong>BSD is approximately two million.<br />
A new user who wished <strong>to</strong> install <strong>Free</strong>BSD could choose between version 6.2<br />
(which could be considered as the "stable" version) or the more advanced or<br />
"development" branch. Whilst the former provides more stability, especially<br />
in areas such as symmetric multiprocessing, which has been completely rede-<br />
veloped in the newer versions, the latter allows users <strong>to</strong> enjoy the latest de-<br />
velopments. It is also important <strong>to</strong> bear in mind that the developed versions<br />
tend <strong>to</strong> include test code, which slightly affects the system's speed.<br />
One of the star features of <strong>Free</strong>BSD is what is known as the jails. The jails<br />
minimise the damage that might be caused by an attack on basic network<br />
services, such as Sendmail for the emails or BIND (Berkeley Internet Name<br />
Domain) for name management. The services are placed in a jail so that they<br />
run in an isolated environment. The jails can be managed using a series of<br />
utilities included in <strong>Free</strong>BSD.<br />
9.2.6. X-ray of <strong>Free</strong>BSD<br />
As we have mentioned in this last section, BSD's functions are not restricted<br />
solely <strong>to</strong> developing an operating system kernel, but also include the integra-<br />
tion of a multitude of utilities that are distributed <strong>to</strong>gether in the style of the<br />
GNU/Linux distributions. The fact that the development process of <strong>Free</strong>BSD<br />
is very closely linked <strong>to</strong> the CVS versions control system means by studying<br />
the system, we can obtain a good idea of what <strong>Free</strong>BSD consists of. The figures<br />
shown below correspond <strong>to</strong> the <strong>Free</strong>BSD analysis performed on 21st August<br />
2003.<br />
One of the most interesting aspects of <strong>Free</strong>BSD is that the figures are very<br />
similar <strong>to</strong> the ones that we have already looked at in KDE and GNOME: the<br />
size of the software easily exceeds five million lines of code, the number of files<br />
is approximately 250,000 and the <strong>to</strong>tal number of commits is approximately<br />
two million. However, it is interesting <strong>to</strong> observe that the main difference
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