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Revision as of 14:18, 12 April 2006

There are a number of BSD operating systems, the most notable being FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD. They are descended, directly or indirectly, from some version of the original BSD operating system. Most of them are available under the BSD License, a notable exception being Mac OS X.

Names, Logos, and Slogans

File:BSD-daemon-rendering.png
FreeBSD - "The Power to Serve"
File:Openbsd.png
OpenBSD - "Free, Functional & Secure"
NetBSD - "Of course it runs NetBSD."

The names of FreeBSD and OpenBSD refer to the fact that they are free, as in you don't have to pay to download them, and open source. The name of NetBSD is a tribute to the internet, which brought the developers together.

The original BSD mascot is the BSD daemon, named after a type of software common in unix-like operating systems, which FreeBSD still retains. The NetBSD flag is based on a World War II photograph, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. The OpenBSD mascot, Puffy, is said to be a pufferfish, but looks more like a porcupinefish. It is a reference to the puffer/blow/porcupinefish's strong defensive capabilities and to the blowfish cryptography algorithm.

Philosophies

FreeBSD strives to be usable for any purposes. The FreeBSD team wants FreeBSD to run a wide variety of applications, be easy to use, contain cutting edge features, and be able to handle heavy-load servers. FreeBSD is, of course, free and open source, and they prefer the BSD license. However, they do sometimes accept NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) and include closed-source binaries in their source tree in order to support the hardware of companies who prefer not to publicly provide good documentation about their products.

OpenBSD focuses on security, correctness, and being as free as possible. Security includes full disclosure (hoping friendly people will find security holes before those who would exploit them), code audits (thoroughly checking code for bugs and formatting, and fixing things regardless of whether they are proven security holes), various security technologies/methods, disabling all non-essential services ("secure by default"), and integrated cryptography (which is possible due to Canadian export laws). As far as freeness goes, OpenBSD prefers a BSD or ISC license, with GPL acceptable as a last recourse (as with gcc), and NDAs never acceptable. This has lead to a number of projects being founded by OpenBSD to replaces less free alternatives, including OpenSSH and CARP, as well as campaigns to get hardware vendors to release better documentation. In keeping with the philosophy of its parent, NetBSD, OpenBSD also strives to run on a wide variety of hardware.

NetBSD strives to be highly portable, running on many hardware systems, and to interoperate well with other systems. NetBSD also prefers the NetBSD license, wanting to avoid encumbering licenses when possible. NetBSD also seeks to be well-designed, stable, and fast, and to conform to open standards as much as they can.

Table

Creator First public release Based on Latest stable version (release date) Cost (USD) Preferred licenseTemplate:Fn Target system type
FreeBSD The FreeBSD Project December 1993 386BSD 6.0 (November 3, 2005) Free BSD Server, Workstation, Network Appliance
OpenBSD The OpenBSD Project October 1995 NetBSD 1.0 3.8 (November 1, 2005) Free BSD Server, Network Appliance, Workstation, Embedded
NetBSD The NetBSD Project May 1993 386BSD 3.0 (December 23, 2005) Free BSD Network Appliance, Server, Workstation, Embedded
Mac OS X Apple Computer March 2001 NeXTSTEP, Mac OS 10.4.6 "Tiger" (April 3, 2006) $129 Proprietary, parts APSL, GPL, others. Workstation, Home Desktop, Server
DragonFlyBSD Matt Dillon July 12, 2004 FreeBSD 4.8 1.4 (January 7, 2006) Free BSD
PicoBSD FreeBSD Free boot floppy
Anonym.OS beta as of January 2005 OpenBSD 3.8 none Free LiveCD, anonymous browsing
MirOS BSD The MirOS Project OpenBSD 3.1 #8 (December 24, 2005) Free European
ekkoBSD OpenBSD 3.3 Server
MicroBSD OpenBSD 3.0
Creator First public release Predecessor Latest stable version (release date) Cost (USD) Preferred licenseTemplate:Fn Target system type

See Also

Unix and Unix-like operating systems and compatibility layers
Operating
systems
BSD
Linux
System V
Other
Compatibility
layers
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