Cool 😎 Anything developed fro FreeBSD can be ported to Linux if needed.
Unfortunately improvements made on Linux can’t be ported back.
This is due to the license terms, But this is also the reason IBM, Google and many others have to contribute back to Linux, and Apple doesn’t to FreeBSD.
I was completely unaware of that, but it checks out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_4_system_software
No doubt FreeBSD benefit big corps, but big corps have problems benefiting FreeBSD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_system_software playstation 3 too, also Nintendo switch using some parts of freebsd as I’ve heard
Apple doesn’t use that much of FreeBSD, and what they use hasn’t been updated in ages.
And I don’t think there’s much sense porting FreeBSD device drivers to Linux, I think they are different enough. And the article is about things most important for device drivers and other kernel-level things.
MacOS and iOS have Freebsd inside their kernel. The reason it doesn’t appear to have been updated in ages is the problem listed by the OP: The BSD license meant that Apple could take without ever giving back. Which is what they did.
First of all the nitpicky stuff: Mac OS never used anything FreeBSD in the kernel. The kernel is XNU/mach, FreeBSD only supplies the user land. Pedantic, but we have a cliche to defend.
Anyway, I think you got the update part backwards. Apple doesn’t update its side of the deal. MacOS ships with old bsd apps, simply because apple doesn’t care all that much about it.
I’ve said in another comment that you got it wrong and how. It’s the other way around with things not getting updated - the stuff in MacOS is old, not the stuff in FreeBSD. But that doesn’t matter, because what Apple took from FreeBSD it actually does release among other things from time to time under their own license, only it’s of no use for anyone, because their real proprietary strength is the Cocoa layer and GUI. If they used Linux, they would still not be obligated to release the sources for those. I think you see the problem with your reasoning, knowing that.
Very happy to read that, but honestly, when reading “$1 million USD” as investment sum, it reads more like an advertisement stunt than a real investment. (Like, 2 senior developers for one year?)
We need more diversity in Open Source operating systems for desktops, laptops and any of the *BSDs is a great candidate. (Would love to see Haiku getting some sponsorship or even ReactOS!)
But why?
Cool, bsd works fine for laptops, but the power management is pretty shit.
Also the wifi support too.
Otherwise I love my freebsd thinkpad, works great when plugged in, but again the wifi is painfully slow.
Can the drivers be ported with a different license if it is not included with the BSD licensed operating system?
worked well for apple.
