[jcahill]

Most computer users of the first world are barely even peripherally aware of the existence of linux. Within FOSS, BSD holds more weight as a software license than as an OS family at this point. Try searching BSD just about anywhere, including here[1]. And the most significant BSD-as-in-OS features are, invariably, whichever ones apple ends up sniping for macOS.

So: hardly anyone knows what BSD is, and nearly all of those who have used a BSD-like have done so in the form of macOS. It takes a certain kind of preening arrogance, mixed with total detachment from reality, to stamp and shout over distro confusion between linux and FreeBSD. It should go without saying that proponents of the latter have good reason to be grateful for any reason that new outsiders might even remember it exists.

I mean, the biggest in-joke the BSDs have is a ritual negging of bad news about BSD market share ("Is *BSD dying?"[2]). This is in line with a general level of sneery, navelgazing nonsense pervading much of the BSDverse that makes it altogether unpleasant to engage.

It's an OS, not Hilbert's Program. I'll use it if it fits my use case. I won't if it doesn't. I don't have the spare lifespan necessary to listen to BSD people whine about linux. Whatever gatekeeping needs to happen to make that stop, have at it.

[1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=bsd+dying

[linksnapzz]

So: hardly anyone knows what BSD is, and nearly all of those who have used a BSD-like have done so in the form of macOS.

A giant saltation from most first world computer users being aware of Linux, to hardly anyone knowing what BSD is.

I recall the original netcraft survey being posted on Slashdot aeons ago; the joke to me always seemed to be a good-hearted chuckle at their own obscurity, much like the late Abe Vigoda spent the last 30 years of his life and career reminding people that he was still alive, even working!

Schade's few paragraphs here come across as equally gentle and humorous-he's not really aggrieved that FreeBSD is treated like a Linux distro; he would like avoid the confusion that might cause to users who end up liking it.

What, exactly, BSD users ever did to you remains a mystery; alas, I haven't the spare lifespan to want to figure that out.

[jcahill]

> A giant saltation from most first world computer users being aware of Linux, to hardly anyone knowing what BSD is.

You seem to have misread my first sentence.

> Schade's few paragraphs here come across as equally gentle and humorous-he's not really aggrieved that FreeBSD is treated like a Linux distro; he would like avoid the confusion that might cause to users who end up liking it.

My commentary was in agreement with the blogpost.

Me:

>> It should go without saying that proponents of the latter have good reason to be grateful for any reason that new outsiders might even remember it exists.

But it doesn't go without saying, thus the need for Schade's blogpost. The elitism and intra nix resentment of BSD culture give rise to this problem. My comment aimed to address that.

> What, exactly, BSD users ever did to you remains a mystery;

They did nothing in particular to me. It's just a descriptive consensus that BSD culture has outsized hostility toward all things linux and toward being mistaken for linux. It's narcissism of small differences[1] and nerd blindness in action.

> alas, I haven't the spare lifespan to want to figure that out.

My comment contained a stringent critique of a community's corrosive norms, emphasizing how counterproductive those norms are for getting on with building useful things.

Your comment just aims to repackage the phrasing as a personal attack.

If you have time to work 'saltation' into a sentence, you have time to reply in good faith on HN. Flubbing a quip by trying to spit your interlocutor's words back at them in a sideswipe is not the way to go about that, especially when you've misunderstood the upthrust of the comment to which you're replying.

I'm perfectly willing to explain my position, so you achieve nothing by this odd posturing. [I even made a point to get around to it when I realized I was near the reply expiration time.]

I'll explain my position now:

    1. BSD community hostility toward linux: unreasonable
    2. BSD community hostility toward being mistaken for linux: unreasonable
    3. BSD community illusion of transparency: also unreasonable!

Some basic reasoning about the distribution of computer skills and world knowledge shows that two hostilities I mentioned above, especially the latter — hostility toward being mistaken for linux — are empirically unreasonable.

90% of computer users couldn't find text in a document as of 2011. There haven't been precipitous shifts in digital skills research results since then. Linux dominates server market share, but is only a blip in desktop market share. BSD doesn't even register.

It follows from any realistic assessment of computer users as a demographic that expecting a nontrivial proportion of people to know what the hell BSD is, let alone understand how it differs from linux in anything beyond branding, is indefensible.

Getting huffy about the matter on top of that, rather than opportunistically using that distinction-without-a-difference perception among novices as the submission suggests, requires a reality distortion field of monumental proportions.

Even within *nix, there's this intermittent HN/forum nonsense time and again that always goes the same way:

    [BSD DISCOURSE ENTERS THE AETHER SOMEHOW]
    
    Alice, linux user: What's BSD about? What does it do?
    Bob, BSD user:     It's like linux, but better ;)
    Alice:             Oh? What makes it better?
    Bob:               <list of things that linux does too>
    Alice:             But linux has <equivalents of the BSD things>
    Bob:               Better license?
    Alice:             I don't really care about that
    Bob:               No bloat! Also, it's an OS, not just a kernel.
    Alice:             what
    Bob:               No breaking changes! Your old scripts will still work.
    Alice:             I've never really noticed problems with that.
    Bob:               Look, ever heard of macOS?
    Alice:             yup, can't stand it
    Bob:               ...

In other words, even most linux people don't really know what BSD is in exact terms, and BSD proponents typically either can't or won't convincingly state the case for BSD among people more familiar with linux. In some ways, this is natural for a few obvious reasons:

1. Few people have strong working knowledge of BSD and linux kernel development. Kernel and distro development circles are fairly distinct, so even fewer will be able to speak to holistic comparisons from top-down and bottom-up views.

2. BSD development is regimented and conservative, resulting in relative predictability and lack of change over time. These things are commonly cited motivations for BSD adoption. We can assume people who desire this in their OS aren't doing a ton of gratuitous exploration on the side. So lack of knowledge about the state of the art in linux world on the part of BSD fans is probably to be expected.

3. Long-satisfied BSD users have exited the conversation. There are no grand, holy war-level stakes for BSD vs. other OSes anymore, so there's not a lot to stick around for.

4. BSD proponents tacitly reject worse-is-better in their arguments, but fail to explicate this or present compelling counter-narratives. This might seem like a small point, but it's tantamount to something like "I reject the tech equivalent of Whig history of the past 20+ years. Anyway, here's why you should switch to a new system. It actively works against advantages gained by your system under the assumptions of that historiographic model I've rejected."

5. BSD proponents spend countless hours overdeveloping criticisms of the most-disliked aspects of linux, like systemd. This is useless in any conversation with most prospective linux-to-bsd converts — preaching to the choir.

Example of 2 in action: "Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux"[2] is currently the best single-page case for FreeBSD easily found from obvious search queries. If you didn't know much about the last decade or so of linux development, it would be far more convincing. But as it stands, it's just met with a lot of confusion[3] on HN.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...

[2]: https://unixsheikh.com/articles/technical-reasons-to-choose-...

[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22852316