The most obvious thing that has happened is that Linus was wrong in his assumptions: Linux has become a big and professional operating system, ``like GNU''. In fact, as Richard Stallman continually reminds us, it is GNU. The free BSD operating systems evolved in a similar manner: ten years ago, nobody expected them to be more than a hobby.
What happened? A number of things:
As a result, we had the ``dot com'' boom. I'm sure I wasn't the only person to wonder where all the money came from for pie-in-the-sky projects, but it came. And it went. Earlier this year, the company I was working for, Linuxcare, laid off 80% of its staff. Many of my colleagues then went to VA Linux. As I write this, VA Linux is in the process of laying off most of these people. Other people tell the same story; Wes Peters talked about the same theme last month. Things don't look much different in the BSD camps: BSDi has been bought out by Wind River Systems, and though things worked out pretty well under the circumstances, nobody's pretending it's a triumph. There would be more than enough reason for despondency.
But what has really happened? Are things any worse now than they were four years ago? When the free operating systems started, nobody was expecting them to be strong contenders in the commercial market. They got there not because of marketing, but because of technical superiority. That technical superiority is still there, and BSD is in front. The number of spectacular deflations in the last 18 months has tended to hide the fact that a number of smaller, less spectacular companies are doing well out of BSD and Linux.
So what has changed? One thing is the hype. Those of us who reluctantly took off their T shirts and put on a suit and tie can now change back to more comfortable clothes. We no longer need as much marketspeak.
There's another, less pleasant side of this, of course: a lot of people have been laid off, and we have a number of unemployed BSD hackers. That's normal in these situations, and it's temporary, but it's still unfortunate while it lasts.
Where do we go from here? The lack of easy money means that we once again are dependent on the quality of our code. The lack of hype puts the BSDs in a better position in the ``competition'' with Linux. People are evaluating more carefully, and they're liking what they see.
That's ridiculous, of course. If that were the case, I wouldn't be writing these articles. Of course, it depends on your interpretation of the word ``advocate'': some people interpret it to mean putting down people who have different viewpoints. I'm not that kind of advocate.
On the other hand, the Linux community represents one of the richest sources of potential BSD users, so it's worth talking to them. I've been doing that for a couple of years now, and it's been surprisingly successful. Most recently, our local Linux user group, LinuxSA, held an Installfest. Those of you who don't know the South Australian free software community will nevertheless probably remember the Microsoft Refund Day held a couple of years ago; that was a direct consequence of action by Geoffrey Bennett, one of the main people behind LinuxSA. Last year they held the first Installfest, supported by the AUUG, and it was an immense success. I helped along both last year and this year. This year we weren't as successful: it poured with rain all day long, and as a result fewer people came than last year. There were some interesting differences, though: if you look at the Installfest information page, you'll notice that they don't just speak of Linux; BSD is there in a prominent position as well. At the Installfest, I gave a talk on BSD. Afterwards, I noticed that Ben Close, one of the other organizers, was running FreeBSD on his laptop. It seems that he became interested in it at last year's Installfest, where BSDi donated 200 FreeBSD CD-ROMs. After this year's Installfest, I heard from another organizer, David Bullock, who was intrigued by the presentation this year and decided to try it as a result.
This isn't just a one-off: I've noticed that since I visited Singapore in November 2000, there's a lot of interest in BSD there.
This may seem like blowing my own trumpet, but that's not the issue: the fact is that people in the Linux communities are interested in BSD, but many BSD advocates look on them as enemies and don't have anything to do with them. That's doubly unfortunate: they lock out the people most interested in using BSD, and the only thing Linux people find out about BSD is that the proponents are obnoxious.
The fun side of things is something that many people have forgotten: these projects weren't started for money, they were started for the personal satisfaction that people can get out of them. For many, that includes social interaction and joking. Let's hope that we don't forget that aspect of the community.