Most rational human beings would agree that the flame wars over operating systems are ignorant at least and pointless at best. A few of them are, I suppose, somewhat understandable. Windows 3.1 versus OS/2, Unix versus Windows NT, Windows XP versus MacOS--these are all givens in a computing environment with room for different perspectives. That said, the battle between aficionados of Linux and BSD is not only silly but hurts both parties with every attack.

Nobody cares about your family tree, damnit

Part of what prompted this article is the number of stories and blog postings I've seen in the last few weeks regarding how BSD and its derivatives are way more cool/elite/whatever than Linux. The number one reason given—if one is given at all—is that "Open/Free/NetBSD is based on the original BSD, which is based on the original Unix."

That kind of "logic" should be left in middle school where is belongs.

Sure, BSD is based on Unix. You know what else is? Linux. And you know what else is? Just every other network-aware operating system around, to one degree or another.

BSD and every other operating system has the ability, right, and dare I say responsibility to stand or fall based on its own strengths and weaknesses. Basing a judgment on the family tree of software makes about as much sense as saying Roman Catholicism is better than Protestantism because it is closer to the original disciples of Jesus in terms of denominational branching.

One thing may be better than something else in any number of ways. How far it falls from the tree is immaterial.

If you have a problem with that, I guess I'll just have to concede that your dad is way cooler than my dad. Therefor, you must be cooler than me.

Most of the people complaining can't tell the difference anyway

Out of all the people in the tank for one side or the other in the Linux versus BSD war, how many would you suppose can actually tell the difference? I'd be willing to bet that the majority on either side, presented with a working box running KDE, OpenOffice, and all the usual software would never know the difference while doing their day in, day out computing.

The whole point of running a standardized desktop is that you don't have to know what is happening under the hood. And in those times when dropping to a console is necessary, there still won't be all that much of a difference 99% of the time. Most software that runs on BSD will run on Linux and vice-versa, so what's the big deal?

Sure, there are plenty of differences. But I dare the average BSD or Linux desktop user to cite me one quantifiable difference.

Linux is almost as bad as Windows?

One of my favorite anti-Linux charges by the BSD crowd is that Linux has become "almost as bad as Windows." What I'm still waiting for with bated breath is a simple explanation of why this is so.

Is it because more people use it? Is it because it has become a well-known part of the popular lexicon? Is it because it is much more available to people with—dare I say—slightly less technical savvy than a Unix guru?

I suspect that is the reason when one gets to the bottom of the argument.

Everything has its fanboys and naturally BSD is no exception. And if BSD suddenly snagged the market share that Linux has among desktop users, it wouldn't be surprising if many of its advocates suddenly ditched it the same way they abandoned alternative music, the X-Files, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when those suddenly got too popular for comfort.

Making a serious comparison between Windows and Linux in terms of their Unixness is a strong symptom of what is—and I fear, will always be—holding the open source movement back. There are too many open source lovers whose love is based on its present obscurity.

Just because something isn't underground, it doesn't mean it isn't any good. It just means it's more accessible. Accessibility isn't a bad thing and certainly shouldn't be a dirty word. Those whose actions argue otherwise, no matter their intentions, are hurting open source in general.

Bloated code

The code in the Linux kernel has certainly grown in the last few years. This has many in the BSD camp sounding the alarms to proclaim that Linux is now falling apart because it jumped from x million lines of code to y million lines in a span of only t years.

What some will call "bloated code" has another name you may not have heard in a while: hardware support. Yes, more bugs and some security issues come as a result, but that is part of the trade-off that all software choses to make when it wants to grow as quickly as possible in terms of usability and accessibility. It's not like Linux developers have been copying and pasting the code used for Windows file shares into Linux, for goodness sakes.

The primary difference between Linux and BSD and all the other Unix clones is the kernel. If this is the reason one cites for preferring one over the other, then there are legitimate arguments to be made.

On the one hand, you have the desktop power user type. They want a desktop OS with built-in or trivially added support for SSH, Apache, Python, and whatever else Windows won't as reasonably handle. Or maybe they just want a little extra stability. There is no reason (other than personal preference) for these folks to be using BSD on their desktop PC or—heaven help them—on their laptop. Hardware support is going to be a problem that need not be there.

On the other hand, you have the administrator type. They need a system streamlined and hardened for running a mail server, doing frequent compiles, and things of that nature. In other words, they don't care if wireless NICs will work or if their sound card will cause crashes during video playback. All that nice fluffy stuff that is desirable on the desktop is neither a concern nor a priority for administrators and is best avoided entirely.

Sure as the world, this is where the Apple suck-ups will start to chime in. "Now wait just a damned minute! With OS X, we get a BSD-based kernel and all our hardware is supported!" They are correct. But I have two words them: proprietary hardware. Give me a version of OS X that will run on virtually any hardware available, and I'll show you an operating system kernel that looks more like Linux than BSD any day of the week.

Conclusion

What makes the whole Linux versus BSD argument the most frustrating for me is that so many of us are still operating under the naive assumption that we are all on the same side. I'm not just talking about open source advocates, either. I mean we are all—or so I thought—supposed to be on the side of making people's lives and jobs more easy, productive, and fun with technology. How that happens is of drastically less importance than the fact that it does happen.

Maybe I've been wrong, though. Maybe all this stuff is really just about being cooler than the kid next door.

In that case, I'll just stick with the nerds and bid adieu to the geeks and all their snobbery.