FreeBSD vs OpenBSD vs Linux

[LocoCoyote]

Ok. I am confused again. All three, Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD are Unix type Os's. So what is the difference? What is the main thing that differs between them? The muliple flavors of Linux alone is bad enough, but this thing with the BSDs is a smoker.

can Any one help

[kilgoretrout]

Short answer, all linux distros are based on the linux kernel and comply with the GNU copyleft licensing inherent therein. BSDs are based on a BSD kernel and have a sightly different licensing scheme which allows others to use the open code, modify it and not disclose it and thus profit from it more readily. Anything longer would get into a longwinded philosophical debate which would bore everyone. There's a really long history here which you can get into on your own if your interested in these nuances but suffice it to say linux and BSD are historically, technically and philosophically distinct though related.

[LocoCoyote]

That was most interesting....so what you are saying is that they are the same but different?

;-)

So what are the programming issues here? will a program compliled (not talking source here) on a linux box work on a free BSD box? Better question. say I have Redhat 9 on partion 1, FreeBSD on Part 2 and a partion 3 that is a Linux partion used for data storage (say I put the /home directory there). So will both Os's be able to read that /home directory?

[kilgoretrout]

BSD was originally developed at UC Berkley way back when. The goal was to develop a free unix operating system to get around the expensive licensing of the then commercial unix. They got sued and won the lawsuit. Modern BSDs are based on that original UC code historicaly. Linux was separately developed by Linus Torvalds sometime later.
Source code written for linux may compile on FreeBSD but you would have to compile for that OS. It would be a case by case thing. For example, there are people that have run kde on OSX which is based on FreeBSD. I doubt that you would be able to share a /home but I really don't know as I'm not that familiar with FreeBSD. I do know it uses a different file system than linux. Linux can read FreeBSD partitions and I assume FreeBSD can read linux partitons as well if you just want access to data. But I don't beleive they can interoperate the way you suggested since binaries compiled for one wouldn't run on the other.

[mairving]

They are similar in origin but have developed differently.

Generally if you know your way around in Linux, you can pretty easily adapt to BSD and vice versa. Here is a pretty good article on the differences.

The licensing is probably the difference which is why MS and Apple have chosen BSD for some of their code instead of Linux.

[LocoCoyote]

After some fairly in depth research, this is what I came up with...
The BSD's are direct decendants of the first BSD and therefore true UNIX code. Linux is a from the ground up reimplementation of UNIX...ie made to work like UNIX without the source code. There are differences in the software lincences as well.