It s the software behind the world s most popular Web site and the world s most popular FTP site but unless you re a geek, you ve never heard of it. BSD s obscurity is just part of the reason it is now considered cooler than Linux among the geekiest geeks. But the software some say is the most secure operating system in the world may be poised to make a Linux-like leap to the forefront. And if one of the database vendors released a database that ran on BSD, you d see a huge market share jump.
Legal troubles tell part of the story.
At the same time, Torvalds was welcoming help from all comers, mainly young computer science students enamored of with the coming information explosion. There are other reasons much effort has been put into making Linux user-friendly enough for use as a desktop operating system. BSD groups have focused on servers, never putting much work into appealing to a mass market. But that doesn t mean there s not some obvious jealousy that the new Unix on the block has gotten all the attention. Because of that, people said, I don t want to go with BSD now.