Why Dell's ThinOS Runs on FreeBSD

[darkwater]

> Choosing FreeBSD as the base of ThinOS was a strategic decision driven by several key factors:

> License Advantages: FreeBSD’s BSD license offers customization flexibility without the obligation to disclose proprietary enhancements. This aspect is crucial for Dell, allowing the company to tailor the OS to its specific security and performance needs while maintaining proprietary control over its software.

Ok... I see where this is going...

> Engineering Efficiency: Dell’s engineering team benefits from FreeBSD’s stable kernel source code. It simplifies integrating and maintaining customized code, reducing the effort and resources required to keep ThinOS up to date.

Nice one.

> Security Enhancements: The stability of the FreeBSD kernel, coupled with the permissive BSD license, which allows vendors to keep proprietary modifications under wraps, significantly bolsters ThinOS’s security posture and creates a robust platform less susceptible to attacks than a CopyLeft-based system with GPL components.

Are they really defending security through obscurity (closed-source blobs) and at the same time attacking GPL in the same paragraph?

[torstenvl]

"Security through obscurity" is the vernacular formulation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs%27s_principle and refers to using bespoke encryption algorithms rather than strong encryption keys. I don't see how it has any bearing here.

Indeed, outside of cryptography, keeping substantive knowledge secret is quite often a critical component of security. See generally Rogue One ;-)

[rickydroll]

> Ok... I see where this is going...

Me too, although it might not be the same thing you are thinking of. I see the license as a way to let corporations take advantage of your free work without giving anything back. I LGPL my public work so that anyone is free to use it but if they change it, I need to get the changes back and decide if I want to incorporate them.

So far, I've been fortunate that nobody's paying attention to my work so I don't have to worry about whether to harass someone for violating the copyleft.

[pjmlp]

Had AT&T not gotten greedy and lawsuit BSD, all the major UNIXes would be around happily taking whatever they felt like from BSD, and Linux would have stayed Linus hobby project.

You see it on FOSS OSes for IoT and embedded devices, none of them is GPL based, rather Apache or MIT.

[AdmiralAsshat]

Yeah, I cringed when I read the GPL sentence. We get it, Dell. You want a free OS that you have no obligation to contribute any changes back to. Fine. But acting like a GPL-based OS is somehow less secure because people are obligated to share their improvements back to the project is asinine.

[mikece]

It doesn't say in this press release but are WYSE/Dell contributing back to FreeBSD in any way?

[throw0101d]

Dell (now) owns Isilon (through purchasing EMC), and they do contribute back a lot:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneFS_distributed_file_system

You can search for "Sponsored by:" in commits for who did work:

* https://www.freshsource.org/commits.php

[craftkiller]

They are donors to the FreeBSD Foundation in addition to committing patches:

    $ git log | grep -i '@dell.com' | wc -l
    86

[tyingq]

Seems a fair question given this quote:

"FreeBSD’s BSD license offers customization flexibility without the obligation to disclose proprietary enhancements."

But I suppose maybe some of their less sensitive changes, if upstreamed, relieves them of having to own them.

[frogmanalien]

It seems like they have some (minor) contributions planned at least based on that article: "Improving FreeBSD’s Linux application binary interface (ABI) will allow a broader base of Linux applications to run seamlessly on ThinOS, enhancing its versatility and appeal."

[jmclnx]

Nice to see a BSD getting decent press.

[dazzawazza]

The FreeBSD foundation seems to have stepped up a gear lately. Good to see.