“The merger of Walnut Creek, the commercial outlet for FreeBSD,
with the commercial BSDI implementation offers the possibility of a
BSD-based packaging and services company capable of operating on a
par with mainstream Linux distribution vendors. If the new BSDi
gets its way, the friendly rivalry between Linux and BSD is about
to heat up. (Note the lower-cased “i” in the name of the
merged company, intended to differentiate the new company from the
old, according to the new CEO, Gary Johnson.)”
“”We want to be the Linuxcare of the BSD world,” said Johnson.
“We intend to be involved in training, development, and other
services supporting BSD systems.” Johnson says he has fairly
definite plans to move the company forward in a manner similar to
Linux distribution companies, including obtaining venture capital
and doing an IPO down the road.”
“While the FreeBSD development effort has been and will continue
to be independent, its commercial distribution — handled by Walnut
Creek in the past — will be done by BSDi. Also, FreeBSD team
co-founder Jordan Hubbard is on BSDi’s payroll (he had been
employed by Walnut Creek to help maintain FreeBSD). The BSD
license, unlike the GPL, allows subsequent users of BSD code to
make their changes proprietary, and that’s what BSD/OS has done.
The two share some common code, and will likely share more in the
future, said Hubbard.”