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On April 04, 2001, Software maker Wind River decides to buy the FreeBSD operating system, instead of making an OS themselves. The last of the truely FREE Unix Operating Systems has now been purchased. What does this mean?
Well Wind River plans on turning FreeBSD into a commercial OS much like how the failed Linux OS crafters have done, except Wind River obviously doesn't want to fail. They likely plan on charging for FreeBSD, quite simply because it simply isn't worth the $50 Million sticker price unless they do. You will likely see boxed copies of FreeBSD in stores ranging from $59-$159.00 US per copy, which as of now is available as a free download.
Wind River said it is spending slightly less than $50 million to buy the commercial version of BSD from steward Berkeley Software Design which also distributes the free version of the operating system, FreeBSD as well as companion technology from the private Belgian company Eonic.
Wind River CEO Tom St. Dennis vowed to continue distributing FreeBSD, which is used by companies such as Yahoo (YHOO) and UUNet. But it is hard to say how the fiercely independent open-source community will react to the new corporate role.
Linux failed, and it's going to be sad to watch FreeBSD fail also, but it's going to happen, wait and see.
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