Comment by whizzter
18 hours ago
The FreeBSD threading was perhaps behind but in general, but the big things in Linux VS FreeBSD was always the 4.3 licensing lawsuits that gave Linux a momentum that BSD never caught up with.
The real difference during that early 00s was that momentum bought 2 things that made FreeBSD a worse choice (and made even more people end up using Linux):
1: "commercial" support for Linux, firstly hardware like you mentioned, but in the way that you could buy a server with some Linux variant installed and you knew that it'd run, unless you're an CTO you're probably not risking even trying out FreeBSD on a fresh machine if time isn't abundant.
Also software like Java servers comes to mind, came with binaries or was otherwise easy to get running on Linux, and even with FreeBSD's Linux layer VM's things like JVM and CLR often relied on subtle details that makes it incompatible with the Linux layer (tried running .NET a year or two ago, ran into random crashes).
2: a lot of "fresh" Linux developers had a heavy "works on my machine" mentality, being reliant on Linux semantics, paths or libraries in makefiles (or dependencies on things like systemd)
Sure there is often upstream patches (eventually) or patches in FreeBSD ports, those last are good for stable systems, but a PITA in the long run since stuff doesn't get upstreamed properly and you're often stuck when there is a major release and need to figure out how to patch a new version yourself.
The copyright lawsuit was the first moment in time when FreeBSD and the other *BSDs were left behind, while Linux was free to advance.
Nevertheless, after this initial setback they had recovered and almost a decade later, around 2003, they had become the best solution for many server applications, even if they were not so widely known as Linux, which had spread a lot during the years when *BSDs were tied in lawsuits.
The slowness of their evolution towards multi-threading, which was caused by having much less developers than Linux and less corporate support, was what has propelled again Linux in front of them and this handicap has never been recovered later.
The 2 points listed by you are of course correct, by they are linked to the continuous reduction of the number of FreeBSD users that has started in 2003 and which has lasted for several years, which was caused by the fact that even when you were already an experienced FreeBSD user and preferred it over Linux, it was pointless to install FreeBSD on any new state-of-the-art computer, because FreeBSD could not harness its power.