MidnightBSD

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MidnightBSD
Image:MidnightBSD-logo.png
Screenshot of MidnightBSDl
Website www.midnightbsd.org
Company/
developer		 The MidnightBSD project
OS family BSD
Source model Open source
Latest stable release 0.1.1-RELEASE / November 9, 2007
Package manager MidnightBSD mports/Packages
Supported platforms i386, SPARC64, AMD64
Kernel type Monolithic kernel
Default user interface GNUStep
License BSD license
Working state Current

MidnightBSD is a free Unix-like, desktop-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD 6.1. It borrows a lot from the NEXTSTEP graphical user interface.

[edit] History and development

MidnightBSD began as a fork from FreeBSD in 2005. The founder of the project, Lucas Holt, wished to create a BSD derived desktop operating system. He was familiar with several live CD projects, but not the work on PC-BSD or DesktopBSD. At the same time, he also had an interest in GNUstep. The two ideas were folded into a plan to create a user friendly desktop environment.

MidnightBSD 0.1 was released based on the efforts of Lucas Holt, Caryn Holt, D. Adam Karim, Phil Pereira of bsdnexus, and Christian Reinhardt. This release features a modified version of the FreeBSD ports system. The ports system evolved into "mports" which includes fake support, generation of packages before installation, license tagging, and strict rules about package list generation and modification of files outside the destination. Many of these features were introduced in MidnightBSD 0.1.1.

Christian Reinhardt replaced Phil Pereira as the lead "mports" maintainer prior to the release of MidnightBSD 0.1. D. Adam Karim acted as the security officer for the first release. All release engineering is handled by Lucas Holt.

Currently, the project is focusing on finishing the Magus build cluster software, creating a new installer, finishing the new package installation and management tools called mport, and prepairing for the 0.2 release.

[edit] Etymology

MidnightBSD is named after Lucas and Caryn Holt's cat, Midnight. Midnight is a ten pound black Turkish Angora.

[edit] License

MidnightBSD is released under several licenses. The kernel code and most newly created code is released under the two-clause BSD license. There are parts under the GPL, LGPL, ISC, and Beerware licenses, along with three- and four-clause BSD licenses.