| FreeBSD is widely used to support the core infrastructure of many companies worldwide. Because it can be built with a small footprint, it is also seeing increased use in embedded applications. The licensing terms of FreeBSD do not require the distribution of changes and enhancements to the system. The licensing terms of Linux require that all changes and enhancements to the kernel be made available in source form at minimal cost. Thus, companies that need to control the distribution of their intellectual property build their products using FreeBSD. This book is of direct use to the professionals who work with FreeBSD systems. Individuals involved in technical and sales support can learn the capabilities and limitations of the system; applications developers can learn how to effectively and efficiently interface to the system; system administrators without direct experience with the FreeBSD kernel can learn how to maintain, tune, and configure the system; and systems programmers can learn how to extend, enhance, and interface to the system. Readers who will benefit from this book include operating-system implementors, system programmers, UNIX application developers, administrators, and curious users. The book can be read as a companion to the source code of the system, falling as it does between the manual pages and the code in detail of treatment. But this book is neither exclusively a UNIX programming manual nor a user tutorial (for a tutorial, see Libes & Ressler [1988]). Familiarity with the use of some version of the UNIX system (see, for example, Stevens [1992]) and with the C programming language (see, for example, Kernighan & Ritchie [1989]) would be extremely useful. |
