Wasabi brings NetBSD to IBM chip

Wasabi Systems--which sells a rendition of the NetBSD version of Unix for non-PC-embedded computing devices such as routers--has translated that software to work with IBM's PowerPC 405GP chip. Wasabi made the announcement Wednesday. The company, which employs several programmers who are key to the open-source NetBSD effort, sells services to companies wanting to use the software in devices such as special-purpose servers.

Though Linux has caught on in this market, advocates of the variants of BSD argue that their Unix software is better suited to the task. While both OSes can be called open source, BSD's license, unlike that of Linux, permits a company to add proprietary software to BSD without having to release that software publicly. This appealed to embedded-software leader Wind River when it embraced the FreeBSD cousin to NetBSD.