>I am involved in planning the beginnings of an ISP. We plan to do 
>web/ftp/streaming media/transactions/remote storage/etc....
>
>I am trying to understand the differences between FreeBSD, NetBSD, BSD 
>Lite, OpenBSD, etc. Any info that can be provided would be helpful.

in short.  the similarities:

 * netbsd, freebsd, and openbsd are all descended from bsd/386.
 * 4.4bsd lite1 and lite2 have (as far as i know) been integrated into
   all the trees.

the differences:

 * freebsd has historically been centered mostly on i386 based
   machines, although this is no longer the case.
 * netbsd has portability as its main focus, targeting code at
   platform independence and not just a single architecture.
 * openbsd focuses more on security.

look at any (or all) of:

 * the book "the design and implementation of the 4.4bsd operating system"
 * ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/FreeBSD-current/src/share/misc/bsd-family-tree
 * ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-current/src/share/misc/bsd-family-tree

for a family tree.  openbsd is missing from the tree in the book,
since their first release was around the same time the book was
published.

no flames please.  :)

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