Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 00:45:48 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Pedro F. Giffuni" <pfg1+@pitt.edu>, "Rick Hamell" <hamellr@1nova.com> Cc: <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG>, <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Microsoft giving back to FreeBSD !! Message-ID: <000401c0ffa6$58c2f680$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <3B3A2E2F.A74DDCC8@pitt.edu>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Pedro F. Giffuni >Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2001 12:04 PM >To: Rick Hamell >Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG; freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: Microsoft giving back to FreeBSD !! > > >(CCd to advocacy) > >Rick Hamell wrote: >> ><snip> >> > This is very cool! >> > >> > http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2001/06/27/dotnet.html >> >> To bad the.NET project is Microsoft's latest attempt to take over >> the Internet.... :( >> >> Rick > >Resistance is futile, they will be assimilated ! ;) > >Seriously, Java is putting a serious weight so it won't be that easy. >They will have to have real technical merits to be successful in their >attempt. FWIW, it is really weird to find SUN somewhat ignoring us in >all this while MS is actually playing clean. > There's a reason for this that's not political. C# is not a money-making product now, Java is. Sun has enough to do fighting against the other money-making competitors to Java, they don't need to blow effort on fighting a competitive implementation that may die on the vine. >What is nice here is that in an unprecedented Press Release, Microsoft >is encouraging people to use FreeBSD. The could have released binaries >for Linux, after all most of this is userland code, but they chose us, >apparently with a very user friendly license, and whatever reason they >might have it is very good to have them around. > Keep in mind that Microsoft isn't releasing binaries for FreeBSD either - they are releasing source that compiles on FreeBSD. There's nothing preventing anyone from modifying that source and compiling it on Linux. Granted, some of their stuff they are going to be releasing will have a "non-commercial" license on it - but quite a number of Open Source programs have such licenses already. Take Sendmail - it's license is a "non-commercial" one in that it's illegal to take Sendmail 9.X and later code, compile it, and sell the compiled binary for other than a nominal media and handling fee. But, this certainly doesen't prevent people from using the Open Source version of Sendmail for Internet servers used in a commercial setting, for example. >Perhaps now that they are working with Corel on this, and FreeBSD is >one of the two supported platforms we can finally get a native port of >Corel's office suite. (there you go ... a plausible campaign). > I think it's much more likely to see Microsoft Office ported to FreeBSD. Consider they have to do 90% of the work already to port it to MacOS X. >I have this feeling that FreeBSD doesn't need more hackers, but rather >a real strategist. :-) Ah, you know, after all I _did_ write a book on interoperating Microsoft Windows and FreeBSD quite well in advance of anyone's predicting this shotgun wedding. BSD already _has_ some good strategists. However, your not necessairly going to find them working at BSDi. Look instead at the userbase. The problem is not _getting_ good strategists, we already have them. The problem is getting the BSD _userbase_ to _listen_ to the strategists. Unlike Linux, most BSD users are not interested in being soldiers in the "FreeBSD Army" and don't take orders very well, (or at all) nor are they much swayed by so-called "personal charisma" of a single leader. While this does keep us from taking advantage of "snap of the moment" incidents and grinding out the publicity mileage from them that the Linux camp is so good at doing, it is actually one of the movement's strengths. With Linux, they are so bent on Torvalds and so lockstepped with the road that he has laid out for them, that now even if they all wanted to change direction they can't, they are stuck on that path. With BSD, the movement has many different strategies operating at once and this gives us a resiliance that Linux doesen't have. Consider also that Microsoft is used to fighting a massive organization, they are specialists at it. I kind of think that someone at Microsoft sat down one day and looked at BSD and at Linux and asked the question: "We are opposed to both of what these groups are doing and ultimately we are going to come to blows with them if we both keep doing what we are doing. Can we successfully beat either of these groups?" I think the answer was that "we can beat Linux if we want to, we know how to beat that kind of organization. But, we cannot fight the wind in the fields, and if we attempt to fight BSD we will end up like the US Government did in Vietnam, we will spend millions of dollars and thousands of productive hours doing it and end up not making any difference" So, they decided if you can't beat them, join them. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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