Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 21:27:55 -0800 From: UCTC Sysadmin <ecsd@transbay.net> To: Kevin.McHugh@unisys.com Subject: Regarding partnering with Microsoft in an anti-Unix campaign Message-ID: <3CA9415B.30AA7259@transbay.net>
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I think you folks are pretty squarely shooting yourselves in the foot to attack Unix. The NetBSD/FreeBSD crowd could port their systems to your new high-end server and there would be more sales. As it stands, to lock arms with Microsoft to attack Unix as an operating system is fairly self-evidently silly. It wouldn't much matter if your E9990 could run 128 processors or 4096 processors; if it is running Windows-anything, it's still inferior to Unix. Microsoft has little effective clue about writing operating system software, and I think anyone in the business who has to bring new systems online and maintain them knows this. Going after Sun's Unix business is one thing. Thinking that any campaign to replace Unix with Windows has a chance is some marketing person's dream, but that's all. I'm sorry for Unisys that it has gone public with such an unfortunate alliance. Just today I diagnosed a Windows 2000 Server that had 'corruption' in an 'essential system file'. Microsoft's advice to the client? Reinstall the OS entirely. No way to recover the server thanks to the OS's design, although only a single file was in error. What was the error? Who knows. Not even Microsoft knows! That's what you get with an MS-OS. What a waste of time. We run FreeBSD on all our servers, and we don't have to worry about such things at all. Cost to us for running FreeBSD? $0.00. Complexity, as measured in hours per year spent making the server work, as opposed to doing things with it? A few hours per YEAR. With Microsoft it is many hours per INSTALL, and that doesn't count reboot/patching >production servers< due to the unending flow of BugTraq and CERT alerts (sometimes as many as 2-3 per WEEK) concerning security holes in Windows. I think numbers of staffers at Unisys have to know better. This seems like a big gamble that you'll sell a few more high-end systems. But in the long run, what does it say about an OS that it has to run on an N-processor system to produce performance? Unix on your box would easily outperform Windows by the same 4:1 or better margin that people observe on PCs. I think you should launch a committee to (covertly) try to port a version of BSD to the new machine, since the general anti-Unix campaign is only going to give you a black eye. Were I Unisys I would quietly extricate myself from the partnership and the campaign and hope that not too many people would remember it with distaste, apart from all the rude laughter. I honestly consider the alliance to mean that Unisys sees itself going out of business in a few years. Then of course there's the CNet article about the anti-Unix web site running on Unix. That might be an April Fool's joke, but it's quite credible. The web site would be up and running in 30 minutes starting from nothing. Windows? Hah. I'd never even consider it. Good luck in surviving. As for Unix ... they won't even be able to pry my cold dead fingers from it, whereas you couldn't pay me enough to maintain a Windows server for one month. Well, you could. Suggested minimum fee to put up with their crudware: $1,000,000 per hour of abject hell. -ecsd@transbay.net (Eric Dynamic) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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