Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 14:15:42 -0900 From: Brian Raynes <brian_raynes@dnr.state.ak.us> To: Anthony Atkielski <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Prevalence of FreeBSD and UNIX among servers Message-ID: <3C0D591E.D33C5BD5@dnr.state.ak.us> References: <00ef01c17cda$6b419760$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <3C0D0426.BEC515D7@dnr.state.ak.us> <010001c17cf4$954228d0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <3C0D21CD.7F89C40A@dnr.state.ak.us> <013b01c17d10$cf9c99e0$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
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Anthony Atkielski wrote: > I don't understand all this talk of MCSEs. You shouldn't need an MCSE to run a Windows intranet; if you do, then there's far less > reason not to just go with UNIX. One of the putative advantages of Windows is that it requires no expert care and feeding; the > moment that ceases to be true a huge advantage of Windows over UNIX is lost. MCSE's are paid less than UNIX admins - in my limited experience. And maybe I misspoke, by MCSE's I usually mean Windows admins. Windows is simple to administer, on the surface anyway, but seem to have a number of nasty breakdowns if maintained by part-timers who really have a different job. Any network seems to require occasional expert care. As far as advantages for a server? I believe that Mr. Gowdy is correct, FreeBSD servers will require less expert care, once they are set up. Reference his comments on breaking up little cabals of MCSEs for why this logic seems to escape management. Remember that those who make these decisions rarely understand any of the stuff that differentiates Windows from UNIX, they do what their IT people/consultants tell them to do. And there are a lot more Windows admins (MCSEs) than Unix admins - sad, but true. > > Additionally, even if you have someone running the Windows intranet full time, he doesn't have to be a MCSE. MCSE just means that > he expects you to pay him more for memorizing the answers to questions on a multiple-choice test during a five-day workshop. That extra pay thing usually motivates the Windows admin to get the "credentials", in my experience. Note that I'm not a network admin, but I usually make friends with them. > > It can only get worse. There's no money in free software, by definition, and so no company--no matter what noble claims it might > make--actually intends to give anything away. The goal is always the same: Come up with something you can make people pay for, and > lock them into it. And if you can do that by repackaging something that is 99% the free work of someone else, so much the better. I think the guys at Ximian (Nat Friedman and Miguel de Icaza, specifically) would argue that their products are definitely not 99% someone else's work, but in other non-special cases, I do get your point. > Linux itself (which includes only the kernel, right?) is useless for anything worthwhile, though, so anyone using must usually > acquire additional software somehow. The fact that one component of a product is free software will not prevent companies from > finding a way to charge lots of money for as little as possible and locking customers into their product line. Today's Red Hat is > tomorrow's Microsoft. Redhat, and for that matter Mandrake, have contributed loads of time, money and programmer effort into much of the free software structure on top of Linux. Redhat provided a great deal of the early effort on the GNOME environment, for instance. I was a frequent lurker on the early progress of GNOME, although I later decided that I like KDE better. These companies get bashed quite often, but they are actually responsible for huge progress in many of the free programs linux people enjoy today. Redhat and Mandrake put most of their early work under the GPL. Redhat acquired some companies doing proprietary development, but much of their stuff is still released under the GPL, as far as I know. It just seems that most of it is of little interest to others. > My worry is that the entire concept of free software is inherently unstable and cannot endure forever. As nice as it sounds, it's > just not possible to do things for free, or to get something for nothing. And once you start charging, greed tends to take over, > and it's a slippery slope. Perhaps, but it's rarely that simple. And free software has been around as long as software has, it just may not always be so popular as the last few years, but there will always be those who contribute to it. Not everyone codes for any reason other than to fill their own needs, after that, they may not care if they make a dime off of it and give it away to whomever might find that they have similar needs. I think that principle will keep free software alive for a long time. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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