Date: Thu, 07 Mar 1996 02:48:57 -0800 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: Greg Lehey <lehey.pad@sni.de> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org (Hackers; FreeBSD) Subject: Re: Comparing FreeBSD and other OSs Message-ID: <13399.826195737@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 07 Mar 1996 10:29:50 %2B0700." <199603070933.KAA18914@nixpbe.pdb.sni.de>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> answer is "none, DOS", but in some cases people really do care. We > should be able to help them come to a good decision--*not* necessarily > FreeBSD. I agree that this should also be a goal, though we shouldn't forget that PR is the primary purpose here. If we shine at something in particular, we should note it without necessarily feeling obligated to "sell" features of the other systems with the same zeal. Maybe once the Linux people start hyping FreeBSD I'll change my tune, but not yet.. :-) > us to want to make a choice by ourselves. I think we should at least > contact the other groups (yes, even Microsoft) and for a group to hack > up some criteria for comparing the systems. Possibly a magazine would If you think you have a good chance of even getting these other groups to return our phone calls, I dunno. I can't imagine any exercise as frustrating and ultimately pointless as trying to find the appropriate person inside of Microsoft, explain what it is we're trying to do and try to get them to participate in the test selection. Woo doggies. I think I could just whap my head against an iron post outside for an hour and achieve the same effect with less pain. To be frank, if someone else would like to make approaches to the likes of Microsoft, SCO and Sun, they're more than welcome to be my guest. If they actually succeed in getting some real buy-in from those folks, I'll be the first to propose them for sainthood, then ask them if they'd like to go into business with me since they're clearly the most awesome salesperson to walk the planet since Dale Carnegie and we could make a killing selling snow to the state of Alaska! :-) > That brings us to the next point: what criteria? I don't even know > how to start, but here are some things that spring to mind: Again, please bear in mind that this is a sales job first and foremost; it doesn't have to be the most comprehensive survey to hit the planet, nor would many people even bother to read it if it were. I'm sorry if I'm sounding more like Bill Gates and less like an engineer here, but truly - most people, and I'm not talking about 99% of the engineers on this list who have already stepped away from the herd simply by subscribing to it, don't WANT to wade through reams of comparison data and make the kind of truly informed choice that an engineer would respect. They want to be told which is "better" so that they can race straight through the selection process or reaffirm that their original choice was the best one. As I believe Justice Renquist is credited with saying, "What most people call thinking is simply rearranging their prejudices." That's not to say that this shouldn't be a perfectly credible attempt to compare the OSes, and certainly some level of ethical and "journalistic" standards will need to be maintained just to prevent the entire thing from being dismissed out of hand as 100% hype, but let's not let our engineering impulses get the best of us. If we had any actual marketers, this would be more properly their job. This is why I think that expanding the purview to cover all UNIX operating systems is a big mistake. Not only does it increase the complexity of the survey so much that it will never be completed in any of our lifetimes, it's not even germain. We're comparing, at least I originally sought to compare, the FREE operating systems (and sorry Dennis, but I mean free in the context of money changing hands, not the number of hours it takes to come to grips with it) and this is not and should not be a general UNIX critique. Such would be the fodder of at least one USENIX presentation and possibly an entire SAGE conference. Let's Keep It Simple and try to actually complete this in a reasonable time-frame. Jordan
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?13399.826195737>