Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 02:51:13 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" <dyson@iquest.net> To: opsys@mail.webspan.net (Open Systems Networking) Cc: fbsd@typhoon.co.jp, tlambert@primenet.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Oracle8 Release 8.0.5 for LINUX 2.0.34 Message-ID: <199810310751.CAA04396@dyson.iquest.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.02.9810280437570.11058-100000@orion.webspan.net> from Open Systems Networking at "Oct 28, 98 04:39:05 am"
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Open Systems Networking said: > On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, FreeBSD4Me wrote: > > > Any suggestions on how to ask? I've asked via > > > > http://www.oracle.com/siteadmin/html/contactus.html > > > > whether they have plans to release ANY of their products for FreeBSD. This was > > a few days ago and I have yet to hear from them. > > > Same here, a couple of times, it just goes to a black hole. > I wrote john once to see if he had a name of a better person to email than > some generic contact for oracle as a whole. But no reply so who knows. > I suspect that there will be little to be gained by persuing the issue internally. Oracle is quite aware of FreeBSD, and some of the developers use it regularly. It is an issue of market, and rattling the normal distribution and sales channels is the best approach at this point. It is *amazing* how well respected the free OSes are inside of big companies. It is also interesting to note the high opinion that I hear about (Free,Net)BSD, even with the edge towards FreeBSD much of the time (even though we tend towards NetBSD.) With my involvement in FreeBSD at/near zero, I get more unbiased input from others, still it appears that FreeBSD is well respected. The deal is that the market share and the expected willingness to pay by that market share is probably not high enough. Also, there are issues of credibility in the marketplace. Note that historically in the computer industry, technical excellence is not an indicator of market volume and sucess. It seems that there is some kind of inverse relationship at times in certain circumstances. FreeBSD has inadequate hype, but too much hype "might?" backfire. Since FreeBSD isn't hyped enough (given it's capabilities, reliability and performance), it is far below the level that would cause such backfire. Even with all of FreeBSD's flaws, it isn't that bad (and is in fact very good) for now. The future has to be addressed, and part of the future is associated with marketeering. My guess is that it is desired to keep FreeBSD small enough so that a single entity can keep control of it. It would be a very good idea (if the powers that be at WC) would make a vast marketing and sales pitch of FreeBSD. If WC doesn't want to do it, then someone who is interested in an investment and wants to start a support / distribution / integration business should take it on. FreeBSD seems to be continually running in "slightly starved" mode to keep it frustratingly small. When I need a U**X box, and I don't want to do kernel development on the box, I wouldn't mind spending $200-$400 for a really good and supported OS (maybe with extra commercial packages.) When I was working on FreeBSD, I didn't mind the administrative overhead. Now, I don't even want to think about admin issues, but just want to get work done. (I am not meaning to compare FreeBSD to other OSes, but mean to imply what might be useful to improve FreeBSD for non FreeBSD centric developers.) Sure, FreeBSD is a server OS, but is also a superior desktop, missing only desktop applications. A nice desktop (in the sense of a nice userland development machine config -- not in the sense of "X" desktop) will lower the threshold for developers. I had kept hearing of a FreeBSD-gold, and it is still non-existant... Where is it? Developers do like to have wordprocessing on their machines, and yes, they can buy it today. However, buying it as a pre assembled and installed package makes it much nicer. (If it isn't pre-installed, at least make the default installation perform the OS, Xwindows and commercial application installs automatically.) The project needs to be energized, and IMO, it is important to realize that other projects are not standing still, and are moving fairly quickly. Note that I don't think that other projects are moving as quickly as they are being hyped that they are, but they are moving well. I seem to remember "bogoMips???", it seems that they also have another measure "bogoSeats" :-). The hype might backfire, but I don't think so, simply because they have hit critical mass. This (in a way) tells me that the notion of "backfire" could be imaginary. My guess is that Linux has a couple of years to prove itself as a commercial OS before vendors will loose interest. This means that users will really have to fork over big bucks for the high priced packages. All of the talk needs to solidify into action for Linux. I really don't know if it is going to happen, but Linux's success or failure might be extrapolated to a potential future commercially available port for FreeBSD. It would be best for FreeBSD's emulation to continue to outperform the emulated OS -- this will be wonderful for FreeBSD in situations where a software package actually loads the machine. Unfortuately, such an emulation is likely not going to be supported by the big software vendors -- big DB users are going to often want the support of the vendors. FreeBSD is going to have to take action from it's side if it wants quicker growth and a higher profile. It is going to have to decide *to be* a player, but talking about being a player only begs the question of the true decison and commitment. -- John | Never try to teach a pig to sing, dyson@iquest.net | it makes one look stupid jdyson@nc.com | and it irritates the pig. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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