Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:19:04 -0400 From: Michael Sierchio <kudzu@tenebras.com> To: Sam George <tech@dracoquies.us> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore Message-ID: <CAHu1Y72m%2BvNZmZLA33QDC5PA-ezB0dAN5PX6qPfXERpeA8QKwg@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <4E25C70C.8000308@dracoquies.us> References: <20110717071059.25971662@scorpio> <4E25C70C.8000308@dracoquies.us>
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IMHO what has helped Linux is the existence of commercial distributions with support - Red Hat, SUSE, etc. The only attempts to do this for BSD have been undercapitalized and/or half-hearted. But I find the general premise of the discussion to be - how to say this politely? - stupid. Things that interest me are relevant, things that don't presumably are not, until they are. - Michael (FreeBSD since 2.2.2) On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Sam George <tech@dracoquies.us> wrote: > On 7/17/2011 05:10, Jerry wrote: >> >> While I usually consider Slashdot nothing more than a bunch of >> juveniles ranting against Microsoft; however, I did find this rather >> interesting post this morning. >> >> "Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore" >> >> >> <http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poettering-BSD-I= snt-Relevant-Anymore> >> >> Interestingly enough, a great deal of it is true. It might be >> interesting to know how others feel about it. Obviously, asking that >> question on this forum is like playing against a stacked deck; however, >> it still might prove interesting. > > Having come to BSD from Linux less than a month ago, I find it interestin= g > that the very thing, which Mr. Pottering is encouraging in Linux > development, is what has lead me to search for other options besides Linu= x. > =A0Of late Linux has been loosing the 'plays well with others award'. =A0= First > they cut the .AppleDouble support from the appletalk drivers, then they > refused to let the ReiserFS code into the kernel, and I suppose their lac= k > of implementing ZFS is possibly same motivation (given that they _do_ hav= e > the man power to port the code). > > If they feel that they are an end-all and be-all and don't need to suppor= t > "legacy" systems, obscure hardware, or other ways of doing things, well, > I'll find another way. =A0This thing is about Freedom, if they cut that f= rom > their development plan, then it's time to say farewell. > > Pottering seems to have forgotten, or perhaps he is too young to remember= ? > Linux was a 'toy OS'. =A0And if it's too big a burden to support 'toy OS'= es > then Pottering is no different from the people who worked at the big > companies twenty years ago. > > Getting back to the message I'm replying to, I disagree with mr pottering= 's > basis statements: "If Debian was my project I'd try to focus on making (o= r > keeping) it _professionally relevant_" =A0-- I'll translate this as: If i= t > ain't business and making money, drop it. =A0"...we want to make sure Lin= ux > enters the mainstream all across the board." =A0-- =A0This sounds like de= sktop > systems to me, but there is much more to the world than the shrinking mar= ket > share of the desktop. =A0UNIX was born in the research world as a pet pro= ject > to have fun -- written after hours. =A0BSD continued that journey toward > freedom recoding the parts of UNIX that had been stripped out by > unscrupulous business dealings. =A0Hopefully Linux won't turn out to be a= n > evolutionary miss-step, but... > > If Kerningham and Richie were focused on staying 'professionally relevant= ' > UNIX would never have /existed/, and as its decedents, neither would have > BSD or Linux. =A0Is BSD relevant? =A0Looks like it's /essential/ given th= e > context of the question. > > Live Free. > > Sam George > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.o= rg" >
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