Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 11:28:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu> To: jonahkuo@mail.ttn.com.tw Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: My opinion about freebsd (fwd) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970711170623.4049A-100000@andrsn.stanford.edu> In-Reply-To: <Pine.OS2.3.95.970710234702.30D-100000@warp4>
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> Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 19:07:06 +0800 > From: Jonah Kuo <jonahkuo@mail.ttn.com.tw> > Subject: My opinion about freebsd [...] > Since I can't figure this problem out, I have questions about > freebsd. Is it only a hacker's workbench? Can only the unix gurus play > freebsd well? Does every freebsd user have to learn C language? Is the > threshold too high to common freebsd user? I've wondered about this myself. I attended the San Francisco FreeBSD Users' Group the other night and I think I was the only Real User there, the only person not a computer professional. I installed FreeBSD almost two years ago because someone told me that with a $1500 pc, an Ethernet card, and FreeBSD, I could run a web server. I wanted to do that (I knew about six unix commands at the time) not because I had anything of importance to offer the rest of the world, but because I was curious about just how difficult it would be, about the accessibility of this technology to an ordinary person. Then I began discovering its other capabilities. The implications for communications in places less free than the United States (say, the PRC, or even some of the formerly Communist countries where the transition to free markets and democracy is not necessarily complete or secure) are of course extraordinary, especially if such a system can be installed, configured, and managed by someone who is not a computer professional. Especially someone who doesn't have the advantages I have had, namely easy access to a lot of books and a lot of on-line help. I think of the dissident in the poli sci or even physics depart- ment at some university in one of the outlying provinces in the PRC or North Korea or even Cuba who doesn't really want to advertise that he's trying to figure out how to conceal the origin of the mail he wants to send or even that he's running an operating system (for which he has the source code) that is in itself capable of being an Internet service provider. And I think he (or she) is going to have a difficult time of it. Perhaps especially difficult when the authorities control the infrastructure (e.g., the routers between the origin and the destination. (I wish I knew more about this; I do know that modern censorship of the press and communications is based heavily on control of resources--access to newsprint and paper, for example--rather than "editing", and the infrastructure here is the critical resource.) > I'm not complaining that freebsd is too difficult to learn, in > fact, I like and love it. So do I. And I'm not complaining either. > I just think can we take more care of the silent group and let > more people enjoy the effort that you have made. It seems it's not the usability once installed and configured, it's getting to that point (partly a documentation problem, partly just the inherent complexity of the system). But I notice that many of my friends who run Windows 95 can't configure and manage their own computers (my definition of computer literary) either; they go to someone who presumably can (someone they hire on a hourly basis, or computer services, or whatever) and say something like "I want to be able to send faxes from within WordPerfect from a hotel room in Paris using my credit card, set it up for me." And ISPs provide a lot of hand-holding--explicit web instructions, "we'll_walk_you_through_it" 800 numbers--for their customers. I'm pretty close here to talking myself into a position about which I'm not really enthusiastic--that to run FreeBSD you need to acquire a good deal of the knowledge of a unix professional (including some knowledge of C) and that my hypothetical dissident in the provinces isn't going to make it. Annelise
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