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Date:      Sat, 19 Apr 1997 11:27:39 +0930 (CST)
From:      Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
To:        dennis@etinc.com (dennis)
Cc:        nate@mt.sri.com, jkh@time.cdrom.com, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Price of FreeBSD (was On Holy Wars...)
Message-ID:  <199704190157.LAA28991@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19970418121536.00b52b60@etinc.com> from dennis at "Apr 18, 97 12:15:38 pm"

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dennis stands accused of saying:
> 
> Freebsd is *not* a commercial company and there is no benefit to secrecy.
> Why does a "free" OS have secrets? And this is not about fixing bugs,
> believe me I understand about bugs, its about having to reengineer
> freebsd based systems every couple of months.....

Dennis, you really shouldn't mix hallucinogenics and the X-Files; it
makes dealing with reality _very_ difficult.

 - There are no secrets.  If there was something that you felt you
   needed to know, the people that know it are accesible and publically
   named, and the source is there for you to examine.

 - What makes you think that any sort of "reengineering" is required?
   The fact that development continues doesn't suddenly obsolete older
   code.  It doesn't sort of shrivel up or anything...

> I'm just getting tired of getting hit in the nuts for not supporting
> -current....the fact that the release is out of date a week after its
> out is a very bad thing and really needs to change...

What crap is this?  Most operating systems are out of date when
they're frozen six months before public release; you're bitching about
what is a _fact_of_life_.

If your gripe is that customers are coming to you complaining that
you're not supporting -current, sit them down and explain to them in
short words that FreeBSD is _not_ Linux; it is not _necessary_ to be
running the highest-numbered version of _anything_, and if they have
half a brain they will be following a release-derived -stable thread,
which is maintained with exactly your situation in mind; bugfixes,
stability, maintenance in general.

> Dennis

-- 
]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer        msmith@gsoft.com.au             [[
]] Genesis Software                     genesis@gsoft.com.au            [[
]] High-speed data acquisition and      (GSM mobile)     0411-222-496   [[
]] realtime instrument control.         (ph)          +61-8-8267-3493   [[
]] Unix hardware collector.             "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick  [[



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