Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 22:03:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Alex Belits <abelits@phobos.illtel.denver.co.us> To: jbryant@tfs.net Cc: dennis <dennis@etinc.com>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Commercial vendors registry Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.95.970413203337.6395A-100000@phobos.illtel.denver.co.us> In-Reply-To: <199704140313.WAA07958@argus>
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On Sun, 13 Apr 1997, Jim Bryant wrote: > This is exactly the kind of bs discussion that has kept US from going > out and getting commercial support for FreeBSD... > > Case in point... Lin[s]ux... Ten-Twenty different versions, bad > networking, even worse VM... Vendors love it!! Why? Hmmmm... There are two version of Linux kernel and two of libc (one of them is threads-safe but still considered as beta -- does ring any bells?). If you count them like you count FreeBSD versions (ever-changing 2.2.x-RELEASE as one version), it will be the same as what FreeBSD has now. And sure, Linux had bad networking in 1.2.x. Vendors mostly like that at least _some_ support for them is offered (by distributions vendors such as Red Hat -- there is one "distributor" for FreeBSD -- Walnut Creek, but it doesn't really organize or supports anything of that kind). One can hate rms/gnu/fsf but the idea of OS that can be built other way than "make world" and not fall apart instantly, distribution that supports upgrades that could be done by user with minimal knowledge about OS internals and less than T1 to backbone to download upgrades happened to be more attractive for commercial vendors than FreeBSD with its closed-group attitude. Example from "noncommercial" world: the idea of "ports" that don't have to be supported by actual author/maintainer of a program but can include "FreeBSD-specific" patch (most likely to some ancient version) and doomed to instantly become outdated without original author's support vs. Linux users tradition of using author's sources that are definitely supported directly or Red Hat's rpm system that has its flaws but makes it way harder for knowledgeable user to shoot himself in the foot. Both Linux and FreeBSD change fast, although FreeBSD comes in one monolithic distribution, and any attempt to get something fixed throws user into -CURRENT (no pun intended but it seems appropriate) with all its instability and experiments around. If vendors that now support Linux had to switch to 2.1.x kernel just to keep with library changes I believe, they had used OpenNT by now. > Maybe it's because people have gone out and and said to h*ll with all > this bs counting the number of angels one can paint on the head of a > pin [read that as philosophical bs discussions] and wrote books for > Lin[s]ux, made it available at the local store on CD-ROM, plastered > the magazines for it, invented magazines for it, and got the attention > of the vendors enough that they develop for it... Linux is more available for users, and a lot of its users have no clue, how to use it. But the same can be said about Solaris or any other more or less popular system (I'm not mentioning MS products because they have nothing but propaganda behind -- they are bound to be the realm of lamers and marketdroids). Is it good or bad? Obvious answer -- both, but it helps to get it noticed by commercial vendors and definitely is better than attitude "If you can't read and patch manually kernel sources, switch to Windows 95". > I have ran FreeBSD since 1.1.5.1, and still say it is the best > available on PC's... Yes it is work in progress... The only > program/operating system that is not work in progress is the one that > just got degaussed... FreeBSD developers had valid reason to see their OS superior to Linux when FreeBSD had BSD 4.4 development behind and Linux had early Linus' kernel and patched-so-it-won't-break-instantly glibc 1.x. The situation changed quite a bit since then, and dismissing Linux as "lamers' OS" just because it's popular among larger number of people than number of ones that could understand it, is ridiculous. It's possible to argue that FreeBSD is "more unixy" or "more consistent", but then look at what Sun does or what OSF-X/Open-OpenGroup considers "unixy" and "consistent", and you'll see that there are worse things than Linux. > I sure as h*ll don't hear no fat lady singing the demise of FreeBSD... FreeBSD technically is a nice OS. Organization of its development and distribution looks umm... unhealthy. > Who here has seen "The Life of Brian"? This topic sounds like a > meeting of the People's Front of Judea [officials]! But you keep > talking like this, you may as well be the the Crack Suicide Squad of > the Judean People's Front!!! The point is, get up off your @sses and > get commercial support, stop talking about it! > > Do you think Bill Gates got where he is today by debating for three > years on whether or not to take action? Bill Gates did nothing but "taking actions". Actually he even didn't write software. His "actions" don't look like ones of honest/decent/good person though and definitely aren't appropriate for free OS support. > Or for that matter, the same > for the lamers using Lin[s]ux!!!! Linux developers (and developers that just supported Linux well) didn't do anything at the "big corporations" scale. They just didn't use the approach "we will make The Distribution, we will port everything around to make sure, it will fit The Distribution, and if we change something, you should take new Distribution and our port, or it will break". Sure, Whistle can afford to deal with that -- they can afford supporting kernel themselves. I can't imagine Star or Applix doing the same thing though. > [dismounting soapbox] > > *note: If you have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention the > People's Front of Judea, or the Judean People's Front, then get up off > your butt and rent "The Life of Brian"!!! Thanks, I have better things to do now... like, writing software, portable between both mentioned platforms and other unices. -- Alex P.S. If anyone cares -- I use both Linux and FreeBSD, do applications development and spend approximately equal amount of time on both, so I'm quite aware of flaws, bugs and concept differences in both systems.
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