Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 11:02:30 -0500 From: "Pedro Fernando Giffuni" <pfgiffun@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Targeting the server: Not such a good idea? Message-ID: <37FE1596.ACDA5DEE@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> References: <4.2.0.58.19991008083634.044de740@localhost>
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We have good people, and they are working on what they do best. If we
wanted to do intensive client side work, then we would have to find
*other* people to do it because AFAIK our hands are full.
Throwing away money and resources to the client is a nonsense. Have you
installed linux on a laptop? Do you really think that other platforms
(Redhat, for example) with much more resources than we have will
actually displace M$ ? If this happens, which I sincerely doubt, it will
be in many years. Unix is not meant for simple minded users.
OTOH, all the efforts that RH and other companies are doing to improve X
translate directly to us. We have the opportunity to see how they fall
(GGI for example) and redo things better .
Quite honestly Brett, I think you could better try to convince Corel,
Oracle, IBM, and SGI that FreeBSD is the way to go for their server
products. There's nothing that people on this list can do to improve our
client positioning.
cheers,
Pedro.
Brett Glass wrote:
>
> Yesterday, I was speaking over dinner with a fellow who does MIS for the
> government of a large and populous state. I talked to him about my
> deployment of Berkeley UNIX at client sites, and happened to mention that,
> currently, FreeBSD is being targeted primarily if not exclusively at the
> server market.
>
> He made some interesting points about what happens when one attempts to
> position an operating system as being exclusively for use on a server. I
> asked him if I could paraphrase his remarks online, and he agreed. Here's
> what he said, based on my scribblings.
>
> "Targeting the server only is a death wish. Novell tried, and they're being
> beaten bloody by NT. Banyan tried -- they even used UNIX -- and never
> became popular in the first place even though they were years ahead of
> everyone. Microsoft even failed with LAN Manager. FreeBSD will fail at this
> too; everyone will go to Linux whether it's better or not.
>
> "The trouble is that no one wants to have separate training, separate
> software, separate configuration, or separate experts for the server.
> Companies are tired of paying a CNE 'guru' big bucks to fix NetWare and
> then keeping a whole separate staff around to support DOS and Windows. And
> they want their workstations to act like servers: fast, efficient, and rock
> solid. They don't want to see these traits limited to the server! The
> operating system that everybody wants will run on everything, maybe with a
> few tweaks for what it's doing, and will be reliable, fast, and secure
> everywhere. And if you know how to fix the desktop machine, you will be
> able to work on the server too. NT would have taken over the world by now
> if it weren't so insecure. It took over my organization just because
> Microsoft *promised* that it would run on both the server and the desktop.
> The OS graveyard is littered with the bones of OSes that wanted to be
> server-only. If FreeBSD is going to make itself look like it's only for
> servers, the same thing will happen to it."
>
> Comments?
>
> --Brett
>
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