Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 13:01:43 -0700 From: Giao Nguyen <giao@learnix.com> To: Derek Laufenberg <laufen@wi.net> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Fw: Your Article "Freeware: The Heart & Soul of the Internet" Message-ID: <19980410130143.40104@calweb.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980410135406.274B-100000@chardonnay.vineyard>; from Derek Laufenberg on Fri, Apr 10, 1998 at 02:45:58PM -0500 References: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.980410083442.10264B-100000@federation.addy.com> <Pine.BSF.3.96.980410135406.274B-100000@chardonnay.vineyard>
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Derek Laufenberg said:
>
> Corporations like GE like the warm and fuzzy feeling of having some other
> legal entity which they can blame should a problem occur. The mindset is
The really interesting thing is that if you read the Microsoft license
agreement, the software is sold as-is. No warrantees expressed or implied.
MS isn't responsible for anything that happens when you use their software.
So how legally responsible is it if a MS driven missile range crashes and
hoses the local neighborhood vs. a FreeBSD driven missle range crashes
and hoses all the neighborhoods? Nothing! See, part of the problem is that
no one reads these damn licenses. Being a former contract legalese speaking
pointy-hair-induvidual, I've read through the MS license. And it doesn't
give you jack but the rights to have their intellectual property on your
machines.
> that if support is needed, they can go to the company which sells the OS.
> Even GE has trouble getting useful support form MSFT, but that doesn't
> stop the big public agreements which force the use of only their
> products.
But FreeBSD does have support. Walnut Creek does have support lines for
FreeBSD and Linux. Jordan, correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe we need some
marketing to say "Oh, and by the way, support if available from Walnut
Creek." FreeBSD sells and Walnut Creek picks up the pennies too.
> I did manage to get FreeBSD into one product. It slipped by only because
> it was for a university research program and would have a limited
> distribution. (oh yea, the M$FT solution would have cost $1000 more)
A company I was with used FreeBSD to develop Java code that was eventually
pushed onto the Windows desktop. I loved it. The ultimate irony. I pay
$0 for development tools and sold this project with very little overhead.
> What I think is needed is the following:
> 1) A corporate release version of product with
> - Marketron name
I'm all in favor of a marketron name. Like maybe FreeBSD98. Just kidding!
> - Word, Excel, and Win/NT networking work-a-likes
My pick for this category has always been Applixware. I should point out
that most people will never use a Unix on the desktop so this is a moot
point. I'd like to see more servers, more services, and stupid OS tricks.
> - GUI installed at setup
> (most corporate admins I've worked with can't handle
> XF86config files.)
That's what Xig is for. Select, select, select, run.
> - include many office/user packages as part of the install
> - netscape
> 2) A support company which charges $$$ for support.
> - advertising (maybe with enough of this "FreeBSD" name can stay)
> - (800/900) support number
> - list of corporate users and the products
We have a list of corporate users on www.freebsd.org.
> 3) Stable, predictable releases - Ok, we have this. :)
> 4) GUI admin tools - adduser, backup, DNS for weenies, ...
> (i've seen some talk, but they need to be incorporated like AIX or
> Slowaris)
Not hard. I've got an implementation of adduser running around out
there somewhere. I am *cry* without a FreeBSD boxen these days so I haven't
a thing to develope with. And in that case, the end users would need Motif
or some other nasties.
Now, if only we could deliver the JDK on the CD's. I could whip up a
ava based set of tools in no time. I don't know if the current JDK
license allows Walnut Creek to do this.
> 5) simplified printer setup - GUI
>
> I'm sure there are hundreds of other "needs" others can come up with.
>
> Thanks for letting me vent a bit. I am truely impressed with the quality
> of FreeBSD. It has the potential to be a silver bullet, but it needs
> killer applications - WORD & Excel.
We don't need no silly Word & Excel. We've got sendmail. :)
Giao Nguyen
--
If God had meant you to get it right the first time, He would not have
put "alter table" into SQL.
-- Philip Greenspun, "How to be a Web Whore Just Like Me"
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