Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 01:13:31 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: <gfoster9055@comcast.net>, "Andrew Lewis" <al@xms.co.za>, <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: FreeBSD 3.2 Message-ID: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNCEDOFAAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <020320051311.28306.4202231C000CB8E600006E922200737478CACACFC79D0A9B9C010009@comcast.net>
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Greg, forgive the top post, If you are a volunteer then you can do what you want - what are they going to do, fire you? Har har. Seriously - from a legal perspective you have absolutely no obligation to follow their restrictions unless of course they were smart enough to have you sign a piece of paper before they let you in the door. No contractual relationship exists between you and them now, you can ignore what they tell you to do with impunity as long as you don't break any civil laws, ie: theft, malicious mischief, etc. All they can do is tell you your not welcome in the door anymore. If nobody at the school knows anything about FreeBSD then they won't know the difference between 3.2 and 4.11. What does this system boot into - a console with a login prompt on it. Do you think 4.11 will be any different? I cannot imagine in any case that this server, as old as it is, is running on any special hardware. I would bet that I have better hardware in my scrap pile in the basement than this server. You probably do too. If you try running 3.2 your just going to set yourself up for failure. My guess is that this is probably what they want. They have this old server in the corner that whomever is in charge of their network hates, that person wants it to crash and burn to have an excuse to get rid of it and spend the money on a nice new Windows box. You are just helping this person out by giving him a breather so he can work on windowizing some other system, once he gets done with that one your FreeBSD 3.2 system will be gone quicker than grapes through a goose. To be perfectly honest you really need to rethink your help. There's probably a dozen other charities in the area that have worse need than this ungrateful school, and would happily let you upgrade to a current FreeBSD version which wouldn't be a nightmare for you to administer. Take it from me I'm an old hand at volunteering. Volunteers bring their talents to an organization because the organization needs their assistance. It's not the other way round. The second the organization stops valuing the volunteer is when they start telling the volunteer that they don't need the volunteer's efforts, and that the volunteer can only stay on if the volunteer does it the organization's way. But what you and the organization appear to be missing is that this kind of a relationship isn't a volunteer relationship - it's an employer/employee relationship. Now I am not saying that all charities out there just wouldn't love to have a raft of volunteers come in that they can boss around and tell exactly what to do. What I am saying is that charities that actually do this generally find quite quickly that they have no volunteers left. About the only ones that can get away with doing it this way are political campaigns, or charities like hospitals that people volunteer for because they want it to look good on a resume or some such. Everyone else, if they want to maintain a raft of volunteers, they cannot play the control freak card, they have to give the volunteers that they get, some leeway. Believe me, there's far more organizations looking for volunteers than volunteers looking for organizations. If you are willing to donate your time, your a valuable commodity - and if this school wants to get the free labor, they can't put these kinds of self-defeating restrictions on your efforts. Ted > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of > gfoster9055@comcast.net > Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:12 AM > To: Andrew Lewis; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: FreeBSD 3.2 > > > Yea, that is in the works, here is alittle more info, the > school that I am working with is moving mostly to winblows, > and they do not have anyone to support the BSD machine or > linux machine that they have. So the nice guy that I am, I am > donating my time to the school to work on the servers and some > of the sites. I got them to let me keep some of the websites > on the BSD server so that I can have better control over the > sites and software. But updating is out of the question at the > momment because of policy and budget so I have to work with > what I have at the momment. Only thing that I can do is add > software at this time. That is why I need the info for FreeBSD 3.2 > > Greg > > > > On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:28:56 +0000 > > gfoster9055@comcast.net wrote: > > > > > At this momment I am not allowed to up date from FreeBSD > 3.2 to > another > > version, this machine sits at a school and there policies are > slow > > > > Time to suggest a change of policy. ;) > > > > Suggest that they need to keep the server current; that you > need to do a full > > upgrade on another drive; pop that drive into the existing > server; resurrect the > > bits you need & keep that installation current! > > > > No-one's going to make you, but long-term this is a more > sensible policy. ;) > > > > -AL. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >
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