From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Mar 19 14: 7:42 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mail.HiWAAY.net (fly.HiWAAY.net [208.147.154.56]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 498BD15794 for ; Fri, 19 Mar 1999 14:07:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from sprice@hiwaay.net) Received: from localhost (sprice@localhost) by mail.HiWAAY.net (8.9.1a/8.9.0) with SMTP id QAA18283; Fri, 19 Mar 1999 16:06:57 -0600 (CST) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 16:06:57 -0600 (CST) From: Steve Price To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Linux emulation != FreeBSD sale (was Re: Netscape browser) In-Reply-To: <52250.921876798@zippy.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, 19 Mar 1999, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: # > Try as I might I can't get Netscape to record anywhere that # > I'm downloading a copy of the Linux version only to run it on # > a FreeBSD box. This is very bad! I download the Linux version. # # I'm afraid that this is something of a red-herring argument, albeit # probably unintentionally. To explain why, let's examine the process # which goes on behind the scenes in producing something like the # Netscape directory server product and how you, the user, fit into all # of this: [pragmatism elided] Definitely unintentional. Their biggest issue was not in doing the port. It only took a couple of weeks to do the Linux port according to one of the developers that I spoke to. It is the maintenance costs associated with having to support another port. How does one go about combatting this type of logic? Logic that as a developer myself I have a hard time refuting. Having an emulator that allows me to use a Linux binary works for me, but to others within my organization, emulation is not an option when they can use it on the real deal. They don't seem to care about having a more robust platform on which to run it. The patented answer is that "Linux is happening" so we are going to use that. To which I respond, "NT is happening too, but you are wanting to move away from it. Now that we have the freedom to choose let's evaulate our alternatives and pick what works best for us." I can't seem to win for losing. In fact, just today a person came into my office and wanted to ask Dr. Linux (which is what my company has labeled me since I am the biggest free OS advocate here and they believe free OS == Linux) a question. With my skin crawling, I smiled, answered their question, and sent them on their merry way. I'm about two shakes of a gnat's *ss away from announcing my discovery of a new distribution, BSD/Linux, to see how far that flies before they catch on. :) The same people who told me a year ago I was nuts for mentioning wanting to use free software have now come full circle and want to do everything with Linux. In their minds Linux == free software. :( -steve To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message