Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 13:35:18 -0500 From: Dennis <dennis@etinc.com> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD dead? Well, not in theory... Message-ID: <200003101840.NAA12885@etinc.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.10003101221280.8530-100000@bsd1.nyct.net> References: <200003101712.MAA12621@etinc.com>
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At 12:34 PM 3/10/00 -0500, you wrote: > >> >What are their alternatives? Think about how the world is waking up to >> >Open Source. Think about how companies are realizing that a small group >> >of paid engineers simply can't keep up with a world-wide organization of >> >contributors. What would you do if you didn't feel you could keep up? Open Source is a lot of bunk. People want stuff that works. Linux is growing in popularity because since 2.2 came out it actually works well. Linux had the marketing in place and they are soaring. We sell 10 to 1 linux now. I was getting bloodied pushing FreeBSD. Its like selling tax custs to poor people. Its bad politics, no matter how right it is. the people buying linux servers from VAR research and the like dont care about source, they care about functinality. Thats why BSDI doesnt get it. its not about the source, its about the price. People perceive that BSD/OS and FreeBSD are substantially similar in functionalty, and freebsd is free. The source is only important to a tiny, tiny portion of the market. The hackers list is not the market...corporate america is the market. We all have source to the eepro driver but if DG doesnt fix it it doesnt get fixed. I'll take a driver that works anyday over the option to fix it myself. and so will most commercial entities. >> >> They dont have to keep up. They just have to add some bells and whistles >> and package it (ala RedHat), which is probably what BSDI plans to do. They >> just want to get in on the Open Source Mania....they see RedHat drawing all >> that money with no real product....... > >Red Hat contributes more than "bells and whistles" to Linux. They also >pay many developers to work on Linux fulltime. They are certainly not >Linux in it's entirety, but I see no reason to demean what they do. Im not demeaning it. But they have no product. Anyone can take what they've done and steal it, so as a company they have no security. Their support is meaningless (I've never gotten a response to any question,and I did purchase the full boxed product)....its all hoopla. Good marketing. Great marketing. But they dont have any assets. They made it easier to load, which launched linux, but there are now scads of competitors and there will be more. >> BSDI is a very poorly run company and the principals are the same. They >> have good engineers and terrible management. They've completely missed the >> boat all along, they have been trying to compete with Microsoft instead of >> Linux, which is a terrible mistake. ..I dont see any change that will make >> things any different. Their new CEO is an old world guy who's been there a >> long time...he's not an internet guy and not likely to do anything >> spectacular. Hes been their director of marketing through their market >> share freefall, so why will he do better as CEO? > >I think that FreeBSD has hurt them far more than Linux has. People who are >in the BSD arena have probably already dismissed Linux for whatever >reasons, and when their choices are FreeBSD or BSD/OS.. The "strategy" is not to sell to existing BSD-heads. Its to create incremental business. BSDI doesnt do all that advertsiing just to appeal to existing die hards. They are trying to get people to use their product instead of NT. Instead of Linux. The existing BSD market is too small. They have failed to convince the world that BSD is the answer. Outside of the US. linux is totally dominant. Although in the BSD arena you are right. I told the DOM of BSDI at a show that their decision to support our competitors card in their OS and shun everyone else cost them hundreds of sales a year, because all the BSD/OS people just switched to FreeBSD. They still dont get it. Whats really funny is that while I was in the booth, 3 people came up and asked if they had FreeBSD. They were noticably annoyed. DB To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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