Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 20:39:34 -0800 From: gummibear@we.mediaone.net To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Time for FreeBSD.COM (freebsd.inc?) Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19990128203934.006b0360@we.mediaone.net> In-Reply-To: <199809281431.KAA18704@shell.monmouth.com>
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At 10:31 AM 9/28/98 -0400, Bill/Carolyn Pechter wrote: >Is it now time for FreeBSD Inc.? > >Slashdot has a story about Intel and Netscape investing in the Red Hat >Linux operation... according to ZDNET! > >http://www.slashdot.org/articles/98/09/25/2150250.shtml >which points to: >http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_display/0,4436,2142107,00.html > >Just an opinion -- not a flame: > >Perhaps some enterprising type will finally come up with a commercially >supported FreeBSD in the near future. I'm not sure if it's something >Walnut Creek will back, or some group of folks who resell FreeBSD >based products in some kind of joint funding or consortium. There's a nice old saying: It takes money to make money. Maybe we're all poor? I know I am, or else I would do some *BSD.com deal where I'd offer a FreeBSD based product with more bells and whistles. I guess if there were a kewl corporate name that we could use instead of {Free}BSD. Maybe to corporate types the "Free" gives the impression of "you'd might get a better product if you had spent thousands on it". So basically we just hide the "Free" part and charge a resonable price for the software and service. Maybe if the whole *BSD groups would join together to figure out a way to make a BSD certification deal where people can be certified in BSD system administration. That way corporate people might think that we know our stuff because we have a "certificate". Anyways, the *BSD guru's can come up with a "test" that people could take and if they pass it then they can get a cirtificate. But this would all have to be pretty ligitimate so that corporations can put trust into it. I think that a Certified product would have a better chance of selling. (but that's my opinion) > >We've got the better software, but are losing both the mindshare and >investments that we could be getting. Imagine both Intel and Netscape >dropping some $$ into FreeBSD and FreeBSD versions of their products. You want money dropped into FreeBSD? I was thinking about this the other day. I figured that in politics people sign petitions aksing for some sort of action to occur concerning a certain issue. Well, my idea is that people in the *BSD community should figure out a way to get people to maybe sign (electronically) a petition via the web(name and email address) and then email these petitions to Oracle, Corel, Intel, Amd, Cyrix, Microsuck, Adaptec, 3Com, Cyclades, Cisco, etc. Maybe if they see thousands of names on these petitions, then they'd add more BSD support if we purchase and/or promote their products. Although, I do believe that there should be more cooperation between the OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, and BSDi teams to create a product that is fully binary compatible with each other and stuff like that. Perhaps the big-wig corporations prefer Linux because (ideally) a binary for Redhat would work on Debian or Slackware or whatever Linux based OS. But of course, they'd probably be needing the correct glibc versions and all that crap. Maybe the big-wig corporations would rather see only *one* "free" BSD product where they can take and mold into what they want, but that would probably take all 3 of the "free" BSD teams merging into one - but I don't think that would happen. It might be a matter of "survival of the fitest" when it comes to the "free" BSD versions, and just wait to see which of the 3 gets the coroprate approval. > >(Hell, I'd even be willing to see Microsoft invest in FreeBSD's future in >enterprise sites, and growth and applications...) Only problem is that Bill Gates might break the operating system, then we'd have to fix it. > >Anyone going to be at ISPcon San Jose to see this? I'd love to be there, but I can't. :( Well, it's hard to tell what the hell corporate America (or the rest of the planet for that matter) really wants. FreeBSD seems to be better than Linux, but it really seems as though that they're going for the Linux name rather a truely stable and easy to administer operating system, because if they did they'd go with FreeBSD. Right? Anyways, those were my 2 cents. I may be completely wrong with my assumptions/prediction/interpretations of what the corporate world is looking for, and what they are looking to invest in. If I'm wrong, please enlighten me on the matter - but do it nicely. :) Thanks. Joey Bear Garcia To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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