Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 13:36:31 -0500 From: Dennis <dennis@etinc.com> To: hackers@freebsd.org Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD dead? Well, not in theory... Message-ID: <200003111841.NAA17534@etinc.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.10003111306520.14049-100000@bsd1.nyct.net> References: <200003101840.NAA12885@etinc.com>
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mbac@nyct.net writes... >The very fact that source is available means that you can pay any scruffy >unshaven hacker to fix it for you, instead of suffering at the hands and >whims of, say, a FreeBSD "vendor" as you are doing. I would figure that at >least you (of all people) realize that someone else can come in and get it >done, and that you could optionally pay someone to do this. Not realistically. First of all, most "scruffy unshaven hackers" are not qualified to make serious changes to important drivers. they might be able to find a stray pointer, but not to make structural improvement. Stray pointers shouldnt exist in the first place. Plus, you'll want DGs next version (say in 4.0), and you dont want to pay some college drop out $100. an hour to hack it every time a new intel chip comes out. Commercial companies that modify the mainstream stuff (cobalt networks for example, stuck on 2.2.12, working on 2.2.14 and 2.2.15+ comes out) are constantly battling to keep up. You almost HAVE to use the mainstream code. Another point is that Open Source is virtually synonomous with "Totally undocumented". The linux community, years into it, are still totally dependent on Alan Cox to fix drivers properly (mostly because the OS is completely undocumented and changes are made on a whim regularly). D. Becker continues to be the only one that can properly fix the ethernet drivers because they are such a mess and poorly documented. My point was that because of open source you have an unfinished product that never gets finished. The "fix it if you want...you have the source" mentality is not what corporate america wants. they want the opposite. Many of them won't even use open source products without guaranteed support. You are a hacker, you are incapable of understanding. You are like a guy who fixes his own car...but the "world" is the 98% that cant. I dont want a car with a great warranty. I want a car the doesnt need a warranty. The reason that the "free" os's are becoming popular is that, for most functions, they work out of the box with few bugs. BSDI's existing support sucks by the way...There is zero way they can offer better support than the existing "informal" structure that exists. dennis Emerging Technologies, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- http://www.etinc.com ISA and PCI T1/T3/V35/HSSI Cards for FreeBSD and LINUX Multiport T1 and HSSI/T3 UNIX-based Routers Bandwidth Management Standalone Systems Bandwidth Management software for LINUX and FreeBSD To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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