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Date: Fri, 8 Nov 1996 10:00:32 -0600
From: dubois@primate.wisc.edu (Paul DuBois)
To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Cc: stable@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: The curtain is going down on 2.1-stable in 5 days!
In-Reply-To: <10472.847447745@time.cdrom.com>; from Jordan K. Hubbard on Nov 8, 1996 02:09:05 -0800
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Jordan K. Hubbard writes:
> In case of problems encountered which cannot be attributed to pilot
> error, please contact me as soon as possible.  Let's test the heck out
> of this and make 2.1.6 the kind of release that we'd be pleased to
> recommend for commercial use for some time to come!

What does it mean to recommend it "for commercial use"?  I ask because
it seems the FreeBSD project has somewhat conflicting goals.  Let me
illustrate using the yes-I-know-it's-a-sore-point illustration of IDE
CD drives.

I would expect that "for commericial use" means suitable for people to
*use*, not hack on.  That means when someone buys a CD-ROM set and then
points out on one of the mailing lists that the installation fails to
find his drive, it's not legitimate for the developers to respond (as
they frequently do):

1) "Oh yeah!?!  Why don't YOU fix the driver, then!"
or
2) "Get a SCSI CD drive."

These are not reasonable responses if the goal is for FreeBSD to be
a system for *use*.  A user wants to install FreeBSD and use it, not
mess around hacking it, or working on development for it.  Or having
to ditch the kind of CD that increasingly is being shipped in today's
systems.

I understand that most of the developers have SCSI devices.  I also
understand that it's probably a bore to work on making IDE drivers
work properly, especially given what an abominate the IDE standard
apparently is.  Still, letting this long-standing problem continue to
go unresolved really doesn't help the goal of positioning an OS for
commercial use.

Note that I'm not complaining here (even though I have an IDE CD that
the install has problems with).  I'm simply commenting on what seems to
be a contradictory goals: developer's paradise vs. user's system.  I
hope the point is clear enough and that no flame war will ensue.

-- 
Paul DuBois
dubois@primate.wisc.edu
Home page: http://www.primate.wisc.edu/people/dubois
 Software: http://www.primate.wisc.edu/software