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To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
cc: Jonathan Lemon <jlemon@americantv.com>, jkb <jkb@best.com>,
        Andreas Klemm <andreas@klemm.gtn.com>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Linux vs. the rest of the world, poor OS comparison on web page 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 14 Oct 1997 11:25:28 +0930."
             <19971014112528.09598@lemis.com> 
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 23:41:55 -0700
Message-ID: <20988.876811315@time.cdrom.com>
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
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> Why not give this guy the benefit of the doubt?  I'll send him the
> comparison that I plan to print in "The Complete FreeBSD", and offer
> to investigate the grey areas, like driver support.

Well, as others have already noted, there is a clear and obvious
attempt to inflate Linux with this.  Let me give you some
examples:

	1. It makes a big thing of Linux's cross-platform abilities
	   but conveniently doesn't mention NetBSD at all.

	2. It refers to FreeBSD as a "low end server OS" which is about
	   as bogus as it gets.

	3. It pads out each Linux description with things like "can be
	   an IP gateway!" and extolls other such pan-OS features only
	   in the Linux column, as if it was the only OS to offer such
	   things.

I'm sorry, but this is simply an example of the highly biased and
carefully picked "yes/no" lists you typically see in advertising
comparisons.  It has no objective value that I can see.

> Question to all, particularly jkh:  This guy claims 6,000,000 users of
> Linux, obviously a very optimistic figure.  If we're optimistic, how
> high could we push the number of FreeBSD users without leaving the
> realms of reality?

Considering that the 6M figure has already left the realm of reality
far, far behind, I guess we could say that we had 3 million users with
equal justification.  It wouldn't change the fact that it was utterly
false, of course, but if you're trying to compete on an equal footing,
well... :-)

					Jordan