From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Apr 12 13:06:09 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA19069 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 12 Apr 1997 13:06:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from etinc.com (et-gw-fr1.etinc.com [204.141.244.98]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA19060 for ; Sat, 12 Apr 1997 13:06:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ntws (ntws.etinc.com [204.141.95.142]) by etinc.com (8.8.3/8.6.9) with SMTP id QAA15867; Sat, 12 Apr 1997 16:10:15 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970412160250.00b1f100@etinc.com> X-Sender: dennis@etinc.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 16:03:00 -0400 To: Terry Lambert From: dennis Subject: Re: Commercial vendors registry Cc: scrappy@hub.org, pgiffuni@fps.biblos.unal.edu.co, hackers@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 12:17 PM 4/12/97 -0700, Terry Lambert wrote: >> >> Then perhaps there is a different reason that commercial vendors >> >> stay away from FreeBSD? >> > >> > Because its a free, non-commercially supported product with nobody >> >to rant and rave at if there is a problem? >> >> Nice excuse, but I doubt it. You get a lot more response ranting at >> the hackers than you do ranting at microsoft or SCO, unless you're >> a REALLY BIG vendor. > >Yeah, if you're *really* big, then they will politely blow you off >instead of impolitely ignoring you. 8-) 8-). > > >> I think it has more to do with: >> >> 1) Its a tiny market due to no promotional effort (ala LINUX) > >#1 on my list of reasons, too. > >> 2) Lack of commitment to stability of key components, particularly networking > > >#2 lack of commitment to an open architecture (modular components >so that dicking with one module won't often damage another -- this >also makes it robust in the the areas your #2 refers to; I think >your #2 is an effect, not a cause...). > >> 3) Most of the key people are running/using/developing under >> -current rather than the releases. How can there be a perceived >> commitment to the releases when so much development time is >> already focused on 3.x? > >OK, you lost me here. > >If I hack on a release, it's no longer a release, it's a -current. >All new work following a release must be, by definition, done against >a -current, not against the release. There's too much "its fixed in -current" or "it'll be in the next release" and not enough commitment to getting fixes and important new feature into the short-term. For example, right now, most of the effort should be in making 2.3 near-perfect (given the imperfections in 2.2.x), not "dicking around" with 3.0 or some future, bug-filled release. > > >> 4) Lack of focus as to what FreeBSD is (jack of all trades, master >> of none) > >What is the Focus for Linux? Linux has the same problem. > >BSDI... OK, they have focus, but they don't seem to be winning because >of it. BSDIs focus is, unfortunately, misguided because they have a caste of clowns marketing it. their latest ads are hurting them... if they think that they're going to break away with IPX gateway technology....an intermediate solution that has big problems. >What is the Focus for SCO? >What is the focus for Windows 95? NT Workstation? NT Server? Something to consider is that if your big enough, you dont have to have a focus because you have enough resources to do everything. People ask why we dont have NT drivers (as I could probably write it it in a week or 2), but we cant focus on unix if we dilute ourselves with dealing with and supporting NT. You end up with a bunch of mediocre products instead on 1 or 2 really good ones. SCO and microsoft are big enough to be general purpose OSs..... Dennis