Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 17:36:27 -0500 From: "Steve Friedrich" <SteveFriedrich@Hot-Shot.com> To: "Keith Woodman" <keith@lightningweb.com> Cc: "freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG" <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Boot disk Message-ID: <199812152239.RAA28663@laker.net>
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On Tue, 15 Dec 1998 17:08:07 -0500, Steve Friedrich wrote: >>My name is not " hey buddy " . This is my second post, and I don't want to look like I'm picking on you, but I wanted to respond to this in my original reply, but forgot. I don't know why that hit a nerver, but I think it's a *valid* part of Oleg's reply. Let me explain. If I call Mocrosoft's 900 number (and of course, get put on hold for hours), I would expect a more *formal* salutation than this because we (Microsoft and I) have a *business* relationship (I'm a paying customer and that better count for something). But with FreeBSD, especially in terms of support, no such relationship exists. FreeBSD is free. You're not a paying customer (yea, I know you can buy FreeBSD in a book or on CDs and it will cost you real money, but their promise to support you is limited to problems with the media, etc., since you're really only paying for the delivery vehicle and/or the printing). When you seek freebsd support, you are asking the world's population at large. It's very akin to walking into a town square somewhere and asking for someone to give you directions (so you might get a "hey, buddy" in this informal environment). They are not on your payroll, and you have absolutely no right to expect any help whatsoever. They have no vested financial interest (I can probably count on two hands the number of people making money directly from FreeBSD, and they're probably all employees of Walnut Creek, with the noted exception of Greg Lehey, who makes a little money from book sales). There are of course, people making money *with* FreeBSD, as VARs, etc., but they make money from their own customer base and have no financial interest in supporting you, they do it out of grace. They are un-paid volunteers. When you call Red-Hat, you need to pay if you want to *expect* an answer. Otherwise, you must take whatever help people are willing to give for free. Welcome to the world of free software. But if you don't tick people off, you'll get a wealth of answer/responses because these guys *love* this stuff. And they love to share their knowledge. BTW, the installation over the net is *much* longer for me, since I have a 56K modem (which actually connects at around 44-48K). I just leave my machine on overnight, which is on a UPS, and it's done when I wake). Count your blessings with the T3... Steve Friedrich Viva la FreeBSD!! Unix systems measure "uptime" in years, Winblows measures it in minutes. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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