Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1999 20:15:44 -0600 (CST) From: Jay Nelson <noslenj@swbell.net> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: greyheart@fnmail.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Bull (Was: Re: Open Source isolated...) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9911211937470.2199-100000@acp.swbell.net> In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.19991121181653.04721360@localhost>
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On Sun, 21 Nov 1999, Brett Glass wrote:
>At 04:48 PM 11/21/1999 -0600, Jay Nelson wrote:
>
>>Has anyone considered that now might be the time to stop associating
>>ourselves with the open source "movement" -- or any movement, for that
>>matter, and simply present ourselves as a viable peer of the
>>commercial operating systems?
>
>BSD was around before there was anything called the "open source
>movement," and will continue to be around once the fad passes.
That is an important point -- and worthy of advocacy. BSD defined the
internet. I don't know of _any_ commercial OS that doesn't use the
technology defined and developed in the BSD distributions. (Mind you
-- I'm not quit willing to concede that anything out of Redmond
qualifies as an OS;)
>However, it still pays to emphasize the value that's inherent
>in the fact that the source IS open.
That's an additional cookie -- not the meal. I think most commercial
OS vendors already realize the benifit of the BSD distributions. They
may not realize that the tradtion continues, even though UC closed it
down.
>>Presenting ourselves as the production
>>refinement of the research that finished in the 80's at Berkley seems
>>a much better (and salable) spin than presenting ourselves as 'more
>>open' than Linux
The biggest problem I've seen out in the world is that most people
think that BSD is gone -- history. They don't realize that it's quite
alive and well. They think Linux is the only inexpensive OS available.
When they learn that BSD is alive and well -- and all the familiar
tools work like the commercial OSs, they have a tendency to pay
attention. They are not enamored of a free "Unix like OS" as much as
they are interested in a real OS they can load and go without either
purchasing hassles or big bucks out of pocket.
>Both are important. It's especially important to stress the advantages
>of BSD to embedded systems developers.
The embedded developers also fall into the catagory of "didn't know it
was alive." To be fair, they have a different set of values, and a
full blown OS doesn't generally meet their needs. They would rather
have Unix, but they are still conditioned to fitting an OS in 32K or
less.
>>or squabbling over licensing and the desktop.
>
>It doesn't pay to "squabble;" however, it is important to point out
>the trap that's built into GPLed software. This is a distinguishing
>factor whose value will grow with time.
The corporations have plenty of legal maggots who will point out the
pitfalls of the GPL. The point, though is important -- just not the
selling point.
>As for the desktop: BSD can and should offer solutions for it, as
>any OS should. Remember: people want to use the same OS on the
>client and on the server. If you do only one, you won't present
>good value to the user.
I disagree. If that were so, Solaris, AIX and HPUX would have failed.
Instead, they dominate the commercial server world. Most professonals
I've run into make a strong distinction between the "workstaton" and
the server. On the workstation, they are stuck with Groupwise or
Outlook -- they don't expect much. They get paged in the middle of the
night, though, if the server goes down.
The problem is making all these people realize that they can have on
their desktop what they have in the server room. M$ is trying to
convince them that they can have in the server room what they have on
the desktop -- and most aren't buying it.
My humble opinion (and send the holy flames to hell;) is that, if you
want a desktop, focus on OpenLook -- since it is the _most_ familiar
in the Unix world behind CDE. CDE is licensed, so not an option --
OpenLook is the window manager we can use that is most familiar to
professionals. Most experienced Solaris admins that I've run into seem
to gravitate to OpenLook as opposed to CDE. ('Course -- maybe they're
ex SunOS folks -- never checked.)
Needless to say, I think we should be catering to professonals rather
than the Maudie Fricks of the world. Our strength is in the production
end -- not the desktop.
Only my humble opinion.
-- Jay
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