Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 18:29:59 +0000 From: Joseph Scott <joseph.scott@owp.csus.edu> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Targeting the server: Not such a good idea? Message-ID: <37FE3827.A45735D8@owp.csus.edu> References: <4.2.0.58.19991008083634.044de740@localhost>
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Brett Glass wrote: > > Yesterday, I was speaking over dinner with a fellow who does MIS for the > government of a large and populous state. I talked to him about my > deployment of Berkeley UNIX at client sites, and happened to mention that, > currently, FreeBSD is being targeted primarily if not exclusively at the > server market. > > He made some interesting points about what happens when one attempts to > position an operating system as being exclusively for use on a server. I > asked him if I could paraphrase his remarks online, and he agreed. Here's > what he said, based on my scribblings. Before I comment on these comments, I believe everyone involved in FreeBSD would love to see FreeBSD be much more comparable to Windows ( support, apps, drivers, etc ) in the desktop world. However being that resources are finite then tough decisions must be made. FreeBSD comes from a strong server background and chose ( I believe correctly ) to play to that strength. That being said it has not totally forgot the desktop market ( that's just not the main focus ). I've been running FreeBSD on my desktop at work ( as well as servers ) and I'm very happy. > > "Targeting the server only is a death wish. Novell tried, and they're being > beaten bloody by NT. Banyan tried -- they even used UNIX -- and never > became popular in the first place even though they were years ahead of > everyone. Microsoft even failed with LAN Manager. FreeBSD will fail at this > too; everyone will go to Linux whether it's better or not. To compare Novell's problems with FreeBSD isn't really 1:1 I believe. As I see it Novell blew it because it took them way too long to switch to IP. Inspite of that fact Novell still has a pretty healthy install base, and most Novell admin.'s would probably tell you they would like to continue to use it, but Novell didn't catch up to the Internet age fast enough. I would think that if you were to launch a large survey to find out from (ex) Novell admins why they switched none of them would mention anything that dealt with desktop issues. > > "The trouble is that no one wants to have separate training, separate > software, separate configuration, or separate experts for the server. An IS person said this? Wow, where did this person go to school, I'll be sure to avoid it. Seriously, having an IS department is a fact of business. I would like to be able to do all my own work when my car breaks down, but that's not always realistic. Now I know there are some things I can do ( replace a battery, starter, etc ) but some things are either beyond me or just aren't worth the time/effort for me to do it myself ( rebuild the engine ). So some issues I fix myself, others go to the shop to be fixed. The same is true of working on computers. 4 or so years ago I worked in an IS department of some 12 people or so. For the most part everyone had there specialty. I did the bulk of the end user PC support, others dealt with phone issues, VMS admin, Unix admin, Promis programmers, etc. No one in that company ever thought twice about having that group of people ( the IS dept ). We made things happen and the rest of the company knew it. > Companies are tired of paying a CNE 'guru' big bucks to fix NetWare and > then keeping a whole separate staff around to support DOS and Windows. And Nothing has changed here. If they are going to have a server OS they will need someone who knows who to keep it going, that's true of NT, VMS, unix, Novell, any NOS will need someone who knows it. If we were expand on this this idea your friend presented then we should see fundamental changes in things like Oracle. Using the idea that people are tired of paying big bucks for people who know what they are doing then everyone will dump Oracle and go to some database that anyone can admin, like say Access for instance. Of course they may have issues with Access, like allowing dozens of systems to access it at the same time, support for transactions, scaling to have hundreds of megabytes of data. Access doesn't really do those things very well, but you would save money by not having to hire those expensive people to come set it up and take care of it :-) So far none of this has proved that pressing support for desktop like features ( training a monkey to use it ) supports your friends argument. > they want their workstations to act like servers: fast, efficient, and rock > solid. They don't want to see these traits limited to the server! The I would disagree here also. If this were the case OS/2 would have 100% of the desktop market. Just because something it more "advanced" doesn't mean that it will win ( see my point about OS/2 ? ). Determining if a product will be successful has other issues besides being the most advanced product. Microsoft has learned this point well, they've done their homework and hire people who know how to do "business", not so much computers. On this point you do have to give Microsoft some credit, because of them and Apple the computer has become more assessable to more and more people. The unix world is racing towards the center to gain ease of use, the windows world is racing towards the center to gain stability ( not unlike politicians racing to the center as the election gets closer ). It remains to be seen who will win. Unix has been making bigger leaps than windows I think, but there really is still quite a bit of distance to go. NT on the other side has a lot of baggage that is making it hard to move towards the center. > operating system that everybody wants will run on everything, maybe with a Now this I agree with. I would love to have an OS that will run everything for me. It remains to be seen if this will ever happen. > few tweaks for what it's doing, and will be reliable, fast, and secure > everywhere. And if you know how to fix the desktop machine, you will be > able to work on the server too. NT would have taken over the world by now > if it weren't so insecure. It took over my organization just because The type of people who only deal with "desktop" systems aren't in jobs to work on "servers", they are there to actually work on company issues, not internal items. It's simply not possible to have one generic type of person and expect them to fill every possible position. I would hate to see what would happen if my work told I now also had to do all of the accounting, I'm afraid my two courses in accounting in college just wouldn't be enough for me to do that job well. The same is true of expecting every desktop user to be able to take managing a "server". Now about this statement about NT taking over and security. This makes me seriously question your friend. All operating systems having security issues. Unix has been around for along time and has spent a lot of time cleaning things up. NT doesn't have as much history, but it to is trying to clean things up. Aside from the debate as to the ability of MS to clean up NT's security issues, the fact is that both NT and unix have had issues. Some argue that NT's default security is crummy ( and I would agree with them ), but on the other side, how many Linux distro's don't have shadow passwords enabled by default? I believe that part of the reason that NT has not taken over in the NOS market is because of security issues, but to blame it entirely on that shows a lack of understanding, IMHO. > Microsoft *promised* that it would run on both the server and the desktop. > The OS graveyard is littered with the bones of OSes that wanted to be > server-only. If FreeBSD is going to make itself look like it's only for > servers, the same thing will happen to it." This may or may not be true, but mice show up when I leave food out, but I can't create mice by leaving food out. I don't believe that the arguments of your friend point to anything that could be considered constructive. Having said that I believe there are some very valid arguments for increased desktop support, it's just that your friend didn't come up with any of them. In all fairness I believe that the reason your friend see's things this way is because of his experiences and issues. From his point of view the items he brings up may be very true, however my experiences have obviously been very different than his. -- Joseph Scott joseph.scott@owp.csus.edu Office Of Water Programs - CSU Sacramento To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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