Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 14:19:30 -0500 (EST) From: Alfred Perlstein <bright@rush.net> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> Cc: Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai <asmodai@wxs.nl>, Kris Kennaway <kkennawa@physics.adelaide.edu.au>, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Some thoughts on advocacy (was: Slashdot ftp.cdrom.com upgrade article) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.990502141012.7628e-100000@cygnus.rush.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9905022238040.7397-100000@theory1.physics.iisc.ernet.in>
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On Sun, 2 May 1999, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > > There's an article about the recent upgrade of ftp.cdrom.com on Slashdot > > > at http://slashdot.org/articles/99/05/01/0630216.shtml - interesting > > > > Yeah, there are a number of people who are willing to try FreeBSD for their > > own high powered servers. > > > > That's a Good Thing(tm) IMHO =) > > I'm new on this list, and have only used FreeBSD for around 3 > months. I was and still am a heavy linux user, but I am very > impressed by FreeBSD and do my bit these days to encourage others > to try it out. (I'm an ordinary user, not a hacker, though I do > some administration.) Welcome aboard. > The way to get people to try out FreeBSD is to bring out more > such stories, and it seems to me that sites like slashdot and > linuxtoday publish quite a lot of *BSD stuff. The sniping I see > on this list about "linux weenies bashing BSD on Slashdot" seems > quite misplaced -- it's true of both sides and most people > ignore it. Although this list is archived for public viewing, it is a forum for rabid FreeBSD fans such as myself. Things said here should sometimes be taken with quite a grain of salt. > There are two ways you will *not* succeed in converting linux > users: > (a) by bashing linux. Most linux users are perfectly happy with > the stability, usability, performance etc of their systems, and > will not switch merely because linux can't run ftp.cdrom.com -- > they don't need that kind of power anyway. If you tell people > that FreeBSD is a great system, for these reasons, they will > listen. If you merely tell them linux is a lousy system, they > will not -- because they know it isn't. > (b) by bashing the GPL. There was a businessweek article which > observed that the GPL has never really been tested in the courts; > by no means can it be construed as an anti-GPL article (it calls > it "innovative", "effective", etc), but a response on this list > chose to lambast the GPL as "obnoxious" etc, which is quite > uncalled for. Linux users may be persuaded of FreeBSD's > superiority in some things, but if they are asked to choose on > the basis of licence, most of them will stick with linux... > This is not the time to get into a rebuttal of that letter (which > definitely I would call "obnoxious", a term I would use neither > for the GPL nor for any other licence). GPL haters can rm -rf > /usr/src/gnu and try rebuilding their system... (And why are so > many businesses jumping on the "business-unfriendly" Linux/GNU > bandwagon?) GPL + Linux mention == publicity, nuff said... Although I must say that SCO's CEO's blatant flames against Linux & GNU look more like a desperate PR tactic, I hope he falls on his arrogant face. > Of course, this list would express a lot of extreme opinions > which will not make it out into the real world. Unfortunately, > many of them do, and it makes the FreeBSD crowd sound like a > bunch of whining losers -- which, in technical terms, they > definitely are not. Grow up, advocates. http://www.jwz.org/why-cooperation-with-rms-is-impossible.au *shudder* -Alfred To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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