From owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Mar 29 12:46:46 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B732D16A4CF for ; Mon, 29 Mar 2004 12:46:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from zeus.acuson.com (ac17860.acuson.com [157.226.71.80]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F01F43D1F for ; Mon, 29 Mar 2004 12:46:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from DavidJohnson@Siemens.com) Received: from mvaexch02.acuson.com ([157.226.230.209]:3982) by zeus.acuson.com with esmtp (Exim 4.14) id 1B83eH-000186-4v; Mon, 29 Mar 2004 12:46:21 -0800 Received: by mvaexch02.acuson.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2657.72) id ; Mon, 29 Mar 2004 12:36:52 -0800 Received: from dhcp-46-107.acuson.com ([157.226.46.107]) by mvaexch01.acuson.com with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2657.72) id HX2W301Y; Mon, 29 Mar 2004 12:35:34 -0800 From: Johnson David To: Adam Turoff Organization: Siemens Medical Systems Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 12:44:19 -0800 User-Agent: KMail/1.6.1 References: <200403290441.i2T4fscK023387@cimbali.dssrg.curtin.edu.au> <200403291028.01102.DavidJohnson@Siemens.com> <20040329203016.GA4496@panix.com> In-Reply-To: <20040329203016.GA4496@panix.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200403291244.19599.DavidJohnson@Siemens.com> X-Scanner: exiscan for exim4 (http://duncanthrax.net/exiscan/) *1B83eH-000186-4v*/BUgX25vcZE* cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Mainframe support X-BeenThere: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: FreeBSD Evangelism List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 20:46:46 -0000 On Monday 29 March 2004 12:30 pm, Adam Turoff wrote: > So while IBM's VM per se may only be interesting to the Fortune 500, > virtualization is gaining traction, especially at the low end of the > spectrum. ISPs for example have been offering accounts on virtual > machines for a few years now. I wouldn't be surprised to see shops > that used to buy vanilla boxes in groups of 4 to soon start buying > boxes one one by one, adding a few GB of RAM and at least 1 TB of > disk, and partitioning them on demand. I don't know if this is the same thing or not, but the John Company (www.johncompanies.com) seems to be already doing this with FreeBSD. > That's one way to look at it. But how is this different from free > software running on proprietary hardware (e.g. a PowerBook or an > iMac)? It's not just the hardware, it's the fact you have to buy propriety software to run the free software. It would be like a NetBSD that required Aqua and Carbon to run on the Mac. Imagine an IBM advert saying "Free yourselves from software domination with Free Software Linux running on our Z-series mainframes! (required proprietary host OS sold separately...)" This was just one problem I saw, and not necessarily the one at the top of the list. But considering the antipathy towards proprietary software in the Linux community, I thought it strange. Somehow I can't imagine a MVS/Debian distribution :-) David