From owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 28 13:19:11 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1C70E106566C for ; Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:19:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ivoras@gmail.com) Received: from mail-ew0-f209.google.com (mail-ew0-f209.google.com [209.85.219.209]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A2FE98FC16 for ; Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:19:10 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ewy5 with SMTP id 5so2886998ewy.36 for ; Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:19:09 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:sender:received:in-reply-to :references:from:date:x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:to:cc :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=bVEpnnDWFoiMoILAZginBPvztseMObsTkkO9+/lzKDE=; b=CAOrCP/A4uouPv8s6NIoxULzkZiC4moSETOHlcT60vWHtIILC/ldtFZhH3LcZxVgMH 925QRE/Xju9Q+Yc10TiqASgarDVvLOYfBkS43WfSw1vPKtwRz6rjRHX5/8Yuuj1CcBVx 4SJUsqvYgCxBZBtfxv0aZKP9mpi5yC5SBNVWo= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:from:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=M95tjkNPe6+QEbdoFUGscHpuDS/QwbEj4iyGsdYb3W3zWzaLCIASg5Su0ezT41UPBT ujxlMeMfpQWGbHT+5Iunb+XDs7FqPheMrxRd3qcf75wfpNot/LKxA9asPuWkys4P41OO R1LcOyKagw6YNcbQ0s6b9Io25DGWcvCT5v41Q= MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: ivoras@gmail.com Received: by 10.216.49.65 with SMTP id w43mr742927web.211.1254142162128; Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:49:22 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: From: Ivan Voras Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:49:02 +0200 X-Google-Sender-Auth: 148e787b8e055b72 Message-ID: <9bbcef730909280549p4ecb4c1at8dca4b31cbbeeab5@mail.gmail.com> To: Saifi Khan Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Why no SAP nor DB2 on FreeBSD ? X-BeenThere: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: FreeBSD Evangelism List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:19:11 -0000 2009/9/28 Saifi Khan : > On Mon, 28 Sep 2009, Ivan Voras wrote: > >> Saifi Khan wrote: >> > Hi all: >> > >> > In continuation of my investigation of Oracle, i also noticed >> > that there is: >> > =C2=A0. no SAP for FreeBSD >> > =C2=A0. no DB2 for FreeBSD >> > =C2=A0. no Sybase ASE for FreeBSD >> > =C2=A0. no Informix for FreeBSD >> > >> > Discouing PostgreSql installations, effectively enterprise >> > database setups have given FreeBSD a miss. >> > What could be reason for this ? >> >> An obvious guess would be that the userbase is too small and that makes >> it unprofitable to support the products on FreeBSD. >> > > Thanks for providing the perspective on the issue. > > Here is a rather straight query, "how do we grow the userbase" ? Something like that is very tedious and hard, mostly because it's a chicken-and-the-end problem. Vendors will not develop products (and device drivers) for platforms with few users because it's unprofitable, and users will not use new platforms that have low vendor support. For a very pertinent example, see Linux - it has a vastly bigger user base and it's still largely unsupported by sw & hw vendors. There is no completely right "solution" for this - you can't even create a global survey of users that would possibly use a new platform if it were supported and submit it to vendors because the users are not well enough informed about it. One angle that would be interesting to play with vendors would be the BSD license - enabling them to create proprietary solutions - but apparently vendors are not that scared of the GPL.