Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2010 13:53:42 -0600 From: Tim Judd <tajudd@gmail.com> To: Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: freebsd - for the win Message-ID: <AANLkTimVznpvn-4zNSpD38dvTWHsZRCxeqMVT2oc4FCs@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <4C13C737.6050400@infracaninophile.co.uk> References: <86eigdx6vl.fsf@red.stonehenge.com> <4C13320C.5090700@infracaninophile.co.uk> <20100612153813.GA53180@guilt.hydra> <4C13C737.6050400@infracaninophile.co.uk>
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On 6/12/10, Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On 12/06/2010 16:38:13, Chad Perrin wrote: >> On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 08:06:52AM +0100, Matthew Seaman wrote: >>> >>> Absolutely. Especially when you compare it to MacPorts and consider the >>> disparity in numbers of users between MacOS and FreeBSD. Given that the >>> ports is maintained by a bunch of volunteers basically in their spare >>> time, the fact that it is consistently of good quality and that the >>> popular packages are generally updated to the latest available versions >>> within a couple of weeks -- frequently within a few hours -- >>> it's a pretty astonishing accomplishment. >> >> I don't mean to belittle anyone's accomplishments, of course, but I don't >> find it astonishing at all. FreeBSD's development model is one that >> encourages people to develop what they use, and to use what they develop, >> and it doesn't exclude people for rules of arbitrary hiring practices. >> When your software is developed and/or maintained by way of a more >> meritocratic system in which people are "eating their own dog food" and >> the developers/maintainers are self-selected in large part because of >> their *interest* in what they develop or maintain, it would be surprising >> to me if something like FreeBSD *didn't* end up doing better than >> something like MacOS X, which is developed and maintained under an >> autocratic model wherein many of the developers and maintainers were >> assigned to their respective projects (regardless of interest) after >> being hired due to their resume bullet points (regardless of actual >> ability). >> >> That's just my perspective. I suppose yours may differ. >> > > You are entirely correct, as far as MacOS X itself goes, although I > suspect that Apples' core developers are equally as interested in what > they do as FreeBSD's. (Not least because there is quite a bit of > overlap between those groups.) > > MacPorts however is not an official Apple controlled thing (although it > does have Apple's full support). It's a volunteer project with > maintainers and committers in very much the same roles as the > equivalents for FreeBSD ports. > > Given that MacOS X has, what, about 5.8% of the entire world desktop > userbase (compare: Linux 1.2%, FreeBSD not even on the graph according > to Wikipedia: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems) they have > so many more potential volunteers that even if their volunteering rate > is an order of magnitude less, they'd still come out ahead. > These market statistics are pointless. The numbers are based on people reporting their OS and usage. A system like Microsoft or Apple can use a unique host id when checking for system updates which can tabulate this data. Linux is possible to do same, I don't voluntarily run linux so I don't know it as much as I do BSD. However, on BSD, we have to purposely select, download, configure and use a product to track, I know there are large corporations that use BSD (in one shape or form) for their OS, it's just not reported. I check the market share/statistics every now and then to see what the trend is, but I consider them very one-sided and personally very useless to show the actual usage. My 2 cents.
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