Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 18:57:53 -0500 (CDT) From: Jay Nelson <jdn@acp.qiv.com> To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Why? (Was: Re: FreeBSD, the follower of Linux ?) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9908311755570.1164-100000@acp.qiv.com> In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.19990831094953.04670380@localhost>
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Excuse me for butting in, but I have some serious questions about the whole tenor of the "advocacy" issue and some of the complaints Brett is raising. Why should we evangelize? What value is there in selling any Unix OS to the Maudie Fricks of the world? I can't see Unix on the desktop (not even Linux) until some serious and large development effort and dollars go into a no-brain interface that Maudie can use out of the box. AIX failed at that, Solaris failed at that -- and so has every other flavor of unix I know. None of the core teams nor the Linux cadre are drawn to that aspect of Unix for the simple fact that Unix has not been, nor is likely to be about the desktop and the point and click user. Rather, Unix has been about more serious, working systems. I run into a large number of old farts in the Unix world who are still bitter about Sun abandoning SunOS in favor of SYSVR4. Most have been in the trenches and are delighted to know that BSD is still alive and well -- most of them aren't too thrilled about Linux. Most of them don't deal with toy systems, rather 24/7 mission critical systems and have a tendency to judge quality systems by how often and when their pagers go off. I agree with them. The development model that appears to stiffle "creativity" and the "sociology" -- both of which are null terms, as far as I can tell, is precisely the model under which professional software is developed. It's the model that makes all of the *BSDs a superior choice to the haphazard phenomenon lumped under the umbrella of "Linux". Word is spreading and awareness is growing. Patience seems more appropriate than zealotry. Most professionals are turned away by evangelical zeal -- they've seen too much in the past, they won't buy it now. Surprisingly, they are also skeptical of the availability of source -- they perceive it as an invitation to intrusion as has been demonstrated so many times in the past with Linux systems. They are slow to embrace open source at the OS level. Robust security and quality, though, makes open source more desirable -- but security and quality are most important. If advocacy makes us look like Linux, we will be rejected as no better than Linux. So the real queston is this: it's a long, slow process converting professonals, and zealotry won't do it -- quality will. To whom would you rather appeal; the professionals or the desktop crowd? Sorry for my long winded 4 bits. -- Jay To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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