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Date:      Mon, 26 Jul 1999 10:10:05 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Seth <seth@freebie.dp.ny.frb.org>
To:        Radu-Cristian FOTESCU <rfotescu@idsrom.com>
Cc:        "'freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG'" <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   RE: What to tell to Linux-centric people?!
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.10.9907260949210.696-100000@freebie.dp.ny.frb.org>
In-Reply-To: <C1F3617BDC52D21185E40000214C247C154069@id-bucharest.idsrom.com>

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On Mon, 26 Jul 1999, Radu-Cristian FOTESCU wrote:

> This is quite a marketing issue, but you don't seem to see the point.
> This is one of the things [among many other reasons] that made Linux what it
> is today [I mean, "popular", and I won't say anything on other issues].

I don't want to get into a debate regarding the benefits of Linux's
"popularity".  This subject has been discussed ad nauseum on this list,
and it seems to be initiated from those users who have just come from a
Linux background and haven't taken the time to adjust to the FreeBSD
mentality (for lack of a better word).
> 
> FreeBSD's way of making things "centralised" is principially good -- as
> FreeBSD will _hopefully_ always have only *one* official distribution] but
> in the meantime it's lack of supporting "openness" in orther way than by a
> centralised point, isn't good, IMHO.

Again, matter of opinion.  I *like* the fact that there's a unified
distribution, and if I want to upgrade my kernel, I don't have to worry
about any installed software going south.  If you like the "openness" of
Linux, along with all the associated headaches keeping your applications
and source tree in sync with whatever distribution you run, great.  Just
realize that there is more than one way of doing things, and pick the best
for you.  It may not be FreeBSD.

> People who love FreeBSD will always love it. Independent consultants aware
> of both Linux and FreeBSD will probably recommend FreeBSD to more or less
> that 50% of people wanting free unices, depending of what their customers
> want to do. But just quality by itself just does not sell any more there
> days.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here.  Nor am I sure your
statistics are valid.  I'll just ignore this and move on.

> 
> I'm trying to adapt to FreeBSD addicts philosophy 'cause I'm not satisfied
> with the way Linux evolves. But I'm coming from Linux, and I develop for
> Win32 [hey! I have to live, ok?], so it _might_ be that I see things
> somewhat differently. 

It's evident that you *do* see things somewhat differently.  It's not bad.
What's frustrating to a lot of people in this group is that you've
apparently just jumped in to using a recent version of FreeBSD, haven't
taken the time to familiarize yourself with the benefits of its various
features (ports, synchronization, etc.), and are more intent on comparing
FreeBSD (and a non-recent version at that) to Linux, an OS with which
you're more familiar, in a forum that's seen this behavior countless times
with no appreciable derived benefit.

In short: the best way to effect change in this community is to do it
yourself and submit your work.  Opinions & commentary without the
requisite effort don't mean much and open you up to tirades such as those
you've seen.

> 
> Maybe you should _try_ to see things from an "outsider" point of view and
> see which are the weak points of FreeBSD propaganda.

I've come from the outside.  In fact, I'd wager that a good portion of
FreeBSD's userbase has migrated from other various flavors of *nix.
Admittedly, there are some weak points (as there are in any OS).  Having a
user who is not familiar with the features of a modern FreeBSD release
jump into this forum complaining about the lack of things like a colorized
ls and a nice X background draws the ire of many people who are dedicated
to enhancing more critical aspects of the OS.

If the lack of a decent wallpaper upsets you greatly enough to mention it 
as a reason that Linux is better, I again urge you to create one yourself
and submit it.

At this point, I'm inclined to take further discussion off-line.  Thanks.

SB



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