Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 04:00:03 -0800 From: "Grant Cooper" <grant.cooper@nucleus.com> To: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com>, "FreeBSD Questions" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Thanks guys Message-ID: <002301c28b0c$359598a0$1baccecd@donatev49iknkl> References: <20021113055636.76357.qmail@web21305.mail.yahoo.com> <1037168694.263.3.camel@asa.gascom.net.ru> <000e01c28af3$35060c30$1baccecd@donatev49iknkl> <20021113104844.GA1869@raggedclown.net> <028701c28b07$d8036bd0$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
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I like that figure, 7 billion. But let's break it down. 6 billion on promotion. $666.666.000 on production. and 1 million on support. $666 dollars and that useless send me that error message (I hate you). I have faith that open source will be on top in 10 years. Maybe less. 5 years ago most University / College student's didn't really know how to use the internet. I remember prep classes were full of students for the first semester. We are lucky if we can fill one class and most of the kids know more then the instructors. Children who can't even speak are learning to manipulate the mouse. It's going to be this generation that takes Bill down!! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> To: "FreeBSD Questions" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 3:28 AM Subject: Re: Thanks guys > Cliff writes: > > > Ok, 20 flavours of Linux and at least 3 of > > *BSD; well...that's the way it goes... > > Actually, it's not the number of versions that exist that is important, it's > the degree of similarity among them. Twenty operating systems that are 98% > compatible is much less of a problem than two operating systems that are > only 5% compatible. Something that runs in an X environment on one version > of UNIX will often run on several other versions of UNIX as well, but a > program that runs on Windows will not run at all on the Mac without being > rewritten. > > > All OS'es should be Open-Sourced..especially in these > > dangerous days ! > > A nice wish, but developing operating systems costs an incredible amount of > money, and the money has to come from somewhere, and the easiest way to > raise the money is by making the OS proprietary and selling it. > > Open operating systems are nice when they exist, but since nobody has the > resources to support them in a totally reliable and responsive way, choosing > them for mission-critical applications is risky, unless one has on-site > experts to maintain them if required. For many other purposes, they might > be quite suitable, however. > > In the olden days, mainframe vendors would sell the hardware and almost > throw in the OS as an afterthought, since the hardware was useless without > the OS, and since the OS couldn't be used on any other hardware. They'd > even provide source code so that customers could modify the OS. It worked > well, but that is not a a viable model for smaller systems, because it makes > it easy to take a proprietary OS and use it on different but compatible > hardware (much harder for Macs than for Windows or UNIX, though). Also, > customer modifications were a nightmare for support organizations--and that > would be a million times worse with smaller systems, given that there are so > many people of limited skill and high motivation tweaking so many smaller > systems. > > > Mind you I am not sure how many volunteers there > > would be who would wish to wade through what is > > rumoured to be 30 million lines of code that > > constitute Windows2000. > > Exactly. Writing an OS like that costs several billion dollars, and > supporting it costs millions more. How would you find the money for > open-source code? > > Then again, one might argue that 30 million lines is too much for an OS (and > I tend to agree), but that's a separate issue. One nice thing about > UNIX--in part because of its history, I suppose, and in part because it is > largely open-source--is that it doesn't suffer from the extreme bloat of > Windows or Mac operating systems. This applies only to the OS itself, > though, not to bloated GUI environments that might run on top of it, which > seem to have the same problem as Windows and the Mac. > > > Well I think it's jolly good as well :) > > So do I. FreeBSD is a great operating system. Simple, performant, secure, > reliable, accessible, and free. > > It would be nice to see a desktop OS with the same characteristics one day, > but for various reasons, I question whether that will ever even be possible. > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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