Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:16:50 -0700 From: Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Some ideas for FreeBSD Message-ID: <20080213231650.GH68467@demeter.hydra> In-Reply-To: <BMEDLGAENEKCJFGODFOCEEGBCFAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> References: <47AE11A8.8070606@netscape.net> <BMEDLGAENEKCJFGODFOCEEGBCFAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com>
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On Sun, Feb 10, 2008 at 12:11:29AM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Tore Lund > > Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 12:49 PM > > To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > > Subject: Re: Some ideas for FreeBSD > > > > > > Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > > Reason # 1 to be happy with Linux: It attracts all the morons who > > > would otherwise fuck up FreeBSD? > > > > I do wish people would not be "happy" about missing users. Being rid of > > all the "morons" means that we are also rid of proper attention from > > companies like Adobe and Nvidia. Some of us see that as a drawback. > > No, this isn't true at all for the hardware vendors like Nvidia. > When a hardware vendor contemplates entering a market like FreeBSD > they have 3 major concerns. First, is market size. However, second > is ease of porting to the OS, and last is the liklihood of having to > supply technical support. > > If you have a large market but everyone in the market is a moron and > will be calling you for tech support, your going to make less money > than a smaller market where everyone is an expert and nobody is calling > you for tech support. What is double plus good is that there's > experts floating around in the small market who will do your support for > you, including writing your drivers, all you have to do is supply > a minimal set of programming interface docs. This is a far cry from > Windows where you have to write and debug the driver and pay Microsoft > a lot of money to get it certified. I think you're overlooking a major drawback of having less "mindshare", though. As more hardware vendors finally start to "see the light", and release open source drivers, they have a tendency to follow the licensing model Linux uses because that's the open source OS with which they're familiar. That means that, a dismaying percentage of the time, we don't get BSD-licensed (or similarly permissively licensed) drivers. I, for one, am not pleased with this state of affairs. > > As for attention from Adobe, doesen't it bother you to use a free OS > merely as a platform for running commercial software? How about > ditching the commercial software completely and using free open > source tools on the free OS? That's what FreeBSD is all about, honey. In theory, I'm with you. In practice, I have the Linux Flash player plugin and Neverwinter Nights installed on this laptop (both from FreeBSD ports) -- neither of which is open source. Believe me when I say I wish they were both released under a copyfree [1] license. [1]: http://www.copyfree.org/ -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] print substr("Just another Perl hacker", 0, -2);
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