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Date:      Wed, 7 Jan 2004 09:27:50 -0500
From:      "David D.W. Downey" <pgpkeys@pgpkeys.net>
To:        <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   RE: Commercial Distribution?
Message-ID:  <E1AeEej-0007SG-00@smtp.perfora.net>
In-Reply-To: <200401070400.54278@harrymail>

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I think you're missing the point here. There were 2 questions asked in the
original thread. First was are there any commercial distributions and
second, are there any companies that provide a for-fee support chain.
Linux was brought up as a well known example of the types of services being
requested by the poster. He gets a "Linux is a kernel not an operating
system" comment instead, which while factually true, proves to the case of
missing the forest for the trees. Get him his help if you know it, otherwise
debate finer points in classrooms.

To the original poster: Just to end the Linux/FreeBSD stupidity, as these
knuckleheads have stated, yes, Linux is a kernel, however as happens in
human language, Linux has come to mean more than just the kernel, it's come
to mean the entire distribution of applications with it as well. None of the
applications will run without a kernel, nor would the kernel be much use if
there was no shell interpreter or other application. Yes, the word Linux
itself refers to the kernel, but for them to suggest to you that Linux is
not an operating system but simply a collection of software packages stuck
around a kernel is laughable at best. This is usually a sign of <some
operating system here> purists trying to wrangle details in a way that
somehow makes their <operating system name here> better than XYZ. Please
read http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/o/operating_system.html to understand
what an operating system is. An operating system IS the kernel. Any
additional software that comes with it reside in the application layer which
is NOT part of the operating system. FreeBSD is entirely no different in
that regard.

The point still remains, that if I understood your question correctly you
were wondering if there were any commercial FreeBSD distributions that also
provided technical support ranging from kernels to individual applications.
An example of the difference would be Red Hat which is a commercialized
distribution and Debian which is a GPL'd project that has no technical
support, other than it's mailing lists and IRC chat channels.

Check out this list of companies willing to provide support for the FreeBSD
distribution. Some are of higher caliber than others of course, so check
them all.

http://www.unixporting.com/freebsd-support.html

http://www.bsdmall.com/fbsdsupport.html (I'd check this one for sure)

http://www.freebsdmall.com/cgi-bin/fm/support.html (Same as abve)

http://www.freebsdsystems.com/support.html (iNet system specific)

http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/consulting.html (DEFINITELY READ THIS)

http://www.bsdsearch.com/dir/support/commercial/consulting.php (Nice list)

http://bim.bsn.com/~jhs/freebsd/consultants.html

Check these out. I have a few clients I work with that also offer technical
support on Solaris, Linux, OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD.




You name it. These are all different operating systems arround a linux
kernel. 
FreeBSD is the operating system, linux isn't. That's the whole difference.

-Harry

P.S: Lot's of tools are developed by *BSD developers and included instead of

GNU versions (ls e.g.)




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