Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 12:35:00 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Sm@rt Reseller review features many Linuxes, no FreeBSD Message-ID: <4.1.19990225121839.00c55100@mail.lariat.org>
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At http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/infopack/0,5483,387506,00.html Sm@rt Reseller states that Linux is "the best Windows file server" and "the Web server's choice." (See the links in the sidbar.) It ignores the existence of FreeBSD altogether. I feel that it also gives the impression of "cheerleading" for Linux rather than considering all of the alternatives to NT in a thoughtful manner. I think that this warrants some tactful advocacy. It makes sense to respond to the authors of this article by pointing out that FreeBSD is better at both functions, and that sites such as CDROM.COM and Yahoo have chosen it over Linux for their production servers. It may pay to mention that FreeBSD doesn't share some of the problems of the Linux distributions they tested -- including ones they rated highly. The article says, "In our tests, we found, for example, that OpenLinux couldn't find our Intel EtherExpress Pro/100B network interface card and none of the three could locate our EtherExpress Pro/10+ cards." FreeBSD's driver for the EtherExpress Pro/100 series is about the best there is anywhere; it's what CDROM.COM's FTP server uses to set records. It's also worth pointing them to commercial support options for FreeBSD, which can be found at http://www.freebsdmall.com/ Finally, it's worth pointing out that resellers can provide unique customization for FreeBSD without releasing the source code that provides value added. This cannot be done with Linux. For all of these reasons, it's important to advocate FreeBSD via the "Talkback" at the bottom of the article and directly, via e-mail, to all of Sm@rt Reseller's editors. If you're a reseller, your opinion will probably be given greater consideration. [Disclaimer: Until January, I wrote a Q&A column for Sm@rt Reseller. However, I was never on staff and don't have any more influence on editorial policy than any reader.] --Brett Glass To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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