From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Dec 12 21:24:11 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from atkielski.com (atkielski.com [161.58.232.69]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F022A37B419 for ; Wed, 12 Dec 2001 21:24:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from contactdish (ASt-Lambert-101-2-1-14.abo.wanadoo.fr [193.251.59.14]) by atkielski.com (8.11.6) id fBD5O3U74845; Thu, 13 Dec 2001 06:24:03 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <002b01c18396$61485d30$0a00000a@atkielski.com> From: "Anthony Atkielski" To: "Rick Hamell" , References: Subject: Re: Hotmail still uses FreeBSD!!! Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 06:23:58 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Even years ago, Hotmail was running heavily tweaked versions of standard UNIX e-mail software on UNIX servers (possibly Solaris at one time, IIRC). With tens of millions of accounts, it's very difficult to find any standard solution that will scale. UNIX software is easier to modify for special purposes than Windows software (even for Microsoft), and this would largely explain the lingering presence of FreeBSD at Hotmail. Additionally, to achieve parity with Windows 2000 would require more hardware ... and when you are dealing with an application that already puts a strain on whatever hardware you throw at it with an OS as simple as UNIX, trying to make it all run on Windows may be a nearly impossible task. Microsoft used to receive a lot of heat for the fact that they never used their Microsoft Mail product internally (on the server side), even though they tried to sell it as a solution for companies just like themselves, and they are probably still sensitive on that point (today they run Exchange Server internally, the same product that they sell to everyone else). Many other companies more or less competing with MS still use Windows on the desktop, though, so I don't see why it is such a big deal. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rick Hamell" To: Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2001 03:09 Subject: Hotmail still uses FreeBSD!!! > > ...according to The > Regiter. :) http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/23348.html > > Rick > > ******************************************************************* > Rick's FreeBSD Web page http://heorot.1nova.com/freebsd > Ace Logan's Hardware Guide http://hw.shatteredcrystal.com > ***FreeBSD - The Power to Serve! http://www.freebsd.org > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message