Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 13:57:55 -0700 From: Don Wilde <don@partsnow.com> To: supplements@infoworld.com Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, hwg-servers@hwg.org Subject: Freeware Message-ID: <353D0853.142D72CA@partsnow.com>
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To the Editors of InfoWorld - Thank you for the increasing acknowledgement by your magazine of the power and value of freeware. My company uses FreeBSD, Apache and Perl, along with other freeware, for all its mission-critical internet services, and I'm now expanding the freeware presence in our company inside the firewall. I would like to propose a challenge. Novell recently crowed about its SPECweb96 benchmark perfomance. I suspect FreeBSD plus Apache would have little trouble trashing either Novell or Microsoft systems, or Solaris on x86 for that matter, in the high-performance webserver arena. We are, however, at a disadvantage as we don't have the budget to buy ad space and marketing to promote ourselves like these huge corporations. Certainly we do more with a lot less people! Here's what I'd like to see: Web Server Face-Off =================== 1) Identical hardware provided for every participant: a) a P100+32MB+2GB-IDE "typical small business" webserver b) a P-II+256MB+4x2GB-SCSI "large enterprise" webserver 2) A software specification for 2 typical websites built on generic HTML3.2 capabilities 3) 2 weeks to code either CGI or ASP or Java (or any other suitable language) to perform the functionality of the spec sites, and set it up on the server as best they can in that timeframe 4) No modifications allowed to the OS code beyond what is normally allowed to an administrator, i.e. 'rebuilding the kernel' is allowed, but not 'tweaking the C source' or 'patching the OS', since this is not available to payware users. Start with the raw code of the latest release disks available to the public. 5) A vendor-neutral test site with testing done on an unloaded 10MBps LAN. 6) High-speed Internet access for each on-site team for support and code contribution from outside 7) A simulated-client-load server (or server set) spitting page requests in a controlled manner, the algorithms of which are _not_ disclosed beforehand to the participants, nor influenced by any of the participants 8) Full disclosure of the tweaks, setups, modifications and code utilized by each participant, and the cost of all software utilized in the project What do you think? I think I've presented a fair assessment mechanism, using real-world circumstances. Enough boasting and flaming, let's put it to the test! -- oooOOO O O O o * * * * * * o ___ _________ _________ ________ _________ _________ ___==_ V_=_=_DW ===--- Don Wilde [don@PartsNow.com] [http://www.PartsNow.com ] /oo0000oo-oo--oo-ooo---ooo-ooo---ooo-ooo--ooo-ooo---ooo-ooo---ooo-oo--oo To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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