Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 16:15:26 -0500 From: Glenn Johnson <glennpj@charter.net> To: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com> Cc: David Xu <bsddiy@21cn.com>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: BSDi Acquired by Embedded Computing Firm Wind River Message-ID: <20010405161526.A1968@gforce.johnson.home> In-Reply-To: <002901c0bda4$88ae89c0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>; from tedm@toybox.placo.com on Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 12:46:33AM -0700 References: <101731842.20010405084557@21cn.com> <002901c0bda4$88ae89c0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
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On Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 12:46:33AM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: ...[snip]... > There are going to be a lot of observers that are going to conclude > that BSD failed in a bid to become a commercial general purpose OS, > and that the future is Linux on the desktop. It's not surprising that > slapped all over the face of the BSDi website is the statement that > the new iXsystems will be concentrating on server development. They > are playing the same card I played when I wrote my book - we all know > that from a marketing perspective the idea that FreeBSD is going to > be a significant desktop presence is a joke, Linux took that away. > So, the only other avenue to stay in the game is to go the other > direction and focus on server development. Espically since really > good servers sacrifice a lot of stuff you need on a desktop, and > vis-versa, a strong case can be made that since Linux is concentrating > on the desktop, they are by default abrogating the server market. > Microsoft has shown the world the folly of attempting to make a > one-size-fits-all operating system that can work as both a server and > a desktop, you end up sacrificing so much that the resultant product > cannot do either job well. I do not understand the sentiment that FreeBSD is not good for a desktop (workstation) machine. I would also disagree that Linux is concentrating on the desktop at the expense of the server market. Certainly there are Linux distributions that cater more to the desktop and others to the server markets. Others maintain dual product lines but I think the people working on the Linux kernel itself are not thinking they are providing an inferior kernel for a server. Nor do I think people deploying Linux in a server environment think it is inferior. I quite happily use FreeBSD on both server and workstation machines. Finally, although Microsoft may have failed in making an OS that can function as both a server and a workstation I think that FreeBSD and Linux have succeeded. -- Glenn Johnson glennpj@charter.net To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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