From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Apr 20 23:25:50 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from homer.softweyr.com (bsdconspiracy.net [208.187.122.220]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1EB5D37B422 for ; Fri, 20 Apr 2001 23:25:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (helo=softweyr.com ident=12a6f6fb8203bf14b8ebbeed15e55ad3) by homer.softweyr.com with esmtp (Exim 3.16 #1) id 14qqpc-0000I4-00; Sat, 21 Apr 2001 00:25:20 -0600 Message-ID: <3AE127D0.E935F8B9@softweyr.com> Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 00:25:20 -0600 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12 i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ted Mittelstaedt Cc: Szilveszter Adam , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Funding large Open Source projects (was Windriver, Slackware) References: <000101c0c95f$3d083cc0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > Apparently Szilveszter Adam blathered: > > > >But without which your project will not gain wide-spread > >acceptance, for a number of factors. See below. > > Should gaining widespread acceptance be the goal of every open > source project? That's a commercial, not a personal, goal. > > I think the goal of any Open Source project should be to be the > best-of-breed, that's my major difference of opinion with the Linux > camp. While certainly some Linux distributions do have being the > best distribution as their goal, it appears to me that the overall > goal of the entire Linux movement is to get on as many systems as > possible. Being the best UNIX-like OS is secondary. I think OpenBSD embodies this ethos better than any other "open source" project I've encountered. They have a firm idea of what they want out of the system, they pursue it with zeal, and they pretty much do not care what others think. If you like the system, fine. If you use the system, fine. If you want to contribute, fine. If you don't, then just go away and stop wasting their time. While not my favorite system to use, or to hack on, it is an ethos I resonate with. Anyone who's read the FreeBSD lists for long will probably recognize my rantings about this in the FreeBSD community. FreeBSD is built by its contributors to be what THEY want it to be. It is not driven by marketing "genuises", or by "customer" demands, it is driven by people who use it in their daily lives. FreeBSD does pay attention to "market share" and "mind share" issues, but not enough to worry me (yet). > I've found that in life, it is usually the top-quality products that > don't have the greatest numbers of sales. Usually, the bestsellers > are not as good quality as many other products. A few years ago I left Intel, who had acquired my employer, to go work on high-speed IP switches for Xylan. On the way out, one of the hardware engineers said "how can you leave Intel for a tiny company like that?" My reply was "Gee, Woody, you're right, I bet those Ferrari engineers kick themselves every day on the way to work for not working for GM." Life is a tradeoff, nothing is perfect. FreeBSD developers decide daily if they're making a Ferrari, or perhaps a Terex truck. I for one am glad they never settle for making a Chevette. The OpenBSD gang are building armored trucks with encrypted gearshifts, because that's what they want. They're doing a pretty good job of it. Ditto for NetBSD, who're building the BSD to run in everything. > Here in Portland OR, the misguided tree-huggers that apparently > control city government all hate automobiles... > > Their belief is that if they make the roads as uncomfortable as > possible to drive on (ie: as congested as possible) that people will > give up their cars and ride busses. I assume that this idea > actually does work, in a limited fashion, or they wouldn't keep > doing it. What, you assume they're NOT crazy? That's a bad assumption. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message