Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 19:28:34 +0100 From: James Raynard <james@jraynard.demon.co.uk> To: Michael Elbel <mwe@consol.de> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Are Kudos ok on this list? Message-ID: <19971024192834.62260@jraynard.demon.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <19971013134742.60619@int.consol.de>; from Michael Elbel on Mon, Oct 13, 1997 at 01:47:42PM %2B0200 References: <3.0.3.32.19971024024019.007c3a60@jcwells.deskmail.washington.edu> <Pine.BSF.3.96.971024135648.1063A-100000@dumbwinter.logic.it> <19971013134742.60619@int.consol.de>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Mon, Oct 13, 1997 at 01:47:42PM +0200, Michael Elbel wrote:
>
> But then we've been through that discussion before. Maybe someone
> could write up a couple of arguments with regards to freely available
> vs. costs nothing.
Here's something I wrote about 18 months ago (complete with SGML tags!)
<sect1>
<heading> Is FreeBSD better than XYZ commercial system?</heading>
<p>
Again, the decision as to which is better will be influenced by what
you want to use them for, but some general points can be made:-
<itemize>
<item> FreeBSD is available free of charge, commercial systems are
not. (Note - managers often regard this as a disadvantage of
FreeBSD, surprisingly enough).
<item> Commercial systems come with the phone number of the Support
Desk, FreeBSD does not.
<item> Commercial systems come with a shelf-full of manuals (or, more
usually these days, a documentation CDROM in a proprietary
format that you can only read on a working system). FreeBSD
does not, unless of course you count the source code...
<item> Professional consultants are easier to find for commercial
systems.
<item> FreeBSD is supported on the Internet by an enthusiastic
community of users, including the system developers. Commercial
systems are not. (*)
<item> FreeBSD supplies features such as TCP/IP or a C compiler as
standard. Many commercial systems do not and charge extra for
them.
<item> FreeBSD allows as many users on a machine as you like (until
the system collapses under the load!) Commercial systems
require you to buy extra licences if you add more users.
<item> Most popular free Unix applications come with the base FreeBSD
system, or can be added easily using the ports/packages
mechanism. This is not usually the case with commercial
systems.
<item> The FreeBSD developers use their latest code on their
development machines, so any basic errors are quickly caught
(if not by the developer, then by members of the user community
who eagerly follow the latest code). Surprisingly, this does
not appear to happen in certain commercial systems...
<item> Because of the open nature of FreeBSD development, mistakes and
security holes are quickly found to and fixed. Commercial
systems people are reluctant to admit anything could possibly
be wrong with their system, and it can take weeks or months
before a patch is quietly slipped out.
<item> Since they are doing it as a hobby, FreeBSD developers can
afford to take the time to do things properly - in fact, as
their code will be published, they have every incentive to
produce code they can be proud of. Commercial systems
developers have to get things done in time to meet deadlines
and get paid.
</itemize>
(*) This is not quite as true as when I wrote it - for example, some of
the Sun developers occasionally post to the Solaris newsgroups.
--
James Raynard, Edinburgh, Scotland.
james@jraynard.demon.co.uk
http://www.freebsd.org/~jraynard/
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?19971024192834.62260>