Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 03:26:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Diekhans <markd@Grizzly.COM> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD A Solution For Business Message-ID: <199805231026.DAA21732@osprey.grizzly.com> In-Reply-To: <8677.895915412@time.cdrom.com> (jkh@time.cdrom.com) References: <8677.895915412@time.cdrom.com>
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>From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> > >> I must humbly disagree. FreeBSD is not an alternative desktop system for a >> business environment. No Windozes application user is going to give up Word > >Why pull punches, Mark? Let's put it even more bluntly: There is >absolutely no rationale for any Unix system to go after the desktop or >desktop application market right today, nor has there been for some >time, and anyone who thinks otherwise has either been living under a >stone for the last decade or is, pardon me, a complete and total >idiot. If you do find anyone who thinks so, I have some SCO stock to sell them for $75 a share :-) To be clear, this is the business application desktop market; in the scientific and technical desktop market, FreeBSD is an excellent choice. >> o A port of Netscape enterprise server would be a plus. Apache is > >The BSDI run works great though - we use it at Walnut Creek CDROM. This is the kind of information that would great to have available. Some thing like at set of `how to set up a XXX server on FreeBSD' pages would be a good starting point. (I quickly remember all of the people who are ready to kill me because I owe them projects, results, etc). >> On promoting FreeBSD. Buying Jordan a couple of $1000 suits and a high limit >> gold card and sending him out to wine and dine executives is not the answer. > >Not to this problem, no, though it'd certainly be the answer to a >rather dull social life! I'd even settle for just one $1000 suit. ;-) A social life ain't all its cut out to be (he says at 3:00 AM Sat)... >> P: "No problem, we have a Pentium system in the machine room that isn't being >> used for much, lets install FreeBSD on it. He can be showing the VP >> in a couple of hours!" > >This is right on the money - I see this all the time. Stealth >marketing is sometimes the very best kind. :) Amen. The question then becomes, what can be done help these stealth marketeers? The key times are getting them started quickly and when they have to de-cloak. The HOWTOs would help the getting started. A big problem with de-cloaking is support, paided support. Seriously, a lot of larger companies avoid or have a policy against using free software because they can't buy a support contract. Never mind that most commercial software support sucks and they at least have a fighting chance to fix a critical bug if they have the source, they have to have that support contract. Getting in bed with some place like Cygnus and have an `official' support arangement might help. Even charging several thousand a year for the privilege of e-mailing a program that forwards the message on to a random core team member's beeper might be enough. Just ideas.. Mark To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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