Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 02:18:59 +1000 From: Q <q_dolan@yahoo.com.au> To: Robert Downes <nullentropy@lineone.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What is the end of FreeBSD ?! Message-ID: <1073665138.97984.97.camel@boxster.onthenet.com.au> In-Reply-To: <3FFE920A.8000802@lineone.net> References: <auto-000071016802@doruk.net.tr> <3FFE920A.8000802@lineone.net>
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On Fri, 2004-01-09 at 21:35, Robert Downes wrote: > Kris Kennaway wrote: > > >Notice the difference between these two approaches? It means there's > >basically no chance that what happened with RedHat will ever happen to > >FreeBSD. > > > > > No, but it surely is possible that the people that devote time to > FreeBSD will be taken for granted, and will drift away from spending > time on the project? The company I work for (an ISP) has over 20 odd servers running FreeBSD, we rely on it to run our network, applications and services. Part of my regular work day is spent learning, improving, writing and supporting parts of FreeBSD and it's supporting applications that are important to our business. It doesn't matter if other people take this work for granted, or if contributions don't get included in future versions, we do it because it's important to running OUR business, and this is our way of giving something back to the community. I believe this philosophy has a lot to do with why FreeBSD (and the other *BSD's for that matter) is an excellent server platform, and is pretty lacking as a "user friendly" desktop environment. Desktop FreeBSD is not important to our business because virtually all our desktops are all windows based for a variety of reasons, the main one being it's the platform that 99% of our customers use. So although FreeBSD could benefit from an improved installation process and a more advanced desktop environment, we won't be contributing to it any time soon because it works fine for us just the way it is. > I hope that FreeBSD continues to be built by people who don't do it for > money, because I really believe that free software is built more > lovingly (sorry, I couldn't think of a better word) than commercial, > factory-produced stuff. But a donation here and there can't hurt. I think FreeBSD has been built out of necessity by the people, like us, that use it to serve a purpose, rather than by people who seek to produce a competitive product. This is another reason why FreeBSD won't 'die'. FreeBSD is a community project, not a company product, so while ever people still use it, there will be people equipped to contribute to making it better. Anyone can contribute to FreeBSD, and it doesn't need to be in the form of a donation, or writing code. Writing and revising documentation doesn't require much in the way of programming abilities at all. And it's something that every programmer loathes doing at one time or another. The key to choosing what to work on is to find something that you NEED, or is important to YOU and work on that. If you try to find something that you think other people will want but you have no real use for, you are destined for failure. If you decide to contribute by helping people on mailing lists or forums, you may end up writing documentation anyway because you find yourself answering the same questions regularly. Anyway.. best of luck. I'm sure your efforts, in whatever form they may be will be appreciated. Seeya...Q
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