Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Wed, 13 May 1998 10:33:26 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Andrew Short <Ashort@concentric.net>
To:        Frank Pawlak <fpawlak@execpc.com>
Cc:        freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: BSD vs Linux
Message-ID:  <Pine.SUN.3.96.980513102439.22412O-100000@voyager.cris.com>
In-Reply-To: <199805130010240788.00CCE456@mailgate.execpc.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, 13 May 1998, Frank Pawlak wrote:

> The story does not end there.  Linux attracted no press, it was still a
> hackers OS.  The Linux hackers published, founded their own journal, the
> BSD crowd did not.  Until Caldera and RedHat were formed Linux was still an
> unimportant OS.  Didn't show up on any radar screens.  Slackware was there,
> but commercial use, no.  Arises that ugly word, marketing.

RedHat goes a long way toward making Linux viable to more users.  FreeBSD
doesn't have a "RedHat".  FreeBSD NEEDS a RedHat.  Walnut Creek is NOT
being "that entity" for FreeBSD.  

Yes Linux has an almost rabid following, but as far as actual promotion
(of the sane kind) quite a bit of it comes from commercial entities who
scream at the top of their corporate lungs, "LINUX!!!"  I don't think
anyone who runs FreeBSD does that, at least I don't see it happening from
my "consumer" chair.  

I had NO idea that Yahoo! and Walnut creek ran on FreeBSD until I started
DIGGING to find out something about FreeBSD.  The odd site here and there
posts chucky on their page so it does get some coverage and before I
started becoming interested, I knew it existed and I knew it was viable,
but that's _it_.  I did not know that it could be used for a wide variety
of applications, NOR that it was viable on the desktop. 

So....1.  Commercial Support.  FreeBSD needs a "RedHat".  2.  Get people
interested so that they READ about FreeBSD as they do about Linux. 

Oh...and why do hackers go for the "more restricted license", it has, I
think, more to do with a "SCREW corporate America!" attitude than anything
else.  They LIKE the fact that the code can't be snatched up and re-used
in a restricted manner, regardless of the fact that SOME software WON'T
get developed unless someone PAYS someone to do it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Short                                            Colossians 3:23
ashort@concentric.net                http://www.concentric.net/~ashort/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------



To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.SUN.3.96.980513102439.22412O-100000>