From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Jun 14 18:23:59 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA13020 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:23:59 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from mailhost1.u.washington.edu (mailhost1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA13012 for ; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:23:54 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dmorrisn@u.washington.edu) Received: from don (cs237-15.student.washington.edu [140.142.173.136]) by mailhost1.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.11) with SMTP id SAA10363; Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:23:50 -0700 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980614182616.0080c6c0@dmorrisn.deskmail.washington.edu> X-Sender: dmorrisn@dmorrisn.deskmail.washington.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:26:16 -0700 To: Brett Glass , chat@FreeBSD.ORG From: don morrison Subject: Re: Draft of Nader letter In-Reply-To: <199806150000.SAA04235@lariat.lariat.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Maybe they changed the page since your post? (Some of your statements below are incorrect. e.g. They _did_ mention the BeOS.) I read the article, the whole thing and all the links to it, in fact, and I didn't find much of a linux bias. Bias is typically used as a negative term. There was definately some _enthusiasm_ for linux there and the free software movement in general, both of which deserved it, I think. As for FreeBSD coverage, I think Mr. Nader was considerably generous in including FreeBSD as much as he did in his letter considering he (most likely) only recently became aware of FreeBSD and hasn't had enough time to research it and come to the obvious conclusion that everything deserves a FreeBSD bias ;). Nowhere in his letter did he discuss superiority of one free OS over another, so I don't think it's fair to say there was a "linux bias". Coverage != bias. Besides, the FreeBSD coverage was fine! Take the FreeBSD user base. Take the Linux user base. If you look at those, and then look at how many times "FreeBSD" and "Linux" are mentioned in the letter, you'll see that FreeBSD is _grossly_ over-represented. This letter is about _consumers_; keep that in mind. >James Love, assistant to Ralph Nader, has published a draft of a letter to >be sent to the Justice Department regarding alternatives to Microsoft OSes. >The letter shows a heavy bias toward Linux and makes some incorrect >statements about FreeBSD. We should send feedback urging them to be less >Linux-centric, mention the other *BSDs, correct the information on FreeBSD, >and include commercial OSes (such as BSDI, QNX, BeOS, etc.) as well as just >the free ones as alternatives to Microsoft's products. The draft can be >found at > >http://www.essential.org/antitrust/ms/jkjun151998.html To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message