Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 10:35:01 -0700 From: Rich Morin <rdm@cfcl.com> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: What can FreeBSD learn from Mac OS X? Message-ID: <p05111b09b993fde2e355@[192.168.254.205]>
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Like many others on this list, I am distressed by the trolling and flamage I've been seeing recently. OTOH, I think there are a few real issues that merit discussion, hidden in the noise. Specifically, I am concerned that FreeBSD is in danger of becoming marginalized by Linux on one side and Mac OS X on the other. As a happy FreeBSD user for the last several years, I'm not enthralled by this prospect. One problem is that nobody has taken on the role of supporting FreeBSD as a production system. The current (eg, CVS) machinery works fine for folks who like to fiddle with the source code, but it is ill-suited for folks, like me, who simply want a reliable system and minimal maintenance headaches. The Mac OS X system of binary updates, while imperfect, gives me bug fixes for security and other critical issues, without requiring me to get involved with maintaining a source tree, doing builds, etc. FreeBSD has very good engineering. If it had the right "productizing", it might well be able to steal some folks from the Linux camp. I'd like to see this happen, but I don't see anyone taking on the task. In fact, I don't even see a separate mailing list for freebsd-release! More generally, I'd like the FreeBSD community to consider the question of how it should respond to the advent of Mac OS X. It's clear that a lot of techies are getting interested in OSX; half of the laptops at the recent OSCON and USENIX were running it. Some of these folks were already BSD fans; others may come from the Linux camp, etc. If you're using OSX on your Macs, it may make sense to use FreeBSD on your Intel boxes, to get the same command set, etc. How can we encourage this? What issues (interoperability, porting, ...) need to be addressed to make FreeBSD the "right choice" for this sort of mixed environment? Finally, should the FreeBSD community try to work with the Darwin folks? The kernel aside, Intel-based Darwin is a pretty vanilla FreeBSD system. Shouldn't we be doing some sort of outreach? -r -- email: rdm@cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 http://www.cfcl.com/rdm - my home page, resume, etc. http://www.cfcl.com/Meta - The FreeBSD Browser, Meta Project, etc. http://www.ptf.com/dossier - Prime Time Freeware's DOSSIER series http://www.ptf.com/tdc - Prime Time Freeware's Darwin Collection To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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