From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Jul 22 23:23:21 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from implode.root.com (root.com [209.102.106.178]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A4CD14F8F for ; Thu, 22 Jul 1999 23:23:18 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from root@implode.root.com) Received: from implode.root.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by implode.root.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA20688; Thu, 22 Jul 1999 23:19:13 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199907230619.XAA20688@implode.root.com> To: Brett Glass Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: poor ethernet performance? In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 22 Jul 1999 22:09:51 MDT." <4.2.0.58.19990722220119.04571100@localhost> From: David Greenman Reply-To: dg@root.com Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 23:19:13 -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org >At 08:44 PM 7/22/99 -0700, David Greenman wrote: > >> > It would mean that the gap between >> >Linux and FreeBSD would DOUBLE every year, eventually causing Linux to >> >leave FreeBSD in the dust. >> >> No, the ratio doesn't change when both double each year. > >No, but the size of the gap doubles each year. And that's what vendors >and users alike care about. There's not much we can do about that; we'd have to grow at a much faster rate than Linux for a sustained period to change that, and I don't think that's possible to do unless Linux slows down. In any case, I don't agree that vendors care which is larger or by how much. The vendors care about the absolute number of users of a particular OS and if that number exceeds some threshold ('more than 1 million', etc), and even more importantly, the demographics of the userbase. FreeBSD users have a significantly different set of demographics compared to Linux users and some vendors will never see FreeBSD as being a market for them - no matter how many people use it. This is one of the reasons why XiG dropped CDE support for FreeBSD...our users simply weren't interested in it (and for good reason!!! :-)) - they tend to be more interested in servers and less interested in common desktop environments. I think it would be cool if we could get more of those kind of people onboard, but not at the expense of the server type people. XiG's X product for FreeBSD does well because there seems to be universal interest with the userbase in running X on at least one machine in their environment. >> Well, you're right about that, except your conclusion is wrong. The >>statistics show that Linux growth is actually slowing a little and what >>used to be a 5:1 ratio of Linux:FreeBSD is actually narrowed to 4:1. > >You're basing your figures on downloads (see below), which are not a reliable >measure of installed base. Many of those downloads are upgrades for existing >systems. No, I'm basing my figures on everything I've mentioned (downloads and CDROM sales) as well as a variety of other metrics. I can't tell you with any certainty how many people use FreeBSD, but I can tell you that the ratio is about 4:1 and appears to be shrinking. and I repeat: I'd really like to know where you get your statistics. As far as I can tell, your assertions are nothing more than horse exhaust and have only a foul smell to back them up. >> You're full of it, Brett. I just got back from a full day of FreeBSD >>meetings and I can say with certainty that interest with third party vendors >>is increasing. I'd like to know where you heard that Xig is dropping support >>for FreeBSD - > >Jordan said so explicitly on this list. They've dropped support for FreeBSD >from all but one of their products: their X server. Want their new CDE? Sorry, >no can do. That's Linux-only. (See their Web site.) See above about demographics. It's silly to me for you to say "all but one of their products: their X server" - when THAT is their product. The other stuff is just fluff and is apparantly only of interest to a specific and small set of people. ...and have no dillusions about the X server being on shakey ground: the very founder of XiG choses to use FreeBSD over the alternatives for his own desktop machines. >And, as I've mentioned, Borland is so biased toward Linux that it's tough >to request FreeBSD support on their survey. Yeah, and Microsoft is so biased towards Windows that they won't even consider a port of their Word product to Linux. :-) I don't see any meat in this argument. -DG David Greenman Co-founder/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project - http://www.freebsd.org Creator of high-performance Internet servers - http://www.terasolutions.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message