Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:03:00 +0200 From: "Hartmann, O." <ohartman@zedat.fu-berlin.de> To: Chris Brennan <xaero@xaerolimit.net> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: http://www.freebsd.org/marketing/os-comparison.html Message-ID: <4E5D5E14.5070108@zedat.fu-berlin.de> In-Reply-To: <4E5D4114.6010805@xaerolimit.net> References: <4E5941D6.9090106@zedat.fu-berlin.de> <CAGH67wSVX=31t9rAUk1bkJUytYEdCHfsPuHMajBqAKJDnN=U1g@mail.gmail.com> <4E5D3060.9090806@coreitpro.com> <4E5D4114.6010805@xaerolimit.net>
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On 08/30/11 21:59, Chris Brennan wrote: > On 8/30/2011 2:48 PM, Sean M. Collins wrote: >> On 8/27/11 3:32 PM, Garrett Cooper wrote: >>> Agreed. Things have changed quite a bit in the last decade. >> I think that it also clashes with the positive tone that (I've >> experienced) in most of the website copy, discussions on this mailing >> list, and other parts of the FreeBSD project. >> >> We have an awesome project, we don't really need to put down everyone >> else to make ourselves look good. >> > I wasn't implying a putdown and I don't think Garrett Cooper was either, > he was merely pointing out that the technology in use today (Tuesday, > August 30th, 2011) varies, radically from when > http://www.freebsd.org/marketing/os-comparison.html was written way > back, sometime in the year 2000. > > The comparison being called for to be updated, needn't be that type of > comparison. If in the end, FreeBSD comes out as truly and honestly > better then so be it, it turns out to be the under-appreciated underdog, > then so be it too. An argument made (by us, the FreeBSD community) to > point out the pros and cons of common OS types would undoubtedly hurt > and benefit us as a project, but it would also illustrate why FreeBSD is > good for applications A-F[1], Linux is good for A-F[1] (but for > different reasons), OS-X is good for applications A-C and Microsoft > Windows is good for A-C. > > This is a volunteer project that takes in some monetary values for > certain things, but is largely a non-profit/not-for-profit organization > aimed at providing a service. Clearly and objectively defining where we > stand against our competition should be a major (but not or if not, take > your pick) a priority of the project as a whole. If no one else has done > it, then we should. Just because we can (and maybe because we should, > just because we can). > > Oliver Heartmann has made some good points, but I tend to disagree with > his philosophy. Such a project as this needn't be centered around a > monetary base. This isn't a project to start mass-marketing FreeBSD to > the mindless masses, but to provide prospective to the Server OS > Communities, not to alienate someone because we think we're better. I > also disagree with his idea that 'we should let sleeping dogs lie' and > not bother to do any of this. It's something we (as a community-driven > project) should have done a long time ago. Well, there must be a misunderstanding! I never wished FreeBSD be centered around a monetary basis, I'm parsecs away from that! I tend to bring up arguments against commercial focussing. The BSD operating systems earned a great legacy from academic research and even today we all profit from this very academic fundament: focus on exact, clean code. Perfection over the simple dirty "just works" hacks (I connote Linux with this kind of philosophy and I recall myself an interview between Theo de Raad (OpenBSD) and Linus Torvalds (Linux) in which Torvalds stated that he's not eagerly after perfection and he's accepting some flaws if the overall system works - so or similar). On the contrary without money - no professional developer. And as we see (and suffer), KMS implementation suffers from a professional developer. Most benefits Linux got in the past years came from commercial development. Even ZFS is developed by a former, now "oracled" commercial company. And this also forces the next question: why has DragonFly BSD got a HAMMER filesystem developed by someone non-profit-developing? My English may be bad and sometimes some misunderstandings arise from that. I didn't mean "let sleeping dogs lie". At the moment it is even for someone who was for 15 years with FreeBSD hard to accept, that there is no reason to start with FreeBSD as a server platform, if the workstations have also to be driven by a non-Windows OS and the support for fast graphics is really essential! Guys, I have a bunch of AMD/ATi HD48XX graphics cards running with FreeBSD and I do not dare to logoff the X11 system since then the whole system freezes and need to be reset. This situation lasts now for two years and i wrote a lot of PRs. In the first place, this isn't a OS fault, is X11. But on the second view the situation seems more complicated and interwined. Just the development on X11 has made rapid progress towards new KMS architectures and the stuff I understand to less of to talk in detail about, but I suffer the consequences. For years I ran a whole computer lab and server platform with number cruncher for the meteorological department of an university. After 2003 the situation changed dramatically and today, where CUDA is all over the place, there is no server left because even the server platform suffer from some academic aspects. And we need to face the truth. FreeBSD lives also from a braod basis of acceptance and popularity. If it is only a beloved project by some eccentrics and geeks keen on development, then the system loose touch to the ground of needs. This is overexaggerated, surely, but I see a slight tendency in some srings of arguments. Linux also is a open and free "project", but it has a wider and borader acceptance now. The question is why. Windows - a couriosity itself. Unstable, breaking, dump as a brick, a honeycomb for every virus or trojan horse crossing this galaxy - but is is by the vast amount of installations the majority! People like obviously crashing systems and the challenge of being "crucified" by vanishing reports, documents, thesis, reports ... well, my words are not as polished as the contributor of the former message. But at last, one further experience. My today's department is involved in a big outer-space probe mission. Lots of data arriving ESA's and NASA's datacenter every day get copied to our facility. I run some FreeBSD server boxes on cheap hardware as well as on expensive hardware and the oberall responsivness of the FreeBSD boxes is much worse than those of the Linux boxes. But on the contrary, the RedHat installations suffer from sporadic non-responsive automounter filesystems, NFS problems and sometimes a vad network load-behaviour under heavy load. Even my simple ZFS installations showed, that with mucgh less efford security and data consistency could be acchived with a even much simpler to administer operating system. But no one listend! The admin claims to have several certificates in adminsitering Linux - made via Web. In the opinion of those who make decissions (about live and death, that's the profession of older professores around here!) this piece of toilette paper is more worth than a university degree in computer science, even with the major in operating systems. What I want to say is: the mission is impossible if there is not a bit of progress in popular fields ... so ... I'm exhasuted > > What I do agree with in his views is that such a project should contain > some historical perspective, we should always remember where we came > from, it's a fundamental aspect to remember so we know where we are > going, but that shouldn't be the only factor, at the very basic, we also > need to know where we stand at present, not just in cold, hard, > unfeeling numbers. But a project that thrives on diversity, much as the > societies we live in. Arguments will rise, tempers will flare, people > might leave (and fork, as is their right), but FreeBSD will still be > here, no less then it was before (except in a slightly diminished > user-base for a while). > > This said, everyone on these mailing lists has an experience that can be > contributed to this project[2]. It does not have to be limited to just > the FreeBSD Developers describing why we're superior to any other OS > (and it rightly shouldn't be just their opinion). In reality, it should > be a hodgepodge of opinion from every walk of life. Every person that > has participated in this discussion has had different experiences with > Microsoft products, BSD products, Apple products and Linux products. And > those opinions and experiences are what's going to count. > > I think I've run out of steam for the moment ... so I shall stop here. > > [1] Any X-Y definition is not meant to provide any form of clearly > defined values to any one OS but to illustrate hypothetical examples. > [2] I repeatedly defined this discussion as project because I couldn't > think of a different term to use that would aptly and/or correctly > describe this discussion.
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