From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 1 17:11:29 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id DA21BE97; Tue, 1 Apr 2014 17:11:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-pa0-x233.google.com (mail-pa0-x233.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:400e:c03::233]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "smtp.gmail.com", Issuer "Google Internet Authority G2" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id A459A95; Tue, 1 Apr 2014 17:11:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-pa0-f51.google.com with SMTP id kq14so10149161pab.38 for ; Tue, 01 Apr 2014 10:11:28 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:reply-to:sender:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id :subject:from:to:cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=E+ax7u65PAacNzXXWXH8y3DQ1R8vTX8PYda5aJzePks=; b=QE2HHdNdfRpvjPX8yg9ulVb+066RrqAFXTYXIQVh9y/64lGs9zbUFxRMG6VwhbptAI Ms+QpHi32APIA9fVMMs97dNnRN7Oex1ytot0wF9Y7+UUoGY/O0n9lKljgX+Bs+h0ZKZo RRKMFjG2Cej1YnGtK9RxICawrtfNF7knd23x5BcymQUVCzO/QgbZoSlbmLRblox63F2r KFC8o8IpBiFXjXVK5OEZAr4Quyhk4OEwJvOhJeEYyoUxsDnnjs+jiMkp8ktX6Io5AEJN hoLHPiMmckynd9Hp4IlrMBTxfAcABE6IlLMobrni8LQIJ+YAX/TaitajodaUKc4wiuil FpLg== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.66.146.229 with SMTP id tf5mr32752540pab.50.1396372288266; Tue, 01 Apr 2014 10:11:28 -0700 (PDT) Sender: mattjeet@gmail.com Received: by 10.70.132.228 with HTTP; Tue, 1 Apr 2014 10:11:28 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 10:11:28 -0700 X-Google-Sender-Auth: e2dkxKDub8NiNvBtK2CG2BGkDVQ Message-ID: Subject: Re: Leaving the Desktop Market From: Matt Olander To: Jordan Hubbard Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 18:38:32 +0000 Cc: Eitan Adler , hackers@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org, freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list Reply-To: matt@ixsystems.com List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 17:11:29 -0000 On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 12:11 AM, Jordan Hubbard wr= ote: > > On Apr 1, 2014, at 10:46 AM, Eitan Adler wrote: > >> That is why on this date I propose that we cease competing on the >> desktop market. FreeBSD should declare 2014 to be "year of the Linux >> desktop" and start to rip out the pieces of the OS not needed for >> server or embedded use. >> >> Some of you may point to PCBSD and say that we have a chance, but I >> must ask you: how does one flavor stand up to the thousands in the >> Linux world? > > The fact that this posting comes out on April 1st makes me wonder if it's= just an elaborate April Fool's joke, but then the notion of *BSD (or Linux= , for that matter) on the Desktop is just another long-running April fool's= joke, so I'm willing to postulate that two April Fools jokes would simply = cancel each other out and make this posting a serious one again. :-) > > I'll choose to be serious and say what I'm about to say in spite of the f= act that I work for the primary sponsor of PC-BSD and actually like the fac= t that it has created some interesting technologies like PBIs, the Jail War= den, Life-preserver and a ZFS boot environment menu. > > There is no such thing as a desktop market for *BSD or Linux. There neve= r has been and there never will be. Why do you think we chose "the power = to serve" as FreeBSD's first marketing slogan? It makes a fine server OS a= nd it's easy to defend its role in the server room. It's also becoming eas= ier to defend its role as an embedded OS, which is another excellent niche = to pursue and I am happy to see all the recent developments there. > > A desktop? Unless you consider Mac OS X to be "BSD on the desktop" (and = while they share some common technologies, it's increasingly a stretch to s= ay that), it's just never going to happen for (at least) the following reas= ons: As you may imagine, I completely disagree! The Internet just had it's 20th birthday (it can't even drink yet!) and it's anyone's game. This is like trying to predict automobile technology and dominant car-makers by 1905. There's always room for competition. Take a look at what's happening right now in the auto-industry. Tesla came out of nowhere 125 years after the invention of the automobile and is doing pretty well. I bet there were a lot of people at Apple saying they couldn't compete in the music-player market, or the mobile-phone market, etc. In fact, if I look at the stats on freenas.org, we have about 350k visitors each month, with nearly 2% of them running FreeBSD and clearly using it to surf the internet. Sounds like a market to me! Long live the FreeBSD desktop, long live PC-BSD :P Cheers, -matt