From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 1 18:59:41 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 853301ED; Tue, 1 Apr 2014 18:59:41 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ob0-x232.google.com (mail-ob0-x232.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:4003:c01::232]) (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 3199FD51; Tue, 1 Apr 2014 18:59:41 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-ob0-f178.google.com with SMTP id wp18so11426289obc.37 for ; Tue, 01 Apr 2014 11:59:40 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; bh=xwXraAotJCq8QoxZu0qjW8aCT6vU86yVCRGqhOag7To=; b=jcrCRFWZwQP4oMOG9NZeCT+AXMoObl8t3Ea3olE/sz68KzGo9sO/urwuG6yYRJ4IVJ Qf+w9yxqDVNpYekkgDyLT/PyuAyUcuPtPBVmOINdZdIxAQjABWZ8fvhTalb7CgNSp+m9 6xk7gQe17AnmTP9pmKORYXDk9HGFLubvdZeHZkQyeWJf52XDbGV1XG+t1/DCmpRPT4zS NcFa9tPs+CwXASps/uenhjay2E8vuQiCTSdD4n0HWVMSl8q1sPIsBapsNp6BwoFypafS jxAfCAUkWXX1srO+q5K+V9nSRjRv4llp5k/VdWpEgjNcOsrpaagPLpY9eN6LXwUCYjos vcwg== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.182.195.11 with SMTP id ia11mr29683453obc.8.1396378780423; Tue, 01 Apr 2014 11:59:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.76.12.34 with HTTP; Tue, 1 Apr 2014 11:59:40 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 20:59:40 +0200 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Leaving the Desktop Market From: Andreas Nilsson To: Matt Olander Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.17 Cc: Eitan Adler , "freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org" , current@freebsd.org, Jordan Hubbard , freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list 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 18:59:41 -0000 On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 7:11 PM, Matt Olander wrote: > On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 12:11 AM, Jordan Hubbard > wrote: > > > > 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 > fact that I work for the primary sponsor of PC-BSD and actually like the > fact that it has created some interesting technologies like PBIs, the Jail > Warden, Life-preserver and a ZFS boot environment menu. > > > > There is no such thing as a desktop market for *BSD or Linux. There > never 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 and it's easy to defend its role in the server room. It's also > becoming easier 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 > say that), it's just never going to happen for (at least) the following > reasons: > > 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! > Seeing this I could not resist: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/which-operating-system > > Long live the FreeBSD desktop, long live PC-BSD :P > Let them prosper! Seriously, though. There are shortcomings, sure. But I tend to prefer the rock solid feature rich base with a somewhat shaky desktop experience than the other alternatives. Sure I would like to see a FreeBSD pulseaudio compatible sound server. And perhaps a template library for pinout configs for snd-cards. And "native" flash, although I say "flash, no thank you" Perhaps companies such as Netflix could release FreeBSD clients ahead of linux clients ;) I can also say that I recently got a friend to migrate from linux on both his home server as well as his laptop. He is very happy with the change. Cheers Andreas > Cheers, > -matt > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-current@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >