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Date:      Tue, 14 Apr 1998 00:08:44 -0700
From:      Don Wilde <dwilde1@ibm.net>
To:        Mark Mayo <mark@vmunix.com>
Cc:        chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Open Source Products
Message-ID:  <35330B7C.8891DE84@ibm.net>
References:  <199804131719.LAA21122@narnia.plutotech.com> <35326353.4E30451B@xylan.com> <19980413201541.65522@snark.thyrsus.com> <3532AD36.2968F8B6@xylan.com> <19980413215647.37918@snark.thyrsus.com> <19980414065232.07017@doriath.org> <19980414015920.30944@snark.thyrsus.com> <19980414023527.63292@vmunix.com>

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> My spin: technical/demanding users will always exist, and they will
> always prefer the most technically advanced OS. This is FreeBSD's community
> now to a large extent, and I don't see that ever changing. Whether or
> not we can extend it to be more of a mainstream success like Linux is
> becoming is the question. I think we can, but even if we don't, I still
> don't consider that "death" and will continue to be happy on my BSD system.
> :-)

Agreed. How can anything 'die' with source code available? My only doubt
is a shadow caused by these new hardware standards like I2O which are
closely held in-group things, not for public discussion. USB we can do,
Firewire we can do, but I2O we're not allowed, unless somebody reverses
it or buys a commercial license and packages a binary for us. Since
that's a server-centric development, we should be scared into doing
something now, although I'm not anywhere close to being a kernel hacker
yet to be able to do it myself.

The universal clone PC market is drying up, and unless we create enough
of a market for them to continue to make these generic PCI+ISA boards we
like, we are dead. WinHEC was Microsoft's bid for closed hardware once
again, and everybody was listening. Unless we all (Linux included) grow
_fast_, we are in trouble. It will take a while, but sooner or later the
chipsets will disappear. Intel's already virtually blasted the
marketplace, and they're on a forced march forward.

I realize I'm early at singing these blues, but it's to give a little
fiery coal down the shorts of everybody -- including myself -- that I
write.

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