Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 00:13:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Jeff Roberts <jroberts@ashland.edu> To: FreeBSD Questions Discussion List <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Philosophy of FreeBSD/UNIX/FSF, etc.? Message-ID: <Pine.OS2.3.95.970501233810.27A-100000@warp4>
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Greetings (and Salutations, of course)!
As someone a bit new to UNIX (and also, someone who is physically *newer*
than UNIX), I am constantly confronted with appeals for freedom of access
to source code, "openness" of computing, and some rather emotional tirades
against the proprietary nature of some *other* systems (e.g, those of M$
and IBM). Some of these don't seem very well thought out, and raise a
number of philophical problems for capitalism and platform-specific
qualtiy measures, while others (those of some older/more-experienced
practitioners, perhaps) seem to hint at something more subtle and
sophisticated. Unfortunately, I have not yet stumbled upon an
all-embracing Tao of UNIX (in general, or any flavor); rather, I just
catch comments and hints of UNIXism in technical writing and newsgroup
discussions.
FreeBSD does not strike me as the sort of system imposed upon one (compare
this with something like SCO, whose mailing lists team with responses
including the fragment, "On our mission critical OpenServer system at
work we had
this workaround, but at home I solved it with *Linux* another way ...").
The responses I have seen on this list suggest that almost everyone here
*is here* because he/she *wants* to be. So presumably, someone here could
probably enlighten me, or at least direct me to some (detailed
and complete) commentary on this topic. (Something beyond the technical
benefits of being able to examine the source for security holes.) Where
is this sort of thing discussed, especially by backers of *free* UNIces
like ours? And what is FreeBSD's place in the scheme of things? Linux
users argue that FreeBSD is not open enough, FreeBSD team members counter
with the *OS vs. Kernel+Ports* argument. And what is the future for
FreeBSD and something like POSIX, for instance?
Looking forward to some thoughtful advice/suggestions from some pretty
interesting people.
Thanks,
Jeff
PS -- right now there's a good debate going on in the
http://www.infoworld.com/
Porting Unix software to NT
Are you planning on doing so? Nicholas
Petreley wants to know why or why
not.
forum, which has branched into a sub-issue, UNIX security vs. Nice Try
scurity, both of which could probably benefit from the input of the
members of this list.
______________________________________________________________________
jroberts@ashland.edu >>>> Jeff Roberts <<<< strider@acm.org
Public Key = http://www.ashland.edu/~jroberts/txt/pubkey.asc
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