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To: "Brian J. McGovern" <mcgovern@spoon.beta.com>
cc: hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Commerical applications (was: Development and validation tools...) 
In-reply-to: <199701161220.HAA03853@spoon.beta.com> 
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 00:45:45 +1100
From: Giles Lean <giles@nemeton.com.au>
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On Thu, 16 Jan 1997 07:20:25 -0500  "Brian J. McGovern" wrote:

> Secondly, the concept of "Freeware" scares people off. I know a company
> (Telebit) that bought BSDI boxes, simply because FreeBSD was Freeware, and
> BSDI was a commercial product that they could put money down on. They
> never bothered with a support contract.

So, what is the problem?  If BSD/OS works out (and I expect it will),
then when some useful project comes up that is short of funds offer
FreeBSD as an option, with a fallback to BSD/OS if it doesn't work.

If a company (or project -- don't try to change the world in just one
day!) is a little more adventurous they might pick FreeBSD, knowing
that the fallback to BSD/OS is available if FreeBSD doesn't work out.

BSDI are not the enemy, really!  Their product when I looked last
wasn't as nice as the free *BSD Unixen, but it did work pretty well
and certainly more comfortable than NT.

The cost of a PC OS is too small in the context of most projects to
have much influence at all unless you are installing tens or hundreds
of machines.

Giles

P.S. This almost certainly should move from -hackers to -chat if you
followup; it is on both lists now so please TRIM THE REPLY ADDRESS!