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Date:      Wed, 2 Feb 2000 13:53:34 +1030
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        Scott Parsons <scott2@sympatico.ca>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: School Project
Message-ID:  <20000202135333.T55303@freebie.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <000801bf6d41$3c6de4c0$010ffea9@gandalf>
References:  <000801bf6d41$3c6de4c0$010ffea9@gandalf>

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On Tuesday,  1 February 2000 at 21:49:13 -0800, Scott Parsons wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm doing a project on FreeBSD with other classmates for a college
> presentation.

So this is all your own work, right, and what you're doing now is
research?

> My part in the project, aside from the design, are the pro's and
> con's.  I guess it's easy enough to find all the pro's; however,
> con's are not so easy.
>
> Could you please just make a few point form examples of the drawbacks?
> In areas such as:
>
> Marketing - I figure that if it is free, and the source is available
> then there isn't much of a market.  But I know that Yahoo and I think
> Hotmail are using FreeBSD.  There has got to be a drawback
> somewhere.

I suppose that depends on what you mean by "market".

> Compatibility- Can FreeBSD use any off the shelf application?

You can find details of this (and a lot more useful stuff) at
http://www.FreeBSD.org/.

> Source Code- if a company has to reveal their changes, won't their
> competition just use it?

Why should they, when they can get FreeBSD for free?  Writing source
code is only part of the job.  Maintaining it is the big issue, and
that's even more difficult if you import source from elsewhere.  The
FreeBSD project imports lots of code, and it's usually a little
traumatic, at least for the person who does the import and sometimes
also for those who run -CURRENT.

> Therefore, what's the point in trying to alter it for your
> advantage?

It works better.

> I can't think of anything else, the only reason why I sound negative
> is because I'm trying to find the downfalls of FreeBSD. I already
> know the great sides to the OS.

Note that the answer to these questions would be exactly the same if
you changed "FreeBSD" to "NetBSD", "OpenBSD" or "Linux".

Take a look at http://www.opensource.org/, which will give you a lot
more background.

> PS I am using the devil pics for the project, if that is a problem
> just tell me.

Well, it's a daemon, not a devil, and it belongs to Kirk McKusick
(mckusick@mckusick.com).  You should ask for permission; I don't think
he'll say no.

Greg
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