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Date:      Mon, 24 May 1999 23:11:10 -0700
From:      "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com>
To:        "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com>
Cc:        "Mike Smith" <mike@smith.net.au>, "Sergey" <serge69@nym.alias.net>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: [Q] How stable is FreeBSD 3.X ? 
Message-ID:  <3200.927612670@zippy.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 24 May 1999 22:53:07 PDT." <000001bea672$dce52580$021d85d1@whenever.youwant.to> 

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> 	Have you stopped to consider that users may just want to _use_ FreeBSD
> without having to follow the development? Have you considered that bad
> releases affect them? This is yet another piece of the 'Open Source' versus
> 'company supported' puzzle.

You're inferring far too much from this.  If you want a "supported
FreeBSD" then you can always buy a support contract and pay someone
some money to ensure, more or less, that the software/support combo
you're getting will predictably meet your needs.

If you're just downloading something off the net which represents an
ongoing moving target and you're working with volunteers who REQUIRE
precise and accurate bug reports in order to do anything at all useful
for you, however, then certain minimum standards in the user himself
must be met.  Some users who "just want to use it" and not be bothered
to adapt to the unique non-commercial environment they're now in are
expecting far too much from too little personal investment, basically.

To put it another way, there are certain laws of entropy that stay the
same regardless of the commercial or free nature of the software, and
to get a certain amount of energy out of a system you simply have to
put a certain amount of energy in.  If that "energy" is not being
introduced into the equation via the currently acceptable barter unit
(money) then that's obviously going to have to be balanced by extra
energy from somewhere else. :)

- Jordan


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