Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 10:19:41 -0900 From: Brian Raynes <brian_raynes@dnr.state.ak.us> To: Anthony Atkielski <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Prevalence of FreeBSD and UNIX among servers Message-ID: <3C0D21CD.7F89C40A@dnr.state.ak.us> References: <00ef01c17cda$6b419760$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <3C0D0426.BEC515D7@dnr.state.ak.us> <010001c17cf4$954228d0$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
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Anthony Atkielski wrote: > > Brian writes: > > > ... I believe that the trend is to dump Solaris > > on Sun Microsystems machines for Linux on cheaper > > Intel machines. I believe this is a cost issue > > - virtually free, with little administrative > > cost difference is tough to compete with. > > That seems logical, but why would they choose Linux specifically? Everything I've seen thus far during my brief newbie experience > with FreeBSD suggests that it is significantly superior to Linux for any kind of serious production use, and FreeBSD doesn't cost > any more than Linux (perhaps less, since you don't have to purchase complete distributions). Indeed, any of the BSD clones would > seem to be a better bet than Linux. Is hype alone driving the feverish interest in Linux? I'm not sure I would necessarily call it just hype, but Linux is more well known and being able to refer the pointy-haired boss at Redhat or some other Linux company can give him/her the warm fuzzies inside. Otherwise, I like xBSDs better than Linux too. > The main disadvantage to it is that UNIX requires technically sophisticated support > staff, but in a large installation, that's not a problem (it might be a problem for a small >business, though, in which case Windows > would be the favored choice). You're probably onto something there. More small organizations may be getting into networking and so the higher availability of MCSEs over Unix administrators probably does play a part too. > > > Now, I'm predicting their aggressive anti-customer > > license control policies, along with outrageous > > pricing for applications with functionality that > > can mostly be duplicated for free will serve to > > bite them very hard in the next few years. > > I feel exactly the same way, at least with respect to licensing. In fact, it was in part the recent, ominous change in licensing > that came with Windows XP that prompted me to finally seriously invest in FreeBSD; I bought a second computer and FreeBSD the same > day Windows XP was released. You might say that I'm just covering the bases. UNIX is primarily a server operating system, but it > will do for the desktop in a pinch, and by having a UNIX system on hand, I am much better protected against any potentially > unpleasant developments in the Microsoft camp. I think that many other people may feel similarly motivated to look outside > Microsoft, now that .NET and XP are being marketed aggressively. > > The advocacy question specific to FreeBSD is: How can persons coming to UNIX be persuaded to adopt FreeBSD instead of the much > over-hyped Linux? Of course, the flavor of UNIX that a person runs doesn't matter, as long as applications and drivers and the like > remain compatible across all flavors; but if Linux becomes too specialized and proprietary, and too predominant, eventually people > will be forced to use Linux and will be locked into it, without any option of running any other UNIX clone. I don't think Linux will become too much that way, although there are signs that some of the free software companies are starting to try and make money and differentiate themselves by producing proprietary components (see recent articles on Ximian, the GNOME guys). If one of these companies was to grow to dominating status, we could see something like that. It would be tough to take the Linux operating system itself and try to dominate. The licensing forces it to be open source, so proprietary changes are difficult to add. Note: I don't want a GPL vs. BSD license discussion- again.:) I really don't want a discussion of the legal strength of the GPL license, either >:(. The only thing I see possible is a dominate free application, along with the proprietary parts, you buy which ones you need. But, I believe it will stay possible for any changes to Linux or xBSD to be copied or "emulated" successfully. Really though, I don't think anyone is going to achieve a Microsoft-like dominance again, unless they happen to come up with the next "killer" proprietary application, one that's of interest to everyday people, but boring to free software programmers. It gets more difficult to imagine what that might be, but it'll be interesting to see what happens next... Brian To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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