Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 09:42:15 +0200 From: MICHAEL_HEITMEIER@HP-Germany-om12.om.hp.com To: FreeBSD-Newbies@FreeBSD.ORG, hamellr@dsinw.com Subject: RE: basic info on freebsd needed... Message-ID: <H0000d7d05cb71d1@MHS>
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> Yes I enjoy the ease of use of Windows and yes I also enjoy the
stability
> of FreeBSD and the freedom it gives me to configure things. Now can I
have
> both please?
Yes, but it'll take people like you to get off their asses, stop
complaining and making FreeBSD into what THEY want it to be. Complaining
and bitching gets nowhere, even less so when they don't even contribute to
the project itself. If you want to change it, learn to program, start
committing to the tree, run the bleeding edge software, recompile Linux
software into native FreeBSD ports. Make user-friendly configuration
scripts that have all kinds of pretty pictures and play Tetris while
you're installing, write documentation that holds a users hands while they
install FreeBSD and shows all the ins and outs involved and the
consequences of every action they can take. After all.... Microsoft has
thousands of junior and contract programmers doing just that....
Rick
Well, I did not intend this to be a complaint, so cool your jets. Of
course you are correct, if anybody who wanted a particular feature would
get their act together and wrote it then Windows would be dead by now.
The point of the post was to contrast the various camps and to show in an
ironic way how various factors collaborate to keep FreeBSD in the
hobby/niche area. Funny then how much official FreeBSD communication
(Web/newsletter) is spent on 'advocacy'. If it was truly just a hobby,
then why try to convince other people of its merits?
I'm afraid this kind of double standard, pushing it as the best OS there
is and retreating into "we do what we want to" and "it's only missing
features because you don't help" every time somebody suggests something
remotely resembling a new feature won't help.
Make up your mind: hobby or service. If it's a service then start
listening to the people using it because the next generation of users will
thrive on the experience of the current users. If it's a hobby then stop
any advocacy and most importantly stop selling it.
If you expect me to pay (I have) and shut up (I won't) then I'm afraid
you're behaving like the proverbial Microsoft. The least I expect that
happens with my money is that it funds future development and therefore
buys me the right to give inputs. What else does it mean when 'Walnut
Creek passes part of the money paid back to the FreeBSD project' ? (thanks
for the quote, Adam) Do you think I just pay because I'm such a nice
person and it's oh so nice to fund these nice programmers with their nice
hobby?
Face it: FreeBSD has become a commercial product and you cannot have it
both ways. If you value the people who code that much higher than the
people who pay I'm afraid that thinking is stuck in pre-industrial times
where division of labour as a concept was still to be discovered.
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