Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 12:17:49 +0000 (GMT) From: Paul Robinson <wigstah@akitanet.co.uk> To: Jay Nelson <noslenj@swbell.net> Cc: Brad Knowles <blk@skynet.be>, Eric Wayte <ewayte@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: What result would *you* like from the merger? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0003141156080.53999-100000@jake.akitanet.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.10003131915330.941-100000@acp.swbell.net>
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On Mon, 13 Mar 2000, Jay Nelson wrote: > Since you asked (which you didn't, but offered us the chance), I would > like to see a calm and mature approach, which we are seeing from the > principals. Indeed. I think my inbox has undergone an attack in recent days. One of the reasons I'm happy to be part of the FreeBSD community (I don't contribute code, but I do contribute advocacy), is that it is nothing like the Linux community. Except recently there's been that slight whiff of amateur paranoia in the air which has made it all a little uncomfortable. I vote everybody calms down and just plays along - who the hell bought the CD's anyway? :) (I'm joking of course)... > I expect BSD, Inc. to be the first credible alternative to proprietary > versions of Unix and the first viable alternative for manufacturers to 'expect'? I thought it already was. There is a lot of movement behind Linux because it is easy to pull off your own distribution (take Redhat, do a sed 's/Redhat Linux/Super Linux/g' across the source, stick it on a few FTP servers, and hey! Instant IPO! Because of this, there are commercial pressures pushing Linux along nicely. I'm glad BSD isn't like that. > off load their separate development. Linux hasn't made it and I don't > really think it will. I think BSD will be taken far more seriously > by the larger manufacturers than Linux ever will. That suggests long, > productive careers for all of us. I can argue with you as to whether 'Linux hasn't made it', because as much as it hurts to say it, it has. There are certainly more Linux boxes out there then there are FreeBSD boxes, but that's a marketing issue. And although you may be right in regard to companies putting their weight behind BSD in the future, if that means we end up with anything like the 'Linux phenomenon' as far as I'm concerned they can shove off and keep their money. Of course, I'm just a user who doesn't get a say as to who puts money behind what. > I suspect we'll be seeing some rather quiet announcements, most likely > from Sun, but, potentially IBM and Compaq throwing their support > behind the effort. Frankly, I think this merger is one of the > shrewdest moves I've seen during the entire Linux hysteria. IBM are already making *very* small murmours, but there is already support from a few reasonable commercial players in terms of porting their apps over (Zeus springs to mind), and I'm sure IBM and Sun will start putting resources into BSD, as will Compaq, but only because they hate the Redhat guys. :) What I would say though is that if nobody uses an OS, nobody will develop for it (seen any announcements from Sun on their Plan 9 efforts recently?), and this can stifle things. As a market share, FreeBSD is a lot smaller than Linux, which is a big factor when the marketing guys are helping with the resourcing.... > But what I most would like to see from this merger, is someone with > enough authority to calm Brett down;) Hahaha... -- Paul Robinson To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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