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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!news.byu.edu!cwis.isu.edu!fcom.cc.utah.edu!cs.weber.edu!terry From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) Subject: Re: Digiboards and BSDI/386 Message-ID: <1993Jun11.181807.8884@fcom.cc.utah.edu> Sender: news@fcom.cc.utah.edu Organization: Weber State University (Ogden, UT) References: <1993Jun4.094829.6159@spcvxb.spc.edu> <1v45qu$im@urmel.informatik.rwth-aachen.de> <1993Jun11.080552.6234@spcvxb.spc.edu> Date: Fri, 11 Jun 93 18:18:07 GMT Lines: 54 In article <1993Jun11.080552.6234@spcvxb.spc.edu> mauritz_c@spcvxb.spc.edu writes: >In article <1v45qu$im@urmel.informatik.rwth-aachen.de>, kuku@acds.physik.rwth-aachen.de (Christoph Kukulies) writes: >> >> From my understanding this comp.os.386bsd.x is not the place to discuss >> BSDI products. Please continue your thread in comp.unix.bsd. > >What's the difference? I think the two OS's are enough alike to >merit a little "cross pollenization". What are you so touchy about? Just an observation, but: I don't mind questions from BSDI users here, as long as: 1) They identify that they are talking about BSDI so that the answer "update to the newest patchkit and apply patch XXXXXX" is obviously inapplicable. 2) People don't get confused that 386BSD and BSDI are synonymous. 3) The pollenization doesn't include offspring which have the name 386BSD but the ownership BSDI. 4) The pollenization goes both ways, and the 386BSD community also benefits. 5) Question posting does not become BSDI's primary means of technical support (I despise the idea of someone covertly reaping financial benefits from the good faith of others without sharing the benefit. If this and other 386BSD forums do the work of supporting BSDI's product, they should be paid technical support fees/salaries). In general, nobody does (1). It seems that the BSDI users are the biggest offenders on (2). We've been protected from (3) so far. BSDI has been mostly fair about (4), although they have gotten major benefits (like the ISOFS and console drivers) and 386BSD has reaped only minor ones. As long as we keep (1)-(4) in mind, (5) will fall into place. We should not forget that BSDI is in business to make money, and that their primary goal as a business is to do that above all else... a business dies if it is not profitable. To a great extent, their goals are incompatable with those of the 386BSD community. As a generalization, real research, that which is directed towards gaining knowledge rather than profit, does not (indeed, cannot) occur in a normal business environment. The 386BSD community, which is in its majority a research community, should not be a path of least resistance for BSDI technical support. If this seems touchy, then so be it. Terry Lambert terry@icarus.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.