*BSD News Article 65739


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From: root@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX)
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References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <jdd.829261293@cdf.toronto.edu> <yfglok14n5r.fsf@time.cdrom.com> <NELSON.96Apr12112334@ns.crynwr.com>
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 01:16:58 GMT
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:21191 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:545 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3134 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:2930 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17176 comp.os.linux.advocacy:45024

In article <NELSON.96Apr12112334@ns.crynwr.com>,
Russell Nelson <nelson@ns.crynwr.com> wrote:
>
>> the corporate IS managers when they learned that we needed $200,000
>> worth of equipment and 6 different operating systems gurus to do the
>
>Nope.  There is only one Unix for the desktop: Linux.
>
I don't understand that statement -- it contains absolutely no information
backing your claim.  In fact, I was hired at my current place of
employment partially because of my involvement in FreeBSD.  Linux is
a reasonable choice for a U**X desktop, so is FreeBSD.  However most of the
people that I know of using computers would be much happier with WinNT
because of the application availability and interoperability.  Note that
FreeBSD and Linux are essentially interchangeable in the arena of protocols
and applications.  (*BSD has made the effort to be able to run Linux
apps and read/write ext2fs partitions - because we DO believe in
interoperability -- not proprietary protocols and file formats.)

>
>Nope.  You haven't seen what happens when Windows 3.1/95 crashes and
>burns.  There is only one thing to do: reinstall and hope that your
>files don't get mangled.
>
Win95 is an abortion from hell.  No question about that.  No reason
(other than limited hardware resources) to keep from using WinNT.

>
>That's because they weren't working cooperatively.  What, pray tell,
>Jordan, prevents you from improving the flaws that you see in Linux,
>to the point where it is as good as FreeBSD or NetBSD or OpenBSD or
>386BSD?
>
I don't understand that statement.  I am trying to guess what it means.
FreeBSD is quite a bit ahead in certain areas, and there is much more
to do to keep ahead in some areas, and to catch up in others.  The
notion of the "one-true" OS sure sounds like Mickysofts' goal.  Is that
Linux's also?  (BTW, I am NOT anti-Microsoft as much as I am simply afraid
of them.)

An analogy of the above statement might be "why aren't all of the
football teams just working together as opposed to fighting against
each other."  Part of it is the sport of it :-).

There is a significant advantage to diversity, and I doubt that Linux
would not be as good as it is without real competition.  (Likewise
FreeBSD, etc...)  Note that for one, I spend a lot of time working on
and optimizing the algorithms in FreeBSD -- and certainly would not
be nearly as motivated to do so without competition.

John