*BSD News Article 68163


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From: "Hanns B. Wetzel" <hbw@interbay.net.au>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 21:28:49 +0000
Organization: InterBayNet
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References: <3188C1E2.45AE@onramp.net> <4mnsc5$6qo@sundial.sundial.net> <Dr1wrL.My0@kithrup.com> <3191B103.167EB0E7@FreeBSD.org>
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To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org>
CC: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de

Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
> 
> Sean Eric Fagan wrote:
> >
> > In article <4mnsc5$6qo@sundial.sundial.net>,
> > Bryan J. Smith, E.I. <b.j.smith@ieee.org> wrote:
> >
> > just too much disinformation for me to not speak up (as I expect others to).
> 
> Yeah, no kidding.  Bryan's posting had me floored, it was such a masterpiece
> of disinformation.  Sort of like listening to Daffy Duck trying to explain
> the workings of a nuclear reactor. :-)
> 
> > FreeBSD and Linux should support the same Adaptec controllers, since the
> > support originally came from Linux!  (It has since, I think, been pounded on
> > more on the FreeBSD side, but they should still related.)
> 
> Actually, the information stream has reversed.  From what I understand
> in talking to Justin Gibbs, the maintainer of FreeBSD's Adaptec driver,
> the Linux folks now take his work from FreeBSD and adapt it back to Linux.
> Unless someone's slacking seriously in the Linux dept, support should be
> very close to parity for both OSs.
> 
> > The FreeBSD team has not signed a non-disclosure agreement with Adaptec; if
> > they did, they wouldn't be able to give out the sources!  (That is what the
> > "non-disclosure" part means, you know.)
> 
> Thanks for correcting this.  We *can't* sign such things, in fact, having
> neither the desire nor the legal presence to do so.  Bryan is just wrong
> wrong wrong (did I mention that already? :-).
> 
> > and it will build the binary.  Some of these "ports" are binaries that
> > cannot be distributed as sources -- netscape, for example, is available as a
> > "port."  (Admittedly, it's the Linux binary 8-).)>
> 
> Heh?  It's the BSDI binary, Sean!  Always has been.. :-)
> 
> > I do not recall when FreeBSD-2.1 came out; it may have been late '94, but I
> > thought it was closer to early '95.  No matter either way.  As for the
> 
> December 1995 / January 1996.
> 
> > >FreeBSD is only available on CD-ROM from Walnut Creek CD-ROM for $50.  Linux
> 
> $39.95 for a single unit, $24.95 for a subscription, anywhere from $18 - $24
> on the street.  We sell at deliberately higher prices direct so as to not
> undercut our own distributors (who wouldn't be our distributors for very long
> if we did).  Admittedly it's a little higher than then $10 "linux big gulp"
> packs I've been seeing, but most of those are of such poor quality that frankly
> I'd have no desire whatsoever to see FreeBSD competing at that level.  Down in
> the dregs I'd really rather not go.
> 
> > There are a couple of other people who make FreeBSD CD-ROMs; they are
> > typically behind Walnut Creek's distributions, which isn't terribly
> 
> Actually, the DISCNet product (sold by Infomagic) is getting closer to
> releasing around the same time as the WC product.  Infomagic doesn't have
> the benefit of me working for them on the CD as well as the net release,
> but they still do a pretty good job, considering.  Not that I'd recommend
> their release over WC's, of course! :-)
> 
> > There are more vendors offering Linux on CD-ROM, and that is true.  I think
> > that is a pity for the FreeBSD distribution, however -- the FreeBSD CD-ROM
> 
> To a point, yes.  I'm happy to see the users get a reasonable selection of
> choices, that's certainly true, but I'm not all that sure if a rabid
> proliferation of products is in anybody's best interests either.  I looked
> at a recent pack called the "Linux hacker's 10", for example, and "padded
> out" does not even attempt to describe it.  A CD full of MPEG files?
> Another of wallpaper backgrounds?  The GNU CD? [most of which is utterly
> redundant considering that it's already part of Linux!]  I won't even go into
> amount of redundancy involved in their multiple-CD dumps of TSX-11 and
> Sunsite.  Suffice it to say that there's such a thing as simply inundating
> the user with data in hopes they'll think they're getting some sort of
> super deal.  More is not always better.
> --
> - Jordan Hubbard
>   President, FreeBSD Project

Good stuff Jordan, 

It never ceases to amaze me just how much utter garbage is published on
the usenet by some otherwise apparently intelligent people. Are they
mostly under age college kids with a surplus of education and a
deficiency of common sense??

Btw, J"oerg Wunsch asked me why I was using the iso-2022-jp charset.
Seems his elm has trouble handling it. I gave him a long explanation
which in short is that I need to be able to view our Japanese
translations etc.. Here is part of his response:

"Well, the newsreader did only warn me, with some red-printed header,
that it doesn't understand iso-2022-jp, but continued to display it in
iso-8859-1.  Anyway, as you can see above, elm even refuses to display
it... i had to save it in a file.  I think elm should do a better job,
and at least offer to pipe it through some program from within the
MIME directory, perhaps i will modify it some day."

Are you having any trouble displaying this message?

Hanns
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________
Hanns B. Wetzel (hbw@interbay.net.au) Hervey Bay Qeensland, Australia 
Tel (071) 25 2872___________________________________Fax (071) 28 1877