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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!news.ececs.uc.edu!newsfeeds.sol.net!worldnet.att.net!howland.erols.net!swrinde!news.uh.edu!bovine From: wjin@cs.uh.edu (Woody Jin) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.openbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc Subject: Re: Stronghold and other binaries for OpenBSD 2.0 Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 06:01:00 GMT Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Houston Lines: 61 Message-ID: <5hkv70$tnd@Masala.CC.UH.EDU> References: <5hbjqi$20j@ocean.silcom.com> <3339D4C9.167EB0E7@FreeBSD.org> <5hkl95$kaj@Masala.CC.UH.EDU> <5hkq3f$b37@azure.dstc.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: bovine.cs.uh.edu X-Newsreader: News Xpress 2.01 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.openbsd.misc:38 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:38035 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2907 In article <5hkq3f$b37@azure.dstc.edu.au>, leonard@dstc.edu.au wrote: >wjin@cs.uh.edu (Woody Jin) writes: > >> In article <3339D4C9.167EB0E7@FreeBSD.org>, "Jordan K. Hubbard" > <jkh@FreeBSD.org> wrote: >> >David Carmean wrote: >> >> I only became aware of OpenBSD about a week ago, and have limited >> >> admin experience and no installation experience with FreeBSD, and >> >> no contact whatsoever with NetBSD. >> > >> >So why not give them all a try? They're free. :) > >> The *time* he has to spend for all of them is not free. >> It is not his purpose of life or his profession to try all of them >> and compare, either. :) >> I think that this is what many developers of free software >> should realize in these fast-pace days. It is the "time, effort", and >> "compatibilty" that matters, not the price. > >free software developers are likely to dispense with the "time is money" adage. >after all their time spent does not directly accrue money, so why should >it be foremost on their minds? i too say "blah" to these "fast-paced days"! I am sorry if my statement sounded like bashing free software. Not at all. I simply expressed users' point of view after lots of installations of free software. Some free software is extremely difficult to install (and poor documentation), and very often requires other free software installed, which again requires other free software installed .... etc (for example latex2html). You are very lucky if you can find all of them and install the sequence of those quickly, but mostly it is not. When users ask questions on the net, what they often hear is flames of RTFM ( many installation documents look like uuencoded to most users, because they are written by the developers' point of view. They rarely ask themselves the question of "Are these documents readable by the users ?"). When users ask which one among the several free software, what they often hear is to try them all and decide by yourself. While there is somewhat truth on that statement, most users can't afford to investing their time in installing all of them and comparing. Users simply have totally different view and are in different situations than the developers. My point here is that if your free software is very hard to install/configure and takes lots of time for the users to install, then it is not really free software, because you spend too much time. Sometimes, the time spent is so much that it is far better to purchase commercial software. The users are not foolish or brain-damaged as some flamers flame. Far from it. I am sure that if they are dedicated to the installation and spend enough time they will get to finish it. But they may not have such time. In this sense, FreeBSD's distribution method of binary format of much free software available is very good (I liked it and I appreciate FreeBSD developer's endeavers to achieve it). However, I still don't agree with the idea of "you install all OS's and compare them". In order to install an OS, you have to dedicate a machine and enourmous amount of time to it (especially to the novice who asks such questions). It is not as simple it is to the experienced developers as they might consider. -- Woody Jin