From: Widjaja Sugiri (wis@uts.amdahl.com) Subject: Re: 386BSD announcement Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd View this article only Date: 1992-03-12 09:06:59 PST > > *********************************************************************** > * BUT for convenience John made this DISTRIBUTION PLAN: > * > * At the SVNet meeting of March 11, 7:30 at the Apple Auditorium at 10500 > * Mariani (corner of De Anza), Cupertino, CA, a few copies of 386BSD will be I was there last night, however I only managed to get the diff which is about 200k compress. If there is ftp site that I can put this diff, I'll be willing to. Thanks. - Widjaja wis@amdahl.com Message 52 in thread From: James da Silva (jds@cs.umd.edu) Subject: Re: 386BSD announcement Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd View this article only Date: 1992-03-12 08:11:15 PST ury@mosque.huji.ac.il (Ury Segal) writes: > I also think it is the right thing to do! most of BSDI came from the free > Net-2 tape, and charging 1000$ for it, well, I don't want to say such > words in the USENET... This is a pretty ignorant statement. Of course BSDI is not charging $1000 for a warmed over version of BSD N2. They are charging for a well-tested well-supported commercial BSD product with X11R5, networking, NFS and full sources, and their pricing is in fact agressive compared with other commercial Unix vendors. It's true that BSDI can't compete with the free versions for the hackers market, but so what? Not everyone is interested in the hackers life of burning the midnight oil making all the latest packages and patches from the Net work together. And, not everyone is on the Internet; downloading something as big as the binaries and sources to BSD over the phone line is going to cost a large sum and be a big hassle. Getting a complete, works-out-of-the-box supported system is worth a lot to most people. With a lot of hard work, a little luck, and a strong tail wind, BSDI can blow the doors off of the commercial SYSV vendors by killing them at their own game. I'm personally cheering for BSDI and other ventures like Cygnus and Mt.Xinu which make money supporting industrial strength source-full products. Hopefully these will be the wave of the future. So, there is no reason why we can't cheer for both the proliferation of freely redistributable Unix systems AND commercial vendors who add a lot of value by enhancing, integrating, testing, fixing and supporting these systems. Jaime ............................................................................ : Stand on my shoulders, : jds@cs.umd.edu : James da Silva : not on my toes. : uunet!mimsy!jds : Systems Design & Analysis Group Message 53 in thread From: David J. Hughes (bambi@bu.oz.au) Subject: Re: 386BSD announcement Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd View this article only Date: 1992-03-12 15:22:45 PST jds@cs.umd.edu (James da Silva) writes: >With a lot of hard work, a little luck, and a strong tail wind, BSDI can >blow the doors off of the commercial SYSV vendors by killing them at their >own game. I'm personally cheering for BSDI and other ventures like Cygnus When BSDI offers binary compatibility with the AT&T born 386 versions, BSDI must be seen as the best thing since sliced bread. For some poor sod like me in Australia, I would have to fork out about $5k to get my hands on SCO with a C compiler. I would rather pay the $1,200 (local price) for BSDI and get everything I want PLUS the sources just in case anything does go wrong. The offering of binary only distributions from BSDI at reduced rates must be viewed as a great step in bringing UNIX to the front door of the desktop market for good. I too support and cheer BSDI for their efforts. At this point in time I may not purchase their product, but I still offer my support and I will offer it as a solution if asked by less technical people (ie. who don't know what a kernel's all about) who want desktop UNIX. bambi ___ David J. Hughes bambi@bu.oz.au / \ / / / / __/ __ __ ____/ / / __ Senior Network Programmer / \ / \ / \ / / / / / \ / Comms Development & Operation \____/ \__// / \__/ \___/ / / / AUSTRALIA (+61 75 951450)