subject:"RE\: Lennart Poettering\: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore"

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 21:21:31 -0600
Chad Perrin articulated:

 This is where we find a dividing line between users who want different
 things.  Yes, you turn on your Win7 laptop (or wake it up) in a coffee
 shop, and it connects automagically -- in fact, you probably don't
 even realize it has connected.  Hopefully it connected to the coffee
 shop's network, and not one of those occasional skimming networks that
 masquerade as coffe shop networks and exist to harvest login data and
 the like.  The dividing line between two schools of thought on the
 matter in this example should be obvious.

You do realize that all of that is configurable; ie, auto connect,
preferred network, etcetera. If you have not taken the time to read the
documentation and properly configure the wireless app correctly then
why bitch? I am not implying that it is perfect; however, given the
grave limitations that FreeBSD places on wireless connections;
specifically lack of drivers, and the inordinate amount of manual
intervention to accomplish what Microsoft and other OSs, (does the name
Ubuntu sound familiar) have achieved, it is readily apparent that the
FreeBSD implementation is trailing the pack.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:33:01 -0300
Mario Lobo articulated:

 First of all, forgive me for top posting but I don't want to
 disturb the debate between Jerry and Polytropon. In fact, I enjoyed
 it so much that I saved it in separate folder. It is just plain good
 reading, not only because of the issue at hand, but also because of
 the elegance and intelligence of the arguments presented by each of
 them, and because it was delightful to notice how their cultural
 backgrounds influence their presentations, to the point where even
 when using harsh words didn't carry offense.

Ah, how sweet. You have just made my Christmas Card list. I apologize
if you are a non-Christian.

Let me clarify that statement. I am not apologizing because you might
not be a Christian, but rather for offering to place you on my
Christmas Card list if you aren't. I thought I had better make that
clear less someone with an IQ of a cockroach claims I was attacking
non-Christians.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 22:50:25 -0500 (CDT)
Robert Bonomi articulated:

  Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:01:20 -0400
  From: Jerry je...@seibercom.net
  Subject: Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

  On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 22:31:41 +0200
  Polytropon articulated:

   Your TV example is very good. I've recently read a text
   that predicts the future of CDs - a text from the late 80's.
   When we consider what we are _currently_ using, the text
   predicting no important future for CDs looks quite funny.

  You are undoubtedly familiar with the 1986 quote:

  I think there is a world market for about five computers a
  Remark attributed to Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board of
  International Business Machines)

 *SNICKER* 

 So much for your reseearch skills. 

 Thomas J. Watson _died_ in NINETEEN FIFTY SIX.  If  he made a
 remark in 1986 it would have been world-shaking news.

 You are citing a 1986 .sig item from a _USENET_  posting by a Convex
 Computer employee.  The purported remark occurred in _1943_.  *IF* it
 was made, it is worth noting that, as a prediction, it _was_true_ for
 *TEN*YEARS*.  Now, how many other 'predictions' in the field of
 computing have survived _that_ long?

 Reputable sources have it:
Although Watson is well known for his alleged 1943 statement: I
 think there is a world market for maybe five computers, there is
 scant evidence he made it.

 There *is* 'some' evidence, albeit _not_ conclusive, that his son,
 Thomas J. Watson, Jr. said something _remotely_ related in 1953, to
 wit: But, as a result of our trip, on which we expected to get
 orders for five machines, we came home with orders for 18.

Actually, the research was fine; I simple failed to include reams of
documentation, notes and citations. I felt that it would be overkill in
the given environment. I was not attempting to fulfill the duties of a
raconteur. I was simply demonstrating some of the factual or fictional
statements made by supposedly intelligent individuals over time.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-19 Thread Eduardo Morras


At 11:20 19/07/2011, Jerome Herman wrote:

A FreeBSD distro with LDAP, ACL and MAC management would be nice though.

You could create a port that brings all this functionality
in one rush. Remember that the ports collection is more than
just about installing software - it can be used to even
bring such features to the system and configure them.
A port that would reboot in single user, use tunefs to activate ACL 
here and there, activate MAC and move most users to an LDAP auth ? I 
don't think so.

Actually I would be scared if such a port was accepted in the port tree.


Perhaps a jail based distribution, the port creates a jail, sets acl 
and mac on a new dedicated disk/slice/partition/mount point/whatever 
and moves users to the ldap. Currently FreeNAS, pfsense,  nor 
monowall don't allow installation in a jail, it could be great. 



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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-19 Thread Sam George

On 7/17/2011 05:10, Jerry wrote:

While I usually consider Slashdot nothing more than a bunch of
juveniles ranting against Microsoft; however, I did find this rather
interesting post this morning.

Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poettering-BSD-Isnt-Relevant-Anymore

Interestingly enough, a great deal of it is true. It might be
interesting to know how others feel about it. Obviously, asking that
question on this forum is like playing against a stacked deck; however,
it still might prove interesting.

Having come to BSD from Linux less than a month ago, I find it
interesting that the very thing, which Mr. Pottering is encouraging in
Linux development, is what has lead me to search for other options
besides Linux. Of late Linux has been loosing the 'plays well with
others award'. First they cut the .AppleDouble support from the
appletalk drivers, then they refused to let the ReiserFS code into the
kernel, and I suppose their lack of implementing ZFS is possibly same
motivation (given that they _do_ have the man power to port the code).

If they feel that they are an end-all and be-all and don't need to
support legacy systems, obscure hardware, or other ways of doing
things, well, I'll find another way. This thing is about Freedom, if
they cut that from their development plan, then it's time to say farewell.

Pottering seems to have forgotten, or perhaps he is too young to
remember? Linux was a 'toy OS'. And if it's too big a burden to support
'toy OS'es then Pottering is no different from the people who worked at
the big companies twenty years ago.

Getting back to the message I'm replying to, I disagree with mr
pottering's basis statements: If Debian was my project I'd try to focus
on making (or keeping) it _professionally relevant_ -- I'll translate
this as: If it ain't business and making money, drop it. ...we want to
make sure Linux enters the mainstream all across the board. -- This
sounds like desktop systems to me, but there is much more to the world
than the shrinking market share of the desktop. UNIX was born in the
research world as a pet project to have fun -- written after hours. BSD
continued that journey toward freedom recoding the parts of UNIX that
had been stripped out by unscrupulous business dealings. Hopefully
Linux won't turn out to be an evolutionary miss-step, but...

If Kerningham and Richie were focused on staying 'professionally
relevant' UNIX would never have /existed/, and as its decedents, neither
would have BSD or Linux. Is BSD relevant? Looks like it's /essential/
given the context of the question.

Live Free.

Sam George
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-19 Thread Michael Sierchio

IMHO what has helped Linux is the existence of commercial
distributions with support - Red Hat, SUSE, etc. The only attempts to
do this for BSD have been undercapitalized and/or half-hearted.

But I find the general premise of the discussion to be - how to say
this politely? - stupid. Things that interest me are relevant, things
that don't presumably are not, until they are.

- Michael (FreeBSD since 2.2.2)

On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Sam George t...@dracoquies.us wrote:
On 7/17/2011 05:10, Jerry wrote:

While I usually consider Slashdot nothing more than a bunch of
juveniles ranting against Microsoft; however, I did find this rather
interesting post this morning.

Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poettering-BSD-Isnt-Relevant-Anymore

Having come to BSD from Linux less than a month ago, I find it interesting
that the very thing, which Mr. Pottering is encouraging in Linux
development, is what has lead me to search for other options besides Linux.
Of late Linux has been loosing the 'plays well with others award'. First
they cut the .AppleDouble support from the appletalk drivers, then they
refused to let the ReiserFS code into the kernel, and I suppose their lack
of implementing ZFS is possibly same motivation (given that they _do_ have
the man power to port the code).

If they feel that they are an end-all and be-all and don't need to support
legacy systems, obscure hardware, or other ways of doing things, well,
I'll find another way. This thing is about Freedom, if they cut that from
their development plan, then it's time to say farewell.

Pottering seems to have forgotten, or perhaps he is too young to remember?
Linux was a 'toy OS'. And if it's too big a burden to support 'toy OS'es
then Pottering is no different from the people who worked at the big
companies twenty years ago.

Getting back to the message I'm replying to, I disagree with mr pottering's
basis statements: If Debian was my project I'd try to focus on making (or
keeping) it _professionally relevant_ -- I'll translate this as: If it
ain't business and making money, drop it. ...we want to make sure Linux
enters the mainstream all across the board. -- This sounds like desktop
systems to me, but there is much more to the world than the shrinking market
share of the desktop. UNIX was born in the research world as a pet project
to have fun -- written after hours. BSD continued that journey toward
freedom recoding the parts of UNIX that had been stripped out by
unscrupulous business dealings. Hopefully Linux won't turn out to be an
evolutionary miss-step, but...

If Kerningham and Richie were focused on staying 'professionally relevant'
UNIX would never have /existed/, and as its decedents, neither would have
BSD or Linux. Is BSD relevant? Looks like it's /essential/ given the
context of the question.

Live Free.

Sam George
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:19:04 -0400
Michael Sierchio articulated:

 IMHO what has helped Linux is the existence of commercial
 distributions with support - Red Hat, SUSE, etc.  The only attempts to
 do this for BSD have been undercapitalized and/or half-hearted.

Yes, it is hard to sell a car sans support. Giving the new owner an
instruction manual and telling him to fix it himself is not an ideal
business model.

 But I find the general premise of the discussion to be - how to say
 this politely? - stupid.

Ah, such fine manners.

 Things that interest me are relevant, things that don't presumably
 are not, until they are.

Now that I will agree with, unless I don't. :)

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-19 Thread Mario Lobo

On Tuesday 19 July 2011 10:06:22 Jerry wrote:
 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:33:01 -0300
 
 Mario Lobo articulated:
  First of all, forgive me for top posting but I don't want to
  disturb the debate between Jerry and Polytropon. In fact, I enjoyed
  it so much that I saved it in separate folder. It is just plain good
  reading, not only because of the issue at hand, but also because of
  the elegance and intelligence of the arguments presented by each of
  them, and because it was delightful to notice how their cultural
  backgrounds influence their presentations, to the point where even
  when using harsh words didn't carry offense.
 
 Ah, how sweet. You have just made my Christmas Card list. I apologize
 if you are a non-Christian.
 
 Let me clarify that statement. I am not apologizing because you might
 not be a Christian, but rather for offering to place you on my
 Christmas Card list if you aren't. 

Well, no apologies needed!. I am truly honored to be in your Christmas card 
list, even if I was not a Christian, though that doesn't necessarily means 
that I am a Christian, at least in the pagan sense of the word (i.e. - what 
non-believers/atheists/whatever think a Christian is), or even in the 
non-pagan sense.

Anyway, consider your offer mutual.

 I thought I had better make that
 clear less someone with an IQ of a cockroach claims I was attacking
 non-Christians.

Gook thinking! So, apologies accepted, just in case a non-Christian moron 
shows up. 

-- 
Mario Lobo
http://www.mallavoodoo.com.br
FreeBSD since 2.2.8 [not Pro-Audio YET!!] (99% winblows FREE)
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread perryh

Joshua Isom jri...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 7/17/2011 6:16 PM, Mario Lobo wrote:
  On Sunday 17 July 2011 10:13:13 C. Bergstr??m wrote:
  I hope gnome does [go Linux-only]..   Maybe then more
  people would forget about it and focus on making KDE better ;)
...
 What about enlightenment?

For us old-timers :)

What's the advantage of any of these desktop environments (Gnome,
KDE, enlightenment, Xfce) over ordinary X11 with (say) FVWM2 or TWM?
Certainly there are some useful apps that, for better or worse, are
built with gtk or the KDE toolkit, but what does the full-blown
environment really contribute (other than bloat)?
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Joshua Isom


On 7/18/2011 8:05 AM, per...@pluto.rain.com wrote:

Joshua Isomjri...@gmail.com  wrote:

On 7/17/2011 6:16 PM, Mario Lobo wrote:

On Sunday 17 July 2011 10:13:13 C. Bergstr??m wrote:

I hope gnome does [go Linux-only]..   Maybe then more
people would forget about it and focus on making KDE better ;)

...

What about enlightenment?


For us old-timers :)

What's the advantage of any of these desktop environments (Gnome,
KDE, enlightenment, Xfce) over ordinary X11 with (say) FVWM2 or TWM?
Certainly there are some useful apps that, for better or worse, are
built with gtk or the KDE toolkit, but what does the full-blown
environment really contribute (other than bloat)?


Desktop options are why linux has grown so well.  If gnome and KDE 
didn't exist, linux wouldn't have gotten the market share it did. 
Desktop environments are a foot in the door technique for server 
environments.  Windows clearly isn't the best server, especially older 
versions, but it's popular because desktop Windows is popular.  The 
server editions of linux distributions are almost mirrors of their 
desktops, gui and all.

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread perryh

Outback Dingo outbackdi...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 11:03 PM, Adam Vande More 
 amvandem...@gmail.comwrote:
  On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 2:28 PM, Outback Dingo 
  outbackdi...@gmail.comwrote:
  ... Name one cloud provider providing FreeBSD 8x or 9X to run
  as instances. I know of one coming... question is are there
  others
 
  There are plenty already.  Rootbsd for one, among others ...

 Im pretty sure they are only XEN based and not cloud based
 per se, as there appears to be no elasticity on demand, Granted
 RootBSD is nice but on demand expansion of memory, cpu and disk
 under ones control is more what i would describe as FreeBSD in
 the cloud,

Perhaps a Linux cloud instance can be depenguinated?
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Chad Perrin

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 07:10:59AM -0400, Jerry wrote:
 While I usually consider Slashdot nothing more than a bunch of
 juveniles ranting against Microsoft; however, I did find this rather
 interesting post this morning.
 
 Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore
 
 http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poettering-BSD-Isnt-Relevant-Anymore
 
 Interestingly enough, a great deal of it is true. It might be
 interesting to know how others feel about it. Obviously, asking that
 question on this forum is like playing against a stacked deck; however,
 it still might prove interesting.

Most of his opinions seem to boil down to Features trump function.  It
doesn't matter if it works; it only matters if it claims to support more
features.

The Linux community as a whole seems to be following that philosophy all
the way to bug-parity with MS Windows.  Once it arrives there, nothing
will positively differentiate it from MS Windows, and it will become
obsolete.

That's how things look right now, anyway.  Maybe something will change
before it gets there.  If it does get there, though, BSD Unix systems
will be more important than ever, because they'll fill the niche that
Linux-based systems are abandoning like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]


pgpeWDDuk3S8s.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Adam Vande More

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 11:16 PM, Outback Dingo outbackdi...@gmail.comwrote:

 Im pretty sure they are only XEN based and not  cloud based per se, as
 there appears to be no elasticity on demand, Granted RootBSD is nice
 but on demand expansion of memory, cpu and disk under ones control is more
 what i would describe as FreeBSD in  the cloud,


Cloud computing by most definitions I'm aware of refer to the decades old
practice of outsourcing data storage and processing needs.  RootBSD fits
comfortably into this definition.  Elastic cloud computing(IMO an often
overrated attribute) is an enhanced version of such services. The definition
is something of a moot point in this discussion as either setup is available
for FreeBSD guests with multiple hosting providers.

http://www.reliacloud.com/ and http://www.elastichosts.com/ are a couple
examples of the more sophisticated ones.

-- 
Adam Vande More
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 01:51:19 -0500, Joshua Isom wrote:
 On 7/18/2011 8:05 AM, per...@pluto.rain.com wrote:
  Joshua Isomjri...@gmail.com  wrote:
  On 7/17/2011 6:16 PM, Mario Lobo wrote:
  On Sunday 17 July 2011 10:13:13 C. Bergstr??m wrote:
  I hope gnome does [go Linux-only]..   Maybe then more
  people would forget about it and focus on making KDE better ;)
  ...
  What about enlightenment?
 
  For us old-timers :)
 
  What's the advantage of any of these desktop environments (Gnome,
  KDE, enlightenment, Xfce) over ordinary X11 with (say) FVWM2 or TWM?
  Certainly there are some useful apps that, for better or worse, are
  built with gtk or the KDE toolkit, but what does the full-blown
  environment really contribute (other than bloat)?
 
 Desktop options are why linux has grown so well.  If gnome and KDE 
 didn't exist, linux wouldn't have gotten the market share it did. 

Again, we see a common mixture of market share (who buys a
product or support for it), usage share (who uses a typically
free product) and mind share (who knows about typically free
alternatives).

In terms of market share, well... it's hard to judge about
a system that doesn't _primarily_ show up in unit sales.



 Desktop environments are a foot in the door technique for server 
 environments. 

Although it sounds quite stupid, I have to agree. People do
want on the server what they know from the desktop. And the
way _to_ the desktop is primarily reached through GUI and
applications. Yes, it's not the OS that counts, it's the
software that allows you to get work done, and of course,
it's also the look  feel of that software.

People are different in their preference regarding the last
aspect. Some like big desktop environments like KDE, others
like things like WindowMaker. Some urgently need a desktop
full of icons, others prefer a system that stays out of their
way and lets them work. Some need good keyboard support,
others don't even touch the many complicated keys with the
strange signs.

This differences among users is also differences among
administrators, those who have to run the servers. Sadly,
those are often _not_ the people DECIDING about the
servers. This is mainly a task of suit-wearing (l)users
who believe in the oh holy marketing church. All the
numbers Poettering is using to prove his claim come
from the field of economy, of companies, of market
share. Other aspects are mostly left out.

A common problem is bloat, as it has correctly been
mentioned above. Some say that bloat isn't bloat - it's
_neccessary_ for modern application development. However,
this is highly debatable. :-)

If you see the race conditions in software development,
where systems get better and software gets worse, you
end up with the same overall usage speed (boot the
machine, start the OS, start the program, interact with
the program and so on):

 hardware resources ++
overall speed =  = const.
software requirements ++

And it's even more const. if you are willing to agree
that those who make up the majority of market share are
typically users who treat their plentycore tenmelonhundred
GHz and endless disks PCs as WORSE TYPEWRITERS! :-)

In this regards, most mainstream Linusi (let alone Windows)
could never show impressive improvements. For example, you
update FreeBSD and non-bloated applications on the _same_
hardware. What do you get? Faster overall speed: System
comes up faster, programs run faster. Doing the same on
bloated systems, overall speed gets sweee.
In order to maintain CONSTANT speed, you need to update your
hardware. You need to do it regularly. If you don't do it,
you're out of business soon. (This is one of the aspects
that contribute to how market share works - this constant
renewal of otherwise fully functional parts keeps the
industry running, selling people the same stuff over
and over. On the other hand, it's the motor behind
development of new technology that makes today's
top technology become incredibly cheap for the masses
tomorrow, so there's no fully negative connotation here.)

And don't tell me about advanced. There are many users
that want CERTAINITY and a constantly working environment.
They do not advance in the way hardware vendors, media
industry or governments want them to advance.



 Windows clearly isn't the best server, especially older 
 versions, but it's popular because desktop Windows is popular. 

And the follow-up question is: _Why_ is Windows that popular?
Marketing and product placement strategies. Definitely NOT
quality of software.



 The 
 server editions of linux distributions are almost mirrors of their 
 desktops, gui and all.

Yes, and I'm old enough to fail to see why I would want to
have a GUI on a server that doesn't even have a GPU. :-)



Allow me to add a very personal comment:

I'm using FreeBSD for many years now, and I have also tried
many Linusi for home use, office use, project

Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Christian Barthel

I moved from Linux (Debian GNU/Linux) to (Free|Open)BSD a few weeks ago and I
am really impressed by the *BSDs. They are working very well (the Just works
feeling I missed a long time), the port and package-system is very nice and
handy, it's stable and you have a really powerful (superior) community
(mailinglists, forums, ...)

Linux orientates more on Windows and Mac rather than POSIX, Unix and BSDs.
Unity and Gnome3 do the same way: They want to be better than Apple/Windows and
gain market share - the Linux as desktop-rubbish. But this is not the way I
want to work and I really **hate** this movement. I don't need eye candy - I
need something to get my work done!

So - for people who want to work (and not to play) with an operating system -
the BSDs are a good place to start.

And as server operating system, BSDs will never die because they are stable,
secure and functional!

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 07:10:59AM -0400, Jerry wrote:
While I usually consider Slashdot nothing more than a bunch of
juveniles ranting against Microsoft; however, I did find this rather
interesting post this morning.

Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poettering-BSD-Isnt-Relevant-Anymore

--
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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--
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread C. Bergström


 On 07/18/11 03:02 PM, Adam Vande More wrote:

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 11:16 PM, Outback Dingooutbackdi...@gmail.comwrote:


Im pretty sure they are only XEN based and not  cloud based per se, as
there appears to be no elasticity on demand, Granted RootBSD is nice
but on demand expansion of memory, cpu and disk under ones control is more
what i would describe as FreeBSD in  the cloud,


Cloud computing by most definitions I'm aware of refer to the decades old
practice of outsourcing data storage and processing needs.  RootBSD fits
comfortably into this definition.  Elastic cloud computing(IMO an often
overrated attribute) is an enhanced version of such services. The definition
is something of a moot point in this discussion as either setup is available
for FreeBSD guests with multiple hosting providers.

http://www.reliacloud.com/ and http://www.elastichosts.com/ are a couple
examples of the more sophisticated ones.
One of those links gives a 404 on the root domain and the other on the 
pricing page (http://www.reliacloud.com/pricing/)


I'm not sure how serious these efforts are or where it actually gives 
more information on how they are powered by BSD in any way.


I wish people would spend as much time solving problems in *BSD as they 
do trying to defend an irrelevant OS ;)


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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Adam Vande More

2011/7/18 C. Bergström cbergst...@pathscale.com


 One of those links gives a 404 on the root domain


Works for me.


 and the other on the pricing page 
 (http://www.reliacloud.com/**pricing/http://www.reliacloud.com/pricing/
 )


Not sure where you got that link.  Use the menu.


 I'm not sure how serious these efforts are or where it actually gives more
 information on how they are powered by BSD in any way.


Do you understand the topic?  What part of this discussion requires the
hosting provider to be powered by BSD?

I wish people would spend as much time solving problems in *BSD as they do
 trying to defend an irrelevant OS ;)


We all wish a lot of things.  One of mine would be that people shouldn't
have strong opinions on subjects they know little to nothing about.


-- 
Adam Vande More
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Gour-Gadadhara Dasa

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:05:41 +0200
Polytropon free...@edvax.de wrote:

 And furthermore, I've found some Linux users migrating
 AWAY from Linux, using FreeBSD instead. How can this be
 combined with Poettering's claim?

I'm the one...using Linux since '99 (SuSE, Gentoo,Arch) and moved to
PCBSD-9.0 some months ago. I'm *very* happy and cannot believe how
little time I spend doing admin work 'cause the OS 'just works'.

Otoh, Linux was saga with *constant* tweaking, updating, fixing...



Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
“In the material world, conceptions of good and bad are
all mental speculations…” (Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu)

http://atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810




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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Peter Vereshagin

Hey Mr(s) freebsd-questions show some good to me!
2011/07/18 03:49:59 -0500 Adam Vande More amvandem...@gmail.com = To C. 
Bergstr?m :
AVM We all wish a lot of things.  One of mine would be that people shouldn't
AVM have strong opinions on subjects they know little to nothing about.

It's about me too, but I'm interested if this thread is about that too:

http://www.daemonology.net/freebsd-on-ec2/
http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-07-08-FreeBSD-on-EC2-via-defenestration.html

(=

73! Peter pgp: A0E26627 (4A42 6841 2871 5EA7 52AB  12F8 0CE1 4AAC A0E2 6627)
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:47:24 +0700
C. Bergström articulated:

 I wish people would spend as much time solving problems in *BSD as
 they do trying to defend an irrelevant OS ;)

Personally, I wish they would spend more time in developing fully
functional wireless drivers as opposed to simply bumping the major
version number every 18 months +/-. I have two new laptops ion front of
me that I cannot use FBSD on simply because they don't support the
wireless (N class obviously) installed in them.

I simply refuse to purchase a machine to accommodate an OS; nor will I
attempt to change the wireless network card/chip for the same reason.

OK, now the usual group of blame the manufacturers, blame Microsoft,
blame everyone else for the problem are free to chime in. I was
seriously considering hiring a professional programmer to write drivers
for devices for me; however, it was then I remembers something I
learned in business school, class 101. I weighted the cost of
developing the drivers as opposed to simply purchasing an OS that all
ready had those drivers readily available. Guess which was many times
cheaper? Cost analyses proved that developing my own drivers was not
cost effective.

I suggested several years ago, and I will re-suggest that FreeBSD start
a program that would allow programmers to be paid to write code that
either the regular contributors do not want to write or are not capable
of writing. Other OS's are currently working on that model. No one
would be forced to contribute. This would prove beneficial to everyone
and should satisfy both capitalist who don't mind paying for quality
products and socialist like Poly who want everything for nothing. It
would be a win-win situation.

With the advent of the next version of FBSD soon to be upon us,
this would be a propitious moment to start such a project. FBSD has
never been considered a dreadnought in the driver development field and
this might work to change that. At the very least, it would
create a brouhaha among others although the pigeon-livered average
FreeBSD user would probably abstain from support this project either
from a lack of need or indifference to others or basic socialist/fascist
concepts.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or ignored.
Do not CC this poster. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header.

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 07:30:00 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 I suggested several years ago, and I will re-suggest that FreeBSD start
 a program that would allow programmers to be paid to write code that
 either the regular contributors do not want to write or are not capable
 of writing. Other OS's are currently working on that model. No one
 would be forced to contribute. This would prove beneficial to everyone
 and should satisfy both capitalist who don't mind paying for quality
 products and socialist like Poly who want everything for nothing. It
 would be a win-win situation.

Erm... you're invited to prove the everything for nothing
as well as the socialist claim. I'm old enough not to
take this insult personally, but still (for maintaining
discussion culture) please back up your statement, or it
will simply classify you as impolite and stupid.

Besides that nonsense, I agree with your statement. With
support (usually by money) and help of manufacturers that
are interested in bringing their hardware to a better
support situation by providing information and documentation
so developers could write drivers for many platforms, it
would be a win-win situation. It would even be better than
cost-intensive reverse engineering - means: better drivers
in less time, so FreeBSD could be used on most modern
hardware. The more standards are used, the less work is
needed to bring the new hardware up. (Just imagine you
would need a driver for a hard disk...)

Personally, this is no issue for me as I don't own such
things, but because you claim that I want everything for
nothing... :-) Keep in mind that I've also spent money
on software, but on one that WORKS.

Maybe this could even affect the whole *BSD family, so
by the availability of more drivers, more desktop share
could be gained, which seems to be the measurement of
OS quality today.



 With the advent of the next version of FBSD soon to be upon us,
 this would be a propitious moment to start such a project. FBSD has
 never been considered a dreadnought in the driver development field and
 this might work to change that.

The idea seems to have lots of potential. With paid
developers who are willing to license their work as
BSDL code, it could really improve the out of the box
support of the system.

On the other hand - as you mentioned -, it may be
the lack of support of the community, but THAT is
the main force behind FreeBSD. Other operating systems
have big companies behind them who are able and willing
to spend money on prestige projects, as well as their
everyday work because they need to make their living from
it - or gain world domination. :-)

The more the FreeBSD community depends on having certain
hardware working, the more support I see for developers.
But as the community seems to be spread across all the
many forms of OS use (mostly servers, but also stationary
workstations, just a minority seems to be using mobile
devices), I'm not sure it will be sufficient. It's not
that FreeBSD is a desktop-only OS which can invest all
its energy in getting commodity hardware working, while
leaving quality aside on other fields. Poorly implemented
features, broken code, messing around with quirks and
short-time solutions do not seem to be very welcome among
FreeBSD users.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Aryeh Friedman

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 7:30 AM, Jerry je...@seibercom.net wrote:
 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:47:24 +0700
 C. Bergström articulated:

 I wish people would spend as much time solving problems in *BSD as
 they do trying to defend an irrelevant OS ;)

 Personally, I wish they would spend more time in developing fully
 functional wireless drivers as opposed to simply bumping the major
 version number every 18 months +/-. I have two new laptops ion front of
 me that I cannot use FBSD on simply because they don't support the
 wireless (N class obviously) installed in them.

 I simply refuse to purchase a machine to accommodate an OS; nor will I
 attempt to change the wireless network card/chip for the same reason.

 OK, now the usual group of blame the manufacturers, blame Microsoft,
 blame everyone else for the problem are free to chime in. I was
 seriously considering hiring a professional programmer to write drivers
 for devices for me; however, it was then I remembers something I
 learned in business school, class 101. I weighted the cost of
 developing the drivers as opposed to simply purchasing an OS that all
 ready had those drivers readily available. Guess which was many times
 cheaper? Cost analyses proved that developing my own drivers was not
 cost effective.

 I suggested several years ago, and I will re-suggest that FreeBSD start
 a program that would allow programmers to be paid to write code that
 either the regular contributors do not want to write or are not capable
 of writing. Other OS's are currently working on that model. No one
 would be forced to contribute. This would prove beneficial to everyone
 and should satisfy both capitalist who don't mind paying for quality
 products and socialist like Poly who want everything for nothing. It
 would be a win-win situation.

 With the advent of the next version of FBSD soon to be upon us,
 this would be a propitious moment to start such a project. FBSD has
 never been considered a dreadnought in the driver development field and
 this might work to change that. At the very least, it would
 create a brouhaha among others although the pigeon-livered average
 FreeBSD user would probably abstain from support this project either
 from a lack of need or indifference to others or basic socialist/fascist
 concepts.

The issue your talking about is actually caused by a fundamental flaw
in *ALL* pure open source projects namely in return for the freedom to
look at the code and stuff we give up market forces.If there where
real market forces then *SOMEONE* in the larger freebsd community
would find it profitable to write such drivers (and other needed
unglamorous but necessary tasks).A model I proposed (with about 3
others from different FOSS backgrounds) a few years ago is still as
relivent now as it was then despite the lack of reconition that it
allows for all the freedoms of open source but without the neglecting
of user demands (i.e. market forces).   The model is actually really
simple: the source code is freely available to *ANYONE* for
study/research/evaluation/educational *BUT* the minute you compile it
becomes economically valuable to the user (assuming that there is no
value to the above free uses [it is not a bad assumption if you look
at it]) and thus *MUST* be paid for.   Now the one small twist this
has over any other model is that with basic (but careful) planning it
always for anyone who has contributed to get their fair share of any
revenue.Think of it as the idea that everyone must contribute to
the project either with money and/or work to improve it (let their own
enlightened self interest dictate what mix they choose). The only
legal hurdle to this is that the OSD definition of open source does
not allow for licenses to descriminate between classes of users
(people who only read the source code but do not use it and those that
do use it).
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread C. Bergström


 On 07/18/11 06:30 PM, Jerry wrote:

I suggested several years ago, and I will re-suggest that FreeBSD start
a program that would allow programmers to be paid to write code that
either the regular contributors do not want to write or are not capable
of writing.

Like a bounties page?

(If such a thing doesn't currently exist it would be a good idea for 
someone to start one)  In my experience though they generally don't get 
a lot of attention and you're maybe better off on a case-by-case basis 
approaching a developer you know that could do the work for you.


Is there a company that produces a commercially supported version of 
FreeBSD that also actively contributes back and doesn't keep anything 
closed?  (ixsystems is about as close as I can think to such a thing.  
Sorry if this is really obvious, but I don't track this space so closely)

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Aryeh Friedman

Just a side note I am the managing partner in a software development
firm and they *ONLY* reason we have not released the majority of our
internal lib is because we are essentially giving something of huge
value (to us) up for nothing in return but if there was money involved
to compensate for the time and effort we put into writing the lib we
would gladly contribute it to any deserving project.   But, sadly
since we live and die as consultants by having a unique competitive
advantage (in this case a lib that adds commercial value to our work
by completing projects faster).

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 7:50 AM, Aryeh Friedman
aryeh.fried...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 7:30 AM, Jerry je...@seibercom.net wrote:
 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:47:24 +0700
 C. Bergström articulated:

 I wish people would spend as much time solving problems in *BSD as
 they do trying to defend an irrelevant OS ;)

 Personally, I wish they would spend more time in developing fully
 functional wireless drivers as opposed to simply bumping the major
 version number every 18 months +/-. I have two new laptops ion front of
 me that I cannot use FBSD on simply because they don't support the
 wireless (N class obviously) installed in them.

 I simply refuse to purchase a machine to accommodate an OS; nor will I
 attempt to change the wireless network card/chip for the same reason.

 OK, now the usual group of blame the manufacturers, blame Microsoft,
 blame everyone else for the problem are free to chime in. I was
 seriously considering hiring a professional programmer to write drivers
 for devices for me; however, it was then I remembers something I
 learned in business school, class 101. I weighted the cost of
 developing the drivers as opposed to simply purchasing an OS that all
 ready had those drivers readily available. Guess which was many times
 cheaper? Cost analyses proved that developing my own drivers was not
 cost effective.

 I suggested several years ago, and I will re-suggest that FreeBSD start
 a program that would allow programmers to be paid to write code that
 either the regular contributors do not want to write or are not capable
 of writing. Other OS's are currently working on that model. No one
 would be forced to contribute. This would prove beneficial to everyone
 and should satisfy both capitalist who don't mind paying for quality
 products and socialist like Poly who want everything for nothing. It
 would be a win-win situation.

 With the advent of the next version of FBSD soon to be upon us,
 this would be a propitious moment to start such a project. FBSD has
 never been considered a dreadnought in the driver development field and
 this might work to change that. At the very least, it would
 create a brouhaha among others although the pigeon-livered average
 FreeBSD user would probably abstain from support this project either
 from a lack of need or indifference to others or basic socialist/fascist
 concepts.

 The issue your talking about is actually caused by a fundamental flaw
 in *ALL* pure open source projects namely in return for the freedom to
 look at the code and stuff we give up market forces.    If there where
 real market forces then *SOMEONE* in the larger freebsd community
 would find it profitable to write such drivers (and other needed
 unglamorous but necessary tasks).    A model I proposed (with about 3
 others from different FOSS backgrounds) a few years ago is still as
 relivent now as it was then despite the lack of reconition that it
 allows for all the freedoms of open source but without the neglecting
 of user demands (i.e. market forces).   The model is actually really
 simple: the source code is freely available to *ANYONE* for
 study/research/evaluation/educational *BUT* the minute you compile it
 becomes economically valuable to the user (assuming that there is no
 value to the above free uses [it is not a bad assumption if you look
 at it]) and thus *MUST* be paid for.   Now the one small twist this
 has over any other model is that with basic (but careful) planning it
 always for anyone who has contributed to get their fair share of any
 revenue.    Think of it as the idea that everyone must contribute to
 the project either with money and/or work to improve it (let their own
 enlightened self interest dictate what mix they choose).     The only
 legal hurdle to this is that the OSD definition of open source does
 not allow for licenses to descriminate between classes of users
 (people who only read the source code but do not use it and those that
 do use it).

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Jerome Herman


On 17/07/2011 15:02, C. Bergström wrote:

 On 07/17/11 07:43 PM, Dick Hoogendijk wrote:

Op 17-7-2011 14:17 schreef Subbsd:

community decreases. It is a pity that many developers of FreeBSD have
left in Apple, the small part works over {NET,OPEN,DRAGONFLY}.BSD but
as a whole it already absolutely small small groups of people.

And do you feel this will be the end of FreeBSD?
I doubt that *BSD will *end*, but at which point does lack of usage 
make an OS irrelevant?


1) Is it used in production?  If so does it serve a critical role?
2) What commercial support options are available?  (Also what popular 
commercial/proprietary software are available )

3) How well is it keeping pace with existing sw and hw technologies?
4) How focused and productive is the development community?

I have some personal views on the above, but I consider *BSD severely 
lacking in a few areas.  (No I can't personally help and only kick 
these questions off from the sidelines)


Software typically exists to solve a problem.  What problem is *BSD 
trying to solve?  If something serves a purpose then there should be 
no denying it's future relevance.
The problem *BSD is trying to solve (in my humble opinion) is reliable 
long term maintenance, from developers and sysadmin point of view.
Linux frequent API/ABI breaks makes it a real hell to maintain. And the 
ever changing method of configuration/ever moving location of 
configuration files doesn't help.


 *BSD are stable in every sense of the word.

This of course implies that there are a lot fewer advanced features in 
BSD than in Linux (by advanced I actually mean hyped). But then again 
most of these features end up in the rubbish can with Linux. SE-Linux ? 
Realtime ? Hal ? Containers ? You do not want to look in what state they 
are in. And you hardly want to learn how to use them as the entire thing 
is very likely to change completely before 6 months are passed.


Jerome Herman


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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Jamie Paul Griffin

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 07:30:00AM -0400, Jerry wrote:
 
 I suggested several years ago, and I will re-suggest that FreeBSD start
 a program that would allow programmers to be paid to write code that
 either the regular contributors do not want to write or are not capable
 of writing. Other OS's are currently working on that model. No one
 would be forced to contribute. This would prove beneficial to everyone
 and should satisfy both capitalist who don't mind paying for quality
 products and socialist like Poly who want everything for nothing. It
 would be a win-win situation.

I think that's a good idea. I certainly wouldn't mind paying a sensible amount 
if it meant i'd be getting a system that has increased support and also fewer 
problems in other areas as well. Once that starts, though, i would be concerned 
about the cost becoming too high over-time.

I think it's easy to forget that we get this great os for free and take the 
work of those involved in developing it for granted.
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Jamie Paul Griffin

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 07:30:00AM -0400, Jerry wrote:
 
 I suggested several years ago, and I will re-suggest that FreeBSD start
 a program that would allow programmers to be paid to write code that
 either the regular contributors do not want to write or are not capable
 of writing. Other OS's are currently working on that model. No one
 would be forced to contribute. This would prove beneficial to everyone
 and should satisfy both capitalist who don't mind paying for quality
 products and socialist like Poly who want everything for nothing. It
 would be a win-win situation.

I think that's a good idea. I certainly wouldn't mind paying a sensible amount 
if it meant i'd be getting a system that has increased support and also fewer 
problems in other areas as well. Once that starts, though, i would be concerned 
about the cost becoming too high over-time.

I think it's easy to forget that we get this great os for free and take the 
work of those involved in developing it for granted.

jamie
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Sergio de Almeida Lenzi

Em Seg, 2011-07-18 às 07:30 -0400, Jerry escreveu:

 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:47:24 +0700
 C. Bergström articulated:
 
  I wish people would spend as much time solving problems in *BSD as
  they do trying to defend an irrelevant OS ;)
 
 Personally, I wish they would spend more time in developing fully
 functional wireless drivers as opposed to simply bumping the major
 version number every 18 months +/-. I have two new laptops ion front of
 me that I cannot use FBSD on simply because they don't support the
 wireless (N class obviously) installed in them.

Thanks Jerry

Personally I think that the solution is simply ...   and it is not a
BIG $$$

Here In Brazil , I am raising a company that sells FreeBSD solution, if
I 
spend about US$1000/month for RD on FreeBSD , by putting a bid on some
projects,
(wireless drivers, network manager...), I think in few time we will have
the network drivers,
running.  US$1000/month is about 12.000/year..   I bet there is a lot of
people willing
to earn that money.
The code would be donated to the FreeBSD community.  It is cheaper than
hire
a full time programmer. (and have the job done in few time too).


Sergio

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Anton Shterenlikht

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 07:01:29PM +0700, C. Bergstr??m wrote:
  On 07/18/11 06:30 PM, Jerry wrote:
 I suggested several years ago, and I will re-suggest that FreeBSD start
 a program that would allow programmers to be paid to write code that
 either the regular contributors do not want to write or are not capable
 of writing.
 Like a bounties page?
 
 (If such a thing doesn't currently exist it would be a good idea for 
 someone to start one)

http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/activities.shtml

*quote*
We're pleased to announce that the University of Melbourne
has been awarded a grant to implement support of
feed-forward clock synchronization algorithms.

We are pleased to announce a call for project proposals.
We will accept proposals until February 15th. Please
read Project Proposal Procedures to find out what
needs to be included in your proposal.
*end quote*

Is this not what you want?


-- 
Anton Shterenlikht
Room 2.6, Queen's Building
Mech Eng Dept
Bristol University
University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK
Tel: +44 (0)117 331 5944
Fax: +44 (0)117 929 4423
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Peter Vereshagin

Hey Mr(s) freebsd-questions show some good to me!
2011/07/18 07:50:41 -0400 Aryeh Friedman aryeh.fried...@gmail.com = To 
FreeBSD :

AF  version number every 18 months +/-. I have two new laptops ion front of
AF  me that I cannot use FBSD on simply because they don't support the
AF  wireless (N class obviously) installed in them.

Are there external options like usb wi-fi adapters?

About a cost analysis: you may think about 4front guys to be stupid enough to
pay that much for their OSS drivers development?

73! Peter pgp: A0E26627 (4A42 6841 2871 5EA7 52AB  12F8 0CE1 4AAC A0E2 6627)
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 13:49:03 +0200
Polytropon articulated:

 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 07:30:00 -0400, Jerry wrote:
  I suggested several years ago, and I will re-suggest that FreeBSD
  start a program that would allow programmers to be paid to write
  code that either the regular contributors do not want to write or
  are not capable of writing. Other OS's are currently working on
  that model. No one would be forced to contribute. This would prove
  beneficial to everyone and should satisfy both capitalist who don't
  mind paying for quality products and socialist like Poly who want
  everything for nothing. It would be a win-win situation.
 
 Erm... you're invited to prove the everything for nothing
 as well as the socialist claim. I'm old enough not to
 take this insult personally, but still (for maintaining
 discussion culture) please back up your statement, or it
 will simply classify you as impolite and stupid.
 
 Besides that nonsense, I agree with your statement. With
 support (usually by money) and help of manufacturers that
 are interested in bringing their hardware to a better
 support situation by providing information and documentation
 so developers could write drivers for many platforms, it
 would be a win-win situation. It would even be better than
 cost-intensive reverse engineering - means: better drivers
 in less time, so FreeBSD could be used on most modern
 hardware. The more standards are used, the less work is
 needed to bring the new hardware up. (Just imagine you
 would need a driver for a hard disk...)

There are so many fundamental problems with the standards concept.
For starters it limits or prevents basic product improvement or
development. It the wireless A protocol were to have been made a
standard then improvement on its deficiencies would have taken far
longer than needed. In all too many cases, the FOSS invents a
standard that locks users into one specific culture. Any obstacle
placed in front of a developer that impedes his/her attempt to improve
upon an existing protocol or the creation of a newer one is absolutely
unacceptable. Then again, standards are irrelevant. There are, after
all, so many of them to choose from.

 Personally, this is no issue for me as I don't own such
 things, but because you claim that I want everything for
 nothing... :-)

If you don't own it, then you have no vested interest in it making your
statement irrelevant. Plus, both here and in an abundant of other posts
you have stated that product developers after spending X number of
US dollars, German Marks (DEM), Euros (EUR) or whatever currency
you like, freely give their work away to the FOSS community. That is
just plain bullshit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit. Only a
dyed-in-the-wool http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dyed-in-the-wool
socialist/fascist would even make such a statement.

 Keep in mind that I've also spent money
 on software, but on one that WORKS.

{citation needed}

Besides, why would any moron purchase software that doesn't work?
Obviously you failed to think that statement through.
 
 The more the FreeBSD community depends on having certain
 hardware working, the more support I see for developers.
 But as the community seems to be spread across all the
 many forms of OS use (mostly servers, but also stationary
 workstations, just a minority seems to be using mobile
 devices), I'm not sure it will be sufficient. It's not
 that FreeBSD is a desktop-only OS which can invest all
 its energy in getting commodity hardware working, while
 leaving quality aside on other fields. Poorly implemented
 features, broken code, messing around with quirks and
 short-time solutions do not seem to be very welcome among
 FreeBSD users.

You fail to even begin to equate the relationship between support for
mobile as opposed to conventional units. You are under the illusion
that FreeBSD does not fully support mobile units because of the lack
of a substantial user base. I beg to differ with that analysis. I
would use FreeBSD on at least on of my mobile units it _IT_ (meaning
FreeBSD) supported it. For years, pundits have been proclaiming the
Year of Linux on Laptops. Obviously that has never truly come to
pass. How could it, considering how poorly Linux worked on any medium
to high end unit. FreeBSD, unfortunately, doesn't even reach that
plateau.

While poor implementation of code, etcetera is certainly a concern on
any OS, the lack of code is a greater concern for many users of modern
equipment. Any one, and all to may do, prefer to stay with the status
quo rather than invest in the future. In many businesses, that is
called Dinosaur thinking, and we all know what happened to them.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Frank Shute

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 01:49:03PM +0200, Polytropon wrote:

 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 07:30:00 -0400, Jerry wrote:
  I suggested several years ago, and I will re-suggest that FreeBSD start
  a program that would allow programmers to be paid to write code that
  either the regular contributors do not want to write or are not capable
  of writing. Other OS's are currently working on that model. No one
  would be forced to contribute. This would prove beneficial to everyone
  and should satisfy both capitalist who don't mind paying for quality
  products and socialist like Poly who want everything for nothing. It
  would be a win-win situation.
 
 Erm... you're invited to prove the everything for nothing
 as well as the socialist claim. I'm old enough not to
 take this insult personally, but still (for maintaining
 discussion culture) please back up your statement, or it
 will simply classify you as impolite and stupid.
 
 Besides that nonsense, I agree with your statement. With
 support (usually by money) and help of manufacturers that
 are interested in bringing their hardware to a better
 support situation by providing information and documentation
 so developers could write drivers for many platforms, it
 would be a win-win situation. It would even be better than
 cost-intensive reverse engineering - means: better drivers
 in less time, so FreeBSD could be used on most modern
 hardware. The more standards are used, the less work is
 needed to bring the new hardware up. (Just imagine you
 would need a driver for a hard disk...)
 
 Personally, this is no issue for me as I don't own such
 things, but because you claim that I want everything for
 nothing... :-) Keep in mind that I've also spent money
 on software, but on one that WORKS.
 
 Maybe this could even affect the whole *BSD family, so
 by the availability of more drivers, more desktop share
 could be gained, which seems to be the measurement of
 OS quality today.
 
 
 
  With the advent of the next version of FBSD soon to be upon us,
  this would be a propitious moment to start such a project. FBSD has
  never been considered a dreadnought in the driver development field and
  this might work to change that.
 
 The idea seems to have lots of potential. With paid
 developers who are willing to license their work as
 BSDL code, it could really improve the out of the box
 support of the system.
 
 On the other hand - as you mentioned -, it may be
 the lack of support of the community, but THAT is
 the main force behind FreeBSD. Other operating systems
 have big companies behind them who are able and willing
 to spend money on prestige projects, as well as their
 everyday work because they need to make their living from
 it - or gain world domination. :-)
 
 The more the FreeBSD community depends on having certain
 hardware working, the more support I see for developers.
 But as the community seems to be spread across all the
 many forms of OS use (mostly servers, but also stationary
 workstations, just a minority seems to be using mobile
 devices), I'm not sure it will be sufficient. It's not
 that FreeBSD is a desktop-only OS which can invest all
 its energy in getting commodity hardware working, while
 leaving quality aside on other fields. Poorly implemented
 features, broken code, messing around with quirks and
 short-time solutions do not seem to be very welcome among
 FreeBSD users.
 

I like Jerry's proposal. The FreeBSD Foundation should organise their
donations page so that you can donate to various different areas of
development like TUG do:

https://www.tug.org/donate.html

It should be at least split into server, workstation and general
development.

I donate to both FreeBSD and TUG but I far prefer the TUG model. When
I donate to the Foundation, I know a lot of my money is going to
esoteric server development which doesn't benefit me much but benefits
large corporations who can afford to fund their own development to
scratch *their own* itches. I want mine scratched!


Regards,


-- 

 Frank

 Contact info: http://www.shute.org.uk/misc/contact.html




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Description: PGP signature

Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 09:57:59 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 There are so many fundamental problems with the standards concept.
 For starters it limits or prevents basic product improvement or
 development. It the wireless A protocol were to have been made a
 standard then improvement on its deficiencies would have taken far
 longer than needed. In all too many cases, the FOSS invents a
 standard that locks users into one specific culture. Any obstacle
 placed in front of a developer that impedes his/her attempt to improve
 upon an existing protocol or the creation of a newer one is absolutely
 unacceptable. Then again, standards are irrelevant. There are, after
 all, so many of them to choose from.

Let's see.

There are many different implementations in layers of
abstraction to access specific hardware. An example are
the many different sound systems employed by various
desktop environments. As a developer, you would have to
choose which one to use, as they are traditionally not
compatible.

On the other hand, see accessing standards for SCSI
hardware. Although hardware has improved, you still do
not need specific drivers to access a SCSI hard disk,
as the da driver implements this functionality, of
course assuming that the device uses that standard.

Many USB storage devices also use this standard. However,
some of them don't. This limits them in where they can
be used.

FOSS locking users was a new concept to me, I always
thought this would be a privilege of proprietary software
because it has much better chances to force people to use
a given product as there is no concurrent product they
could use. Does the same develop into FOSS now? How
scary... and _how_ does it, when there is the source
available for the locking mechanism? Maybe you are
refering to the fact that even if source and documetations
exist, someone would have to do the work, and this would
create costs.

Well-thought standards should _not_ prohibit evolution of
products implementing them, prohibit developers using them,
or making products obsolete by switching to something
different.

Just imagine the web wouldn't have HTML as standard. Imagine
there would be no TCP/IP, but many incompatible ISP-specific
protocols, plugs, access programs. It doesn't say that
standards are always the most efficient. In fact, you can
argue that TCP/IP is inferior to X.25, or that rendering
from PostScript is generally slower than PCL.



 If you don't own it, then you have no vested interest in it making your
 statement irrelevant. Plus, both here and in an abundant of other posts
 you have stated that product developers after spending X number of
 US dollars, German Marks (DEM), Euros (EUR) or whatever currency
 you like, freely give their work away to the FOSS community.

As a sidenote, the currency Deutsche Mark (DM) has been
removed in favour of the Euro in 1999. Here's also a
WP article for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Mark

Back on topic:

I see the problem in investing resources (time and money,
often hardware, external consulting, maybe even testing)
in developing drivers. Giving that functionality to the
community still happens. This does mean:

a) Developers are doing it for free, for fun, for whatever
   is their motivation to do so. Of course, you can't run
   a business or make a living from that attitude.

b) Developers are paid by a company that is okay with in-
   vesting into the community. After all, this will bring
   more usage share, and therefore maybe even market share
   for their products, enabling it to enter market segments
   that haven't been available before, e. g. I don't buy
   this printer as it's not compatible with the OS or soft-
   ware I'm using.

There are even big pieces of software that find their
way - after investing lots of $$$ - into a free community.
IBM's office suite is one example. Solaris also is. And
still, it doesn't harm IBM in earning the big bucks. And
Sun... well, that sadly is a different topic.

If this wouldn't have happened, we would not have any
free or open source software.

q.e.d.



 That is
 just plain bullshit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit. Only a
 dyed-in-the-wool http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dyed-in-the-wool
 socialist/fascist would even make such a statement.

You should read the WP articles about socialism and fascism
to rethink that statement, and I really thing only morons
do make such generalized statements. It's simply NO discussion
culture to throw stereotypes onto people you know NOTHING
about. Statements like this give an unpleasant color to the
rest of your message (which doesn't deserve it).



  Keep in mind that I've also spent money
  on software, but on one that WORKS.
 
 {citation needed}
 
 Besides, why would any moron purchase software that doesn't work?

_YOU_ tell me. :-)

If you can't, ask support people, ask developers and
ask service providers about their daily work. Actually,
people spend lots of money for things that don't work,
or don't work as

Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Chip Camden

Quoth per...@pluto.rain.com on Monday, 18 July 2011:
 Joshua Isom jri...@gmail.com wrote:
  On 7/17/2011 6:16 PM, Mario Lobo wrote:
   On Sunday 17 July 2011 10:13:13 C. Bergstr??m wrote:
   I hope gnome does [go Linux-only]..   Maybe then more
   people would forget about it and focus on making KDE better ;)
 ...
  What about enlightenment?
 
 For us old-timers :)
 
 What's the advantage of any of these desktop environments (Gnome,
 KDE, enlightenment, Xfce) over ordinary X11 with (say) FVWM2 or TWM?
 Certainly there are some useful apps that, for better or worse, are
 built with gtk or the KDE toolkit, but what does the full-blown
 environment really contribute (other than bloat)?
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Your rhetorical question expresses my feelings exactly.  I use xmonad
precisely because it sacrifices all eye candy to the efficient use of
screen space.  All a developer really wants is to be able to manage
multiple apps and especially terminal windows with a minimum of fuss.

-- 
.O. | Sterling (Chip) Camden  | http://camdensoftware.com
..O | sterl...@camdensoftware.com | http://chipsquips.com
OOO | 2048R/D6DBAF91  | http://chipstips.com


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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:51:55 +0100
Frank Shute articulated:

 I like Jerry's proposal. The FreeBSD Foundation should organise their
 donations page so that you can donate to various different areas of
 development like TUG do:
 
 https://www.tug.org/donate.html
 
 It should be at least split into server, workstation and general
 development.
 
 I donate to both FreeBSD and TUG but I far prefer the TUG model. When
 I donate to the Foundation, I know a lot of my money is going to
 esoteric server development which doesn't benefit me much but benefits
 large corporations who can afford to fund their own development to
 scratch *their own* itches. I want mine scratched!

Thanks, I was not familiar with tug. I will definitely investigate it
further. I am also in total agreement with you statement regarding
donations to the Foundation. How much money (I don't really expect an
answer) was donated to the Java group. Yet, they never delivered an
up-to-date version.

By the way Frank, agreeing with anything I propose on this forum will
probably draw Poly's wrath not to mention the general disapproval of
the masses at large. Unfortunately, the Something for Nothing mindset
permeates all too strongly though the community. I honestly believe
that there are users here who would rather eat garbage than pay a
dollar (currency of your choosing) to have a fine meal.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or ignored.
Do not CC this poster. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header.

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 11:10:30 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:51:55 +0100
 Frank Shute articulated:
 
  I like Jerry's proposal. The FreeBSD Foundation should organise their
  donations page so that you can donate to various different areas of
  development like TUG do:
  
  https://www.tug.org/donate.html
  
  It should be at least split into server, workstation and general
  development.
  
  I donate to both FreeBSD and TUG but I far prefer the TUG model. When
  I donate to the Foundation, I know a lot of my money is going to
  esoteric server development which doesn't benefit me much but benefits
  large corporations who can afford to fund their own development to
  scratch *their own* itches. I want mine scratched!
 
 Thanks, I was not familiar with tug. I will definitely investigate it
 further. I am also in total agreement with you statement regarding
 donations to the Foundation. How much money (I don't really expect an
 answer) was donated to the Java group. Yet, they never delivered an
 up-to-date version.

I'd like to express my sympathy for such a donation
model. It would give those who are not able to
contribute to system development to vote with
their wallets - showing the directions where more
development is needed and which functionality is
important to them.

The question is: How differentiated can such an
approach be in reality?



 By the way Frank, agreeing with anything I propose on this forum will
 probably draw Poly's wrath not to mention the general disapproval of
 the masses at large.

Again, you are wrong, because it seems that you
think throwing stereotypes at people you know
nothing about makes you look superior (instead
of giving a good argumentation).

In the case above, your suggesion _is_ a very good
one, and I have no problem agreeing to it, no matter
if any obscure masses at large would approve or
disapprove.

Wrath is a feeling unknown to me.



 Unfortunately, the Something for Nothing mindset
 permeates all too strongly though the community. I honestly believe
 that there are users here who would rather eat garbage than pay a
 dollar (currency of your choosing) to have a fine meal.

Not to mention those who pay money to actually eat
garbage while being told it's a fine meal. :-)

In fact, I would not hesitate to fund development that
would fit my individual interests (as my donation would
also be individual). If this benefits the whole community
(as a nice side effect), where would be the problem?



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread CyberLeo Kitsana

On 07/18/2011 06:50 AM, Aryeh Friedman wrote:
 The issue your talking about is actually caused by a fundamental flaw
 in *ALL* pure open source projects namely in return for the freedom to
 look at the code and stuff we give up market forces.

Perhaps the benefits inherent in enriching the global pool of free
knowledge and understanding can far outweigh the drawbacks of
contributing without recompense?

That's certainly why I'm here.

-- 
Fuzzy love,
-CyberLeo
Technical Administrator
CyberLeo.Net Webhosting
http://www.CyberLeo.Net
cyber...@cyberleo.net

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Robison, Dave

Using primarily FreeBSD, and in fact, still FreeBSD 4.11 (we are in the
process of upgrading to 8.x now), our systems moved well over 1.6
trillion dollars in business to business financial transactions last year.

I'd hardly call that irrelevant.

On 07/17/2011 04:10, Jerry wrote:
While I usually consider Slashdot nothing more than a bunch of
juveniles ranting against Microsoft; however, I did find this rather
interesting post this morning.

Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poettering-BSD-Isnt-Relevant-Anymore

--
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Sales Solution Architect II
FIS Banking Solutions
510/621-2089 (w)
530/518-5194 (c)
510/621-2020 (f)
da...@vicor.com
david.robi...@fisglobal.com

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Arthur Barlow

 Message: 1
 Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:00:49 +0200
 From: Jerome Herman jher...@dichotomia.fr
 Subject: Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore
 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
 Message-ID: 4e242071.9050...@dichotomia.fr
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

 On 17/07/2011 15:02, C. Bergström wrote:
  On 07/17/11 07:43 PM, Dick Hoogendijk wrote:
 Op 17-7-2011 14:17 schreef Subbsd:
 community decreases. It is a pity that many developers of FreeBSD have
 left in Apple, the small part works over {NET,OPEN,DRAGONFLY}.BSD but
 as a whole it already absolutely small small groups of people.
 And do you feel this will be the end of FreeBSD?
 I doubt that *BSD will *end*, but at which point does lack of usage
 make an OS irrelevant?

 1) Is it used in production?  If so does it serve a critical role?
 2) What commercial support options are available?  (Also what popular
 commercial/proprietary software are available )
 3) How well is it keeping pace with existing sw and hw technologies?
 4) How focused and productive is the development community?

 I have some personal views on the above, but I consider *BSD severely
 lacking in a few areas.  (No I can't personally help and only kick
 these questions off from the sidelines)

 Software typically exists to solve a problem.  What problem is *BSD
 trying to solve?  If something serves a purpose then there should be
 no denying it's future relevance.
 The problem *BSD is trying to solve (in my humble opinion) is reliable
 long term maintenance, from developers and sysadmin point of view.
 Linux frequent API/ABI breaks makes it a real hell to maintain. And the
 ever changing method of configuration/ever moving location of
 configuration files doesn't help.

  *BSD are stable in every sense of the word.

 This of course implies that there are a lot fewer advanced features in
 BSD than in Linux (by advanced I actually mean hyped). But then again
 most of these features end up in the rubbish can with Linux. SE-Linux ?
 Realtime ? Hal ? Containers ? You do not want to look in what state they
 are in. And you hardly want to learn how to use them as the entire thing
 is very likely to change completely before 6 months are passed.

 Jerome Herman

Amen!!

I'm sick and tired of Linux people reinventing the wheel five or six
times with very little if any benefit to the end user.  Thank goodness
for more sensible *NIX types with BSD.
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Bill Tillman

From: per...@pluto.rain.com per...@pluto.rain.com
To: jri...@gmail.com; cbergst...@pathscale.com
Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Sent: Mon, July 18, 2011 9:05:47 AM
Subject: Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

Joshua Isom jri...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 7/17/2011 6:16 PM, Mario Lobo wrote:
  On Sunday 17 July 2011 10:13:13 C. Bergstr??m wrote:
  I hope gnome does [go Linux-only]..  Maybe then more
  people would forget about it and focus on making KDE better ;)
...
 What about enlightenment?

For us old-timers :)

What's the advantage of any of these desktop environments (Gnome,
KDE, enlightenment, Xfce) over ordinary X11 with (say) FVWM2 or TWM?
Certainly there are some useful apps that, for better or worse, are
built with gtk or the KDE toolkit, but what does the full-blown
environment really contribute (other than bloat)?
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I'm with you on this one. My FreeBSD servers are SERVERS and I don't need a gui 
to be efficient and reliable with them. And when I do occassionally go with a 
FreeBSD for my desktop I don't need all the bloat of GNOME or KDE. I have used 
TWM from the beginning and it does just fine by me.

Now as for BSD becoming irrelevantI think that's all sour grapes. Linux 
gets 
all the hype but I don't see te BSD's going by the wayside because of it. I do 
wish there was a more richer library of drivers available, like with Linux. 
That 
I would not complain about.
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Peter Vereshagin

Hey Mr(s) freebsd-questions show some good to me!
2011/07/18 12:26:08 -0700 Bill Tillman btillma...@yahoo.com = To 
freebsd-questions@freebsd.org :
BT 
BT 
BT From: per...@pluto.rain.com per...@pluto.rain.com
BT To: jri...@gmail.com; cbergst...@pathscale.com
BT Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
BT Sent: Mon, July 18, 2011 9:05:47 AM
BT Subject: Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore
BT 
BT Joshua Isom jri...@gmail.com wrote:
BT  On 7/17/2011 6:16 PM, Mario Lobo wrote:
BT   On Sunday 17 July 2011 10:13:13 C. Bergstr??m wrote:
BT   I hope gnome does [go Linux-only]..  Maybe then more
BT   people would forget about it and focus on making KDE better ;)
BT ...
BT  What about enlightenment?
BT 
BT For us old-timers :)
BT 
BT What's the advantage of any of these desktop environments (Gnome,
BT KDE, enlightenment, Xfce) over ordinary X11 with (say) FVWM2 or TWM?
BT Certainly there are some useful apps that, for better or worse, are
BT built with gtk or the KDE toolkit, but what does the full-blown
BT environment really contribute (other than bloat)?
BT 
BT I'm with you on this one. My FreeBSD servers are SERVERS and I don't need a 
gui 
BT to be efficient and reliable with them. And when I do occassionally go with 
a 
BT FreeBSD for my desktop I don't need all the bloat of GNOME or KDE. I have 
used 
BT TWM from the beginning and it does just fine by me.
BT 
BT Now as for BSD becoming irrelevantI think that's all sour grapes. Linux 
gets 
BT all the hype but I don't see te BSD's going by the wayside because of it. I 
do 
BT wish there was a more richer library of drivers available, like with Linux. 
That 
BT I would not complain about.

In the past one of BSDMags was devoted to the FreeBSD's agnosticism on desktop
environments.
Had known it for years but in early May, 2011 some of the WindowMaker's applets
were removed from the ports tree as 'unsupported and a dead download link
ressource' several at once.

In sight of speculations about dropping FreeBSD support especially wouldn't it
be nice if I'd try to re-establish download link source for the applets of my
interest and PR about I need them?

Not a C coder though to know about to support them in a right way.

73! Peter pgp: A0E26627 (4A42 6841 2871 5EA7 52AB  12F8 0CE1 4AAC A0E2 6627)
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RE: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Gary Gatten

snip

I've always been curious why Linux seemed to take off so fast when other FOSS 
/ non Winblow$ OS's were available for some time with not much traction; OS/2, 
BeOS, *nix with X11, etc.

Not just on the desktop, but servers as well.  Supported versions of Linux 
such as RHEL, Suse, etc. seem to have made more headway into the enterprise 
computing environment in the last ten years than *BSD did in the last 30.

From my personal experience - which is relatively limited - it seems 
applications just work on Linux?  When I need to compile an app, it takes a 
few mins on Linux - but may take me a few weeks on FBSD.  Granted someone more 
knowledgeable with FBSD, Compilers, etc. could do it much faster than I.

Anyway, if someone has a brief explanation of why Linux has apparently 
triumphed (in so far as installed base, desktop penetration, etc.) where so 
many others have failed (including IBM with OS/2) I'd be interested in hearing 
those thoughts.

TIA

Gary






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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:58:08 +0200
Polytropon articulated:

 Here the circle closes: Without STANDARDS, you wouldn't
 be able to view the digital pictures you took with a
 camera 10 years ago because the manufacturer decided
 to use a proprietary image format without any documentation,
 as you should only use the software supplied by the
 manufacturer. Dropping program version X and advertising
 version Y with the new models of the digital camera,
 and everything you'll have is a bunch of files nobody
 can read anymore. You can also see this in computer
 media, although with a lower half-life period.
 
 If you want to get into the future, rely on established,
 open and free standards.
 
 In my opinion, there is no alternative. Everything else
 would just increase costs (e. g. migration costs). But
 there are fields of use where costs simply doesn't matter
 (as it seems).

I apologize for cherry picking this; however, your analysis is so
faulty that I was force to. You camera analogy is simply absurd.

You were aware that Kodak dropped the C22 development process decades
ago which effectively make all films designed for that process useless.
It also spelled then end of GAF, but that is another story. KODACHROME
Film was discontinues after a 74 year run. Actually, it was created due
to Kodak's inability to properly stabilize the layers in the color film
it was trying to create; but that is another story. I still have
several collector's grade cameras that used films such as the 116 and
616 designations. These films were discontinued in 1984. Should I sue
Kodak, or any other manufacturer for their failure to continue support
for these devices? When wan the last time you purchased a new Polaroid?
News Flash: It was discontinued. Now, can you guess why? Perhaps you
have noticed people using cameras that don't apparently use any film.
You might want to investigate that further. You will find that newer
technology supersedes and eventually obsoletes older technology.

The point is, time moves on and technology advances. To continue to
keep an industry shackled to an out dated protocol simple because some
user, somewhere, sometime, may actually use it would only serve to
enervate the software and hardware industry. Further more, this would
serve to invigorate a cottage industry based on creating applications
that could be used to convert such files to a newer format. Actually,
several such programs exist now.

I really hate the way standard is used by so many FOSS users. They
use it as a shied against innovation. Rather than embrace newer
technologies, they throw up the standard shield and claim that
product A (product being anything your want it to designate) is bad
because it doesn't follow some arbitrary standard. A product will
stand or fall on its own merits. To insist that any product follow any
strict guide lines effectively removes the developer's ability to
improve upon or create new or better products.

In my own country, we had the basis for HD TV back in the early 80's. I
know individuals who were working with RCA at the time. Yet, it took
30 years for the industry to finally dump the existing framework and
basically start over, You see Poly, sometimes you do have to change,
unless you want to go the way of the dinosaur. Now, if this had been a
FOSS project, we would still be watching BW TV on a big 19 screen.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:44:15 -0500
Gary Gatten articulated:

 snip
 
 I've always been curious why Linux seemed to take off so fast when
 other FOSS / non Winblow$ OS's were available for some time with not
 much traction; OS/2, BeOS, *nix with X11, etc.
 
 Not just on the desktop, but servers as well.  Supported versions
 of Linux such as RHEL, Suse, etc. seem to have made more headway into
 the enterprise computing environment in the last ten years than *BSD
 did in the last 30.

I think the explanation is rather simple, Give the user what he wants,
not what you think he wants. You are never going to satisfy every
conceivable user, so concentrate on the core users. Microsoft has done
that extremely well. On the latest Windows 7, getting wireless up and
running is the most effortless thing I have done in awhile. Windows
does everything but fill in the password. On FreeBSD, well lets just
say if that even if they had a driver for the wireless card I have
installed, getting it up and running would be another matter. Correct
me if I am wrong, but even network manager is not available on
FreeBSD is it? I have not checked in awhile. I know that there are some
programs listed, but none of them work as seamlessly as Microsoft's. It
is a basic truism in any business that in order to beat your rival, you
have to produce a better product or one that costs less and
still maintains the same basic usability. Simply creating a free product
that is not as usable is not enough. If you cannot accomplish that,
then at least try to create the illusion of it. FreeBSD has failed at
the goal also.

 From my personal experience - which is relatively limited - it seems
 applications just work on Linux?  When I need to compile an app, it
 takes a few mins on Linux - but may take me a few weeks on FBSD.
 Granted someone more knowledgeable with FBSD, Compilers, etc. could
 do it much faster than I.
 
 Anyway, if someone has a brief explanation of why Linux has
 apparently triumphed (in so far as installed base, desktop
 penetration, etc.) where so many others have failed (including IBM
 with OS/2) I'd be interested in hearing those thoughts.

OS/2 was IBM's fault from the beginning. They insisted that it be tied
to the 286 processor. Gates attempted to talk them out of it in a
famous meeting in Armonk, NY. IBM refused and effectively wrote it's own
death sentence with OS/2. As with any product, first impressions are
crucial. Their first one failed. Unfortunately, so many FOSS pundits
have not learned this simple lesson.

From Wikipedia:

OS/2 1.x targeted the 80286 processor: IBM insisted on supporting the
Intel 80286 processor, with its 16-bit segmented memory mode, due to
commitments made to customers who had purchased many 80286-based PS/2's
because of IBM's promises surrounding OS/2.[16] Until release 2.0 in
April 1992, OS/2 ran in 16-bit protected mode and therefore could not
benefit from the Intel 80386's much simpler 32-bit flat memory model
and virtual 8086 mode features. This was especially painful in
providing support for DOS applications. While, in 1988, Windows/386 2.1
could run several cooperatively multitasked DOS applications, including
expanded memory (EMS) emulation, OS/2 1.3, released in 1991, was still
limited to one 640KB DOS box.


-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:48:46 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:58:08 +0200
 Polytropon articulated:
 
  Here the circle closes: Without STANDARDS, you wouldn't
  be able to view the digital pictures you took with a
  camera 10 years ago because the manufacturer decided
  to use a proprietary image format without any documentation,
  as you should only use the software supplied by the
  manufacturer. Dropping program version X and advertising
  version Y with the new models of the digital camera,
  and everything you'll have is a bunch of files nobody
  can read anymore. You can also see this in computer
  media, although with a lower half-life period.
  
  If you want to get into the future, rely on established,
  open and free standards.
  
  In my opinion, there is no alternative. Everything else
  would just increase costs (e. g. migration costs). But
  there are fields of use where costs simply doesn't matter
  (as it seems).
 
 I apologize for cherry picking this; however, your analysis is so
 faulty that I was force to. You camera analogy is simply absurd.

I wanted it to be understood as an analogy.



 You were aware that Kodak dropped the C22 development process decades
 ago which effectively make all films designed for that process useless.
 It also spelled then end of GAF, but that is another story. KODACHROME
 Film was discontinues after a 74 year run. Actually, it was created due
 to Kodak's inability to properly stabilize the layers in the color film
 it was trying to create; but that is another story. I still have
 several collector's grade cameras that used films such as the 116 and
 616 designations. These films were discontinued in 1984.

You're talking hardware (film material) here, not software.

Your analogy illustrates how technology does disappear. It
gets more and more complicated working with film material,
as digital cameras allow you to do all the things that you
could do with expensive cameras only in the past. Even
professionals have switched (of course to expensive and
therefor professional camera models), both for photographing
and for movies.

In software, see planned obsolescense and digital medieval
times (digital middleage) and movements that want to keep
witnesses of our today's culture.

This means you will _always_ have to judge: Need a short-term
solution that is the best for a short term, or need a long-
term solution that is good (or even just good enough) for
a longer period of time.

Sloppily engineered and halfway done solutions can - by means
of marketing - be sold for the first kind of products quite
easily, and constantness is not an important topic for the
main markets (home consumers).



 Should I sue
 Kodak, or any other manufacturer for their failure to continue support
 for these devices? When wan the last time you purchased a new Polaroid?
 News Flash: It was discontinued. Now, can you guess why? Perhaps you
 have noticed people using cameras that don't apparently use any film.
 You might want to investigate that further. You will find that newer
 technology supersedes and eventually obsoletes older technology.

It's _always_ that way. Interestingly, some oldest technology
still prevails. There are still books made of paper even though
there are alternatives. In the last year, more paper was used
and printed than in the year before, and the trend continues.
Even if you can argue that the use of actual paper is less and
less _required_, it's more and more _performed_.

We know paintings in caves older than 2000 years, books
older than 1000 years, paintings older than 500 years.
What will be present of our _today's_ digital culture
when the encryption codes are lost? When there are no
drives to read the media, or the media simply dissolved?

Of course you are right that newer technology will _always_
supersedes and eventually obsoletes older technology. But
you will also have to agree that technology will be used
as long as it's possible to make money from it, just see
petrol-driven cars as an example, and oil-based technology
in general.



 The point is, time moves on and technology advances.

Advances - yes.

Improves - not implicitely.

Fast and with best intentions for whole mankind and
environment - debatable.

Time moves on, and it's hard _not_ to move on.

I may point you to the Matrix movie trilogy. When mankind
finally looses interest in what it creates, because industry
tells us It's all okay, just buy, just consume, it's the
best for you, then we will be unable to control our own
future. Just voting with the wallet seems to be insufficient.
It IS important in a market, but as the market isn't free
(as per definition), it's hard to see 100 percent control
in here. Free alternatives must be present in order to keep
the commercial products on track, so they follow the needs
of the customers instead of _defining_ them. This would only
make technology its own purpose, and finally, in the end of
the ongoing obsoleting, it obsoletes man.

RE: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Paul Schmehl


--On July 18, 2011 2:44:15 PM -0500 Gary Gatten ggat...@waddell.com wrote:


snip

I've always been curious why Linux seemed to take off so fast when
other FOSS / non Winblow$ OS's were available for some time with not much
traction; OS/2, BeOS, *nix with X11, etc.

Not just on the desktop, but servers as well.  Supported versions of
Linux such as RHEL, Suse, etc. seem to have made more headway into the
enterprise computing environment in the last ten years than *BSD did in
the last 30.


From my personal experience - which is relatively limited - it seems
applications just work on Linux?  When I need to compile an app, it
takes a few mins on Linux - but may take me a few weeks on FBSD.
Granted someone more knowledgeable with FBSD, Compilers, etc. could do
it much faster than I.


Anyway, if someone has a brief explanation of why Linux has apparently
triumphed (in so far as installed base, desktop penetration, etc.) where
so many others have failed (including IBM with OS/2) I'd be interested in
hearing those thoughts.



I'll hazard a guess.  Linux was new and shiny and all the rage when 
computer science really took off in the higher ed field.  So geeks wanted 
to use it, but to do so at that time you had to be a bit of a coder.  So 
the number of people hacking on it and submitting changes ballooned. 
Basically, anyone who wanted to submit a change could, but Linux kept the 
base kernel code management to prevent major mistakes.


Then all their friends wanted it too, but they couldn't code.  So the push 
for ease of use began.  That was the genesis of projects such as kde and 
gnome and the drive behind getting things like flash and cutting edge 
drivers working in Linux.


Meanwhile, the *BSDs were those old stogdy OSes that nobody was using 
any more, so there was no great incentive for geeks to check it out and use 
it.  Remember the old saw, Unix is user friendly.  It's just picky about 
who its friends are.?


So Linux was becoming more user friendly and gaining all sorts of GUI 
crud that made it easier for non-geeks to be admins while the BSDs were 
still rolling down the tried and true path of development that required 
that you actually understand the innards if you really wanted to be an 
admin.


Linux hasn't triumphed, BTW, it's merely in ascendancy right now.  It 
could well go by the wayside if a major problem erupts and doesn't get 
resolved quickly.


In short, some people chase the newest shiniest thing.  Others prefer to 
stick with what works.  Often, the newest shiniest folks, after they've 
gained some wisdom, move to the other camp.  So you could well see a 
resurgence of BSD as Linux admins who've grown tired of its quirks but have 
gained some unix skills start moving back toward the BSD side.


--
Paul Schmehl, Senior Infosec Analyst
As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions
are my own and not those of my employer.
***
It is as useless to argue with those who have
renounced the use of reason as to administer
medication to the dead. Thomas Jefferson
There are some ideas so wrong that only a very
intelligent person could believe in them. George Orwell

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Paul Schmehl



On 07/17/2011 04:10, Jerry wrote:

While I usually consider Slashdot nothing more than a bunch of
juveniles ranting against Microsoft; however, I did find this rather
interesting post this morning.

Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poettering-BSD-I
snt-Relevant-Anymore

Interestingly enough, a great deal of it is true. It might be
interesting to know how others feel about it. Obviously, asking that
question on this forum is like playing against a stacked deck; however,
it still might prove interesting.


I thought it was one of the funniest threads I've read in a long time.

--
Paul Schmehl, Senior Infosec Analyst
As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions
are my own and not those of my employer.
***
It is as useless to argue with those who have
renounced the use of reason as to administer
medication to the dead. Thomas Jefferson
There are some ideas so wrong that only a very
intelligent person could believe in them. George Orwell

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:22:45 -0400, Jerry wrote:
 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:44:15 -0500
 Gary Gatten articulated:
 
  snip
  
  I've always been curious why Linux seemed to take off so fast when
  other FOSS / non Winblow$ OS's were available for some time with not
  much traction; OS/2, BeOS, *nix with X11, etc.
  
  Not just on the desktop, but servers as well.  Supported versions
  of Linux such as RHEL, Suse, etc. seem to have made more headway into
  the enterprise computing environment in the last ten years than *BSD
  did in the last 30.

I've waited for your answer, it's very interesting,
and in my opinion it shows where you're wrong. Allow
me to illustrate my assumption.



 I think the explanation is rather simple, Give the user what he wants,
 not what you think he wants.

It's even better if you can teach users what they
want, or make them believe that what you're delivering
_is_ what they want.

A friend once told me: The art in sales is _not_ to
sell the customer what he wants, but what he _needs_,
and do this in a way that he finally says: Hey, that's
exactly what I wanted.




 You are never going to satisfy every
 conceivable user, so concentrate on the core users.

This is fully correct.



 Microsoft has done
 that extremely well. On the latest Windows 7, getting wireless up and
 running is the most effortless thing I have done in awhile. Windows
 does everything but fill in the password. On FreeBSD, well lets just
 say if that even if they had a driver for the wireless card I have
 installed, getting it up and running would be another matter. Correct
 me if I am wrong, but even network manager is not available on
 FreeBSD is it? I have not checked in awhile. I know that there are some
 programs listed, but none of them work as seamlessly as Microsoft's.

Again, fully agree, but also it's not important for me,
luckily. :-)



 It
 is a basic truism in any business that in order to beat your rival, you
 have to produce a better product or one that costs less and
 still maintains the same basic usability.

It's not about creating the product, it's about _selling_
it, as creating (research development, testing and so on)
does _cost_ money, while only selling it _brings_ money.
It's just about how good you get your investitions going.



 Simply creating a free product
 that is not as usable is not enough.

Even if it's a proprietary product, your statement is
true, just see what has happened to OS/2 or BeOS.



 If you cannot accomplish that,
 then at least try to create the illusion of it. FreeBSD has failed at
 the goal also.

Not delivering an illusion, even for free, and instead
keeping up truth is not that bad. Better say: No, this
product isn't compatible or Support is there, but you
have to do it manually is a honest statement at last.



 OS/2 was IBM's fault from the beginning. They insisted that it be tied
 to the 286 processor.

I think OS/2 was present up to the Pentium lines of processors,
still being compatible with the basic x86 architectures.
On one hand, OS/2 did perform quite well, and even ran
DOS and Windows program in almost real parallel which
WIndows never got working. On the other hand, many
applications required by users were not present, and
the GUI was, compared to Windows '95, quite old looking.

Sometimes within the 90's, OS/2 even came preinstalled
on PCs, just as Windows comes today. IBM was always
famous for their funny price tags, so OS/2 was very
quickly considered too expensive.



 As with any product, first impressions are
 crucial. Their first one failed.

Even though the first impression is not a judged statement
born out of properly using educated thinking and concluding,
it's the most _important_ for further decisions.



 Unfortunately, so many FOSS pundits
 have not learned this simple lesson.

Sadly, I can even confirm this, by the example of KDE,
which I _thought_ I had installed in the German language
variant. Still, there were too many english error messages
and programs that didn't obey the language setting, and
many software was that sloppily translated that it was a
pain to use that. In this regards, Gnome seemed to be much
more quality.

In the FOSS development, from time to time you can encounter
programs that exactly match your statement. They are of such
a bad quality (both in implementation and in use) that you
will very quickly stop using them - and move on. Luckily,
nearly no program is free of alternatives. You just have to
invest the time (and therefor sometimes the money) to find
out what works for you. Or you rely on advertising telling
you, often resulting in a scary nightmare - the thing that
happens when you recognize that you've been fooled, like:
What? No support? You mean I have to buy a new PC _and_
a new printer? I just bought _that_ stuff for 2000$, and
you tell me it's already useless? (I've seen similar
situations in business contexts many times.)



 From Wikipedia:
 
 OS/2 1.x targeted the 80286 processor: IBM insisted

Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:32:25 -0500, Paul Schmehl wrote:
 In short, some people chase the newest shiniest thing.  Others prefer to 
 stick with what works.  Often, the newest shiniest folks, after they've 
 gained some wisdom, move to the other camp.  So you could well see a 
 resurgence of BSD as Linux admins who've grown tired of its quirks but have 
 gained some unix skills start moving back toward the BSD side.

And to add this:

Sometimes, it's the old guys with their outdated knowledge
and strange systems that keep the obsoleted programs of the
shiny boxes on artificial life support, so that those who are
used to rely on that software that includes a self destruct
mechanism (see: planned obsolescense) can carry on using it,
believing it just works and is everything that exists. :-)

Sadly, modern Linusi often don't encourage the user to gain
knowledge. Understandable - why should they? It's about just
using, not about knowing anything, as (successfully) propagated
by the marketing mechanisms of other systems. The knowledge
you need to do work often is short-term knowledge: it's
useless as soon as a new product comes out, simply because
the new product does everything better.

That's why you don't find a perfect product, as you could
sell this one just ONCE. But just imagine you could sell a
car that never fails. When the market is saturated, you
don't sell anything anymore. So all the quirks, mistakes,
problems and bugs in a product do benefit the selling process
of the next product - which of course is promoted to be
free of bugs (like its predecessor was, and its successor
will be). And in regards of software, such a product would
be limited to a specific hardware platform, preventing any
improvements, maybe even hindering new innovative and useful
products entering the market.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Bruce Ferrell


On 07/18/2011 01:32 PM, Paul Schmehl wrote:
--On July 18, 2011 2:44:15 PM -0500 Gary Gatten ggat...@waddell.com 
wrote:



snip

I've always been curious why Linux seemed to take off so fast when
other FOSS / non Winblow$ OS's were available for some time with not 
much

traction; OS/2, BeOS, *nix with X11, etc.

Not just on the desktop, but servers as well.  Supported versions of
Linux such as RHEL, Suse, etc. seem to have made more headway into the
enterprise computing environment in the last ten years than *BSD did in
the last 30.


From my personal experience - which is relatively limited - it seems
applications just work on Linux?  When I need to compile an app, it
takes a few mins on Linux - but may take me a few weeks on FBSD.
Granted someone more knowledgeable with FBSD, Compilers, etc. could do
it much faster than I.


Anyway, if someone has a brief explanation of why Linux has apparently
triumphed (in so far as installed base, desktop penetration, etc.) where
so many others have failed (including IBM with OS/2) I'd be 
interested in

hearing those thoughts.



I'll hazard a guess.  Linux was new and shiny and all the rage when 
computer science really took off in the higher ed field.  So geeks 
wanted to use it, but to do so at that time you had to be a bit of a 
coder.  So the number of people hacking on it and submitting changes 
ballooned. Basically, anyone who wanted to submit a change could, but 
Linux kept the base kernel code management to prevent major mistakes.


Then all their friends wanted it too, but they couldn't code.  So the 
push for ease of use began.  That was the genesis of projects such as 
kde and gnome and the drive behind getting things like flash and 
cutting edge drivers working in Linux.


Meanwhile, the *BSDs were those old stogdy OSes that nobody was 
using any more, so there was no great incentive for geeks to check it 
out and use it.  Remember the old saw, Unix is user friendly.  It's 
just picky about who its friends are.?


So Linux was becoming more user friendly and gaining all sorts of 
GUI crud that made it easier for non-geeks to be admins while the 
BSDs were still rolling down the tried and true path of development 
that required that you actually understand the innards if you really 
wanted to be an admin.


Linux hasn't triumphed, BTW, it's merely in ascendancy right now.  
It could well go by the wayside if a major problem erupts and doesn't 
get resolved quickly.


In short, some people chase the newest shiniest thing.  Others prefer 
to stick with what works.  Often, the newest shiniest folks, after 
they've gained some wisdom, move to the other camp.  So you could well 
see a resurgence of BSD as Linux admins who've grown tired of its 
quirks but have gained some unix skills start moving back toward the 
BSD side.


This isn't a guess.  Back in the olden days of 1991, in the days was 
386BSD was a glimmer of articles in Dr Dobbs I and a lot of other *IX 
enthusiasts dutifully compiled what was given us.  Among  us there was a 
young Finnish student who want to contribute... And wasn't allowed.  SO 
he went on to create this new thing that accepted contributions from 
anyone just so the code hung together.  He called it Linux as a sort of 
pun on the then prevelent training system called MINIX.  Because it 
accept contributions from anyone who could code or test, it gained 
enormous popularity.  It wasn't exclusive.


*BSD to this day still suffers from it's exclusive attitude to this very 
day.  You can find the attitude in it's developers as evidenced by 
fairly recent posting from lead developers says (or words to this 
effect) BSD is for developers and we don't care what the desktop users want.


This isn't intended as a flame, just a historical recounting.  If you 
want to know what's wrong (and in my opinion Lennert is every bit as 
wrong in the same exact way) look inward.

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Jerome Herman


On 18/07/2011 22:22, Jerry wrote:

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:44:15 -0500
Gary Gatten articulated:


snip

I've always been curious why Linux seemed to take off so fast when
other FOSS / non Winblow$ OS's were available for some time with not
much traction; OS/2, BeOS, *nix with X11, etc.

Not just on the desktop, but servers as well.  Supported versions
of Linux such as RHEL, Suse, etc. seem to have made more headway into
the enterprise computing environment in the last ten years than *BSD
did in the last 30.

I think the explanation is rather simple, Give the user what he wants,
not what you think he wants.
I would highly advise against doing such a thing. So much evil in Ask 
me what you want, I will give you what you asked.
I did this only once, some stupid foe in management asked me to activate 
and send him every little warning of anything that would happen to the 
production servers.
I advise against it, but he insisted, I then stubbornly refused and he 
threaten to have me fired.
So I activated the every thing SNMP trap I could think of and forwarded 
him. In the first hour, even before any backup or maintenance operation, 
he received about 10 000 mails.

  You are never going to satisfy every
conceivable user, so concentrate on the core users. Microsoft has done
that extremely well. On the latest Windows 7, getting wireless up and
running is the most effortless thing I have done in awhile.
Keeping it up is a different beast, not even mentioning the constant 
disconnect/reconnect operations if by any chance you sit between two AP, 
you will learn new meanings for pain if your wifi is not natively 
supported by windows.
Most of the time Windows wifi management, and closed vendors wifi 
management do not get along too well. True there were huge progress made 
in Windows 7, but honestly I still do prefer the FreeBSD approach were I 
can choose my AP once and for all.



Windows
does everything but fill in the password. On FreeBSD, well lets just
say if that even if they had a driver for the wireless card I have
installed, getting it up and running would be another matter. Correct
me if I am wrong, but even network manager is not available on
FreeBSD is it?
I never saw the use of the tool network manager under Linux. Very 
honestly I turn it off and remove it as soon as I can. The only thing it 
ever did to me is giving headaches.
FreeBSD forces you to pick your wireless card carefully. But it is not a 
huge problem.



I have not checked in awhile. I know that there are some
programs listed, but none of them work as seamlessly as Microsoft's. It
is a basic truism in any business that in order to beat your rival, you
have to produce a better product or one that costs less and
still maintains the same basic usability.
FreeBSD users are expected to be able to read and to use this ability. 
Sure this does cut FreeBSD from quite a lot of potential users, but then 
again making an OS for people who do not want to read the manual is a 
very bad idea.

Simply creating a free product
that is not as usable is not enough. If you cannot accomplish that,
then at least try to create the illusion of it. FreeBSD has failed at
the goal also.


 From my personal experience - which is relatively limited - it seems

applications just work on Linux?  When I need to compile an app, it
takes a few mins on Linux - but may take me a few weeks on FBSD.
Granted someone more knowledgeable with FBSD, Compilers, etc. could
do it much faster than I.

Anyway, if someone has a brief explanation of why Linux has
apparently triumphed (in so far as installed base, desktop
penetration, etc.) where so many others have failed (including IBM
with OS/2) I'd be interested in hearing those thoughts.

OS/2 was IBM's fault from the beginning. They insisted that it be tied
to the 286 processor. Gates attempted to talk them out of it in a
famous meeting in Armonk, NY. IBM refused and effectively wrote it's own
death sentence with OS/2. As with any product, first impressions are
crucial. Their first one failed. Unfortunately, so many FOSS pundits
have not learned this simple lesson.




 From Wikipedia:

OS/2 1.x targeted the 80286 processor: IBM insisted on supporting the
Intel 80286 processor, with its 16-bit segmented memory mode, due to
commitments made to customers who had purchased many 80286-based PS/2's
because of IBM's promises surrounding OS/2.[16] Until release 2.0 in
April 1992, OS/2 ran in 16-bit protected mode and therefore could not
benefit from the Intel 80386's much simpler 32-bit flat memory model
and virtual 8086 mode features. This was especially painful in
providing support for DOS applications. While, in 1988, Windows/386 2.1
could run several cooperatively multitasked DOS applications, including
expanded memory (EMS) emulation, OS/2 1.3, released in 1991, was still
limited to one 640KB DOS box.




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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread perryh

Anton Shterenlikht me...@bristol.ac.uk wrote:

 We are pleased to announce a call for project proposals.
 We will accept proposals until February 15th. Please
 read Project Proposal Procedures to find out what
 needs to be included in your proposal.
 *end quote*

 Is this not what you want?

This seems to be a mechanism for a developer, who is seeking funding
to develop a particular feature or capability, to seek support from
the Foundation.  Not quite the same thing as someone who needs a
particular feature or capability developed, and is willing to fund
(or help fund) the development, seeking a developer to do the work.
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RE: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Gary Gatten

snip

This may get me flamed (probably will) but I'm wondering what the relationship 
is between FreeBSD and PC-BSD?  PERHAPS if they were to somehow join forces, 
share development load, etc. and unify the FreeBSD offerings under one roof; 
ie: PC-BSD and SERVER-BSD.

I believe several flavors of Linux have successfully done this.  Perhaps for 
licensing reasons more than technical, but nonetheless there were two offerings 
each focused on either a desktop or server deployment strategy.

Just a thought.  I'm not married to any particular OS - it's a tool and I use 
what suites my needs best.  I enjoy FreeBSD and like what it stands for - I 
would like to see it grow; both technically and in popularity.

Now, if only FreeBSD could find a mascot that didn't offend me so much...


G

PS: yes, I'm being sarcastic about being offended; referring to threads that 
pop up on occasion re Beastie





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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Jerome Herman


On 19/07/2011 01:21, Gary Gatten wrote:

snip

This may get me flamed (probably will) but I'm wondering what the relationship is between 
FreeBSD and PC-BSD?  PERHAPS if they were to somehow join forces, share development load, 
etc. and unify the FreeBSD offerings under one roof; ie: PC-BSD and 
SERVER-BSD.
Basically, PC-BSD is just a layer of candy over an almost untouched 
FreeBSD, so it is not the same at all than what you can see with Linux 
distros.
PC-BSD offers a graphical and simple installer, and an arguably easier 
package system.

Also it installs KDE and automatically makes a few decisions.
You can actually just use the graphical installer in order to install a 
standard FreeBSD, even if some tricky options won't be available from 
the installer (but you can still run sysinstall later to activate them)


I personnally use it as an easy installer for Crypto-ZFS servers.


I believe several flavors of Linux have successfully done this.  Perhaps for 
licensing reasons more than technical, but nonetheless there were two offerings 
each focused on either a desktop or server deployment strategy.

Just a thought.  I'm not married to any particular OS - it's a tool and I use 
what suites my needs best.  I enjoy FreeBSD and like what it stands for - I 
would like to see it grow; both technically and in popularity.


Well the PC-BSD layer gives a great installer, now the only thing needed 
would be a great server/daemons management layer. But that is very tough 
to create. Some dedicated distributions exists that do have this layer, 
such as FreeNAS or PFSense. But I am not a big fan of either. The thing 
is, once you get the hang of FreeBSD, you end up missing the additional 
options and tweaks that an automated GUI will necessarily  hide.


A FreeBSD distro with LDAP, ACL and MAC management would be nice though.



Now, if only FreeBSD could find a mascot that didn't offend me so much...


G

PS: yes, I'm being sarcastic about being offended; referring to threads that pop up on 
occasion re Beastie





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RE: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Devin Teske

 -Original Message-
 From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-
 questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Robison, Dave
 Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 10:53 AM
 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
 Subject: Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

 Using primarily FreeBSD, and in fact, still FreeBSD 4.11 (we are in the 
 process of
 upgrading to 8.x now), our systems moved well over 1.6 trillion dollars in 
 business
 to business financial transactions last year.

 I'd hardly call that irrelevant.

I'm with you man! That's over 10% of the current national debt ceiling!

Yet, I you and I still have co-workers that continue to claim that BSD is a toy 
and indeed irrelevant; even when faced with CARP, HAST, Jails, ZFS, and other 
great features that don't exist on any other operating system.

I say to Mr. Poettering and our similarly-hethenistic brethren that:
Just because BSD isn't relevant to you, surely you are irrelevant to BSD.
...and...
Don't you worry your pretty little head about the nasty (and totally 
irrelevant) BSD [[tounge in cheek]]. That beastie won't bother you any more ** 
until it's time to overtake your market share (muahaha).
-- 
Devin

 On 07/17/2011 04:10, Jerry wrote:
  While I usually consider Slashdot nothing more than a bunch of
  juveniles ranting against Microsoft; however, I did find this rather
  interesting post this morning.

  Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

  http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/11/07/16/0020243/Lennart-Poettering-BSD
  -Isnt-Relevant-Anymore

  Interestingly enough, a great deal of it is true. It might be
  interesting to know how others feel about it. Obviously, asking that
  question on this forum is like playing against a stacked deck;
  however, it still might prove interesting.

 --
 Dave Robison
 Sales Solution Architect II
 FIS Banking Solutions
 510/621-2089 (w)
 530/518-5194 (c)
 510/621-2020 (f)
 da...@vicor.com
 david.robi...@fisglobal.com

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Mario Lobo

Hi;


First of all, forgive me for top posting but I don't want to disturb the 
debate between Jerry and Polytropon. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I 
saved it in separate folder. It is just plain good reading, not only because 
of the issue at hand, but also because of the elegance and intelligence of the 
arguments presented by each of them, and because it was delightful to notice 
how their cultural backgrounds influence their presentations, to the point 
where even when using harsh words didn't carry offense.

I firmly believe that this is why FreeBSD exists. Because it is backed up by 
people of this caliber, whether as users or developers. Even the trolls and 
flame wars here (not in NO way implying that this thread was one!) make more 
intelligent and enjoyable reading than in any other forum I go.

In my humble user opinion, that is why FreeBSD is more than relevant. To me, 
at least, is indispensable, both as a tool and as a reference for every other 
OS in existence. I am not arguing here that my preference is better than 
anybody else's. FreeBSD itself is wide enough to fit a huge number of them. 
This universe expands even more if you add the other BSDs.

This is just a thank-you note and for sharing a simple permanent feeling of 
relief for having made a good choice.


The only offense that keeps coming back is the post's subject.   

Best regards,
-- 
Mario Lobo
http://www.mallavoodoo.com.br
FreeBSD since 2.2.8 [not Pro-Audio YET!!] (99% winblows FREE)



On Monday 18 July 2011 17:31:41 Polytropon wrote:
 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:48:46 -0400, Jerry wrote:
  On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:58:08 +0200
  
  Polytropon articulated:
   Here the circle closes: Without STANDARDS, you wouldn't
   be able to view the digital pictures you took with a
   camera 10 years ago because the manufacturer decided
   to use a proprietary image format without any documentation,
   as you should only use the software supplied by the
   manufacturer. Dropping program version X and advertising
   version Y with the new models of the digital camera,
   and everything you'll have is a bunch of files nobody
   can read anymore. You can also see this in computer
   media, although with a lower half-life period.
   
   If you want to get into the future, rely on established,
   open and free standards.
   
   In my opinion, there is no alternative. Everything else
   would just increase costs (e. g. migration costs). But
   there are fields of use where costs simply doesn't matter
   (as it seems).
  
  I apologize for cherry picking this; however, your analysis is so
  faulty that I was force to. You camera analogy is simply absurd.
 
 I wanted it to be understood as an analogy.
 
  You were aware that Kodak dropped the C22 development process decades
  ago which effectively make all films designed for that process useless.
  It also spelled then end of GAF, but that is another story. KODACHROME
  Film was discontinues after a 74 year run. Actually, it was created due
  to Kodak's inability to properly stabilize the layers in the color film
  it was trying to create; but that is another story. I still have
  several collector's grade cameras that used films such as the 116 and
  616 designations. These films were discontinued in 1984.
 
 You're talking hardware (film material) here, not software.
 
 Your analogy illustrates how technology does disappear. It
 gets more and more complicated working with film material,
 as digital cameras allow you to do all the things that you
 could do with expensive cameras only in the past. Even
 professionals have switched (of course to expensive and
 therefor professional camera models), both for photographing
 and for movies.
 
 In software, see planned obsolescense and digital medieval
 times (digital middleage) and movements that want to keep
 witnesses of our today's culture.
 
 This means you will _always_ have to judge: Need a short-term
 solution that is the best for a short term, or need a long-
 term solution that is good (or even just good enough) for
 a longer period of time.
 
 Sloppily engineered and halfway done solutions can - by means
 of marketing - be sold for the first kind of products quite
 easily, and constantness is not an important topic for the
 main markets (home consumers).
 
  Should I sue
  Kodak, or any other manufacturer for their failure to continue support
  for these devices? When wan the last time you purchased a new Polaroid?
  News Flash: It was discontinued. Now, can you guess why? Perhaps you
  have noticed people using cameras that don't apparently use any film.
  You might want to investigate that further. You will find that newer
  technology supersedes and eventually obsoletes older technology.
 
 It's _always_ that way. Interestingly, some oldest technology
 still prevails. There are still books made of paper even though
 there are alternatives. In the last year, more paper was used
 and printed than in the year before, and the trend

Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 22:31:41 +0200
Polytropon articulated:

 Your TV example is very good. I've recently read a text
 that predicts the future of CDs - a text from the late 80's.
 When we consider what we are _currently_ using, the text
 predicting no important future for CDs looks quite funny.

You are undoubtedly familiar with the 1986 quote:

I think there is a world market for about five computers — Remark
attributed to Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board of International
Business Machines)

Now, I know you want to list Bill Gates' famous, 640K ought to be
enough for anybody. statement in 1981. The only problem with that is:

1) He denies it.
2) No credible evidence or witness exists to prove he did say it.

However, he readily admits making this one:

I see little commercial potential for the internet for the next 10
years. Remarks at COMDEX (November 1994), attributed in Kommunikation
erstatter transport (2009) by Karl Krarup et al.

And who can forget the this 2006 beauty by Linus Torvalds:

Which mindset is right? Mine, of course. People who disagree with me
are by definition crazy. (Until I change my mind, when they can
suddenly become upstanding citizens. I’m flexible, and not
black-and-white.)

Actually, and this is a matter of semantics, I am technically using
DVDs and not CDs in my machines. And as surely as night follows day,
even that will be obsoleted soon enough. Heck, Blu-ray is currently
available and the 5D DVD with 10 terabytes, approximately 2000 times
the capacity of a standard DVD is on the horizon. It seems like only
yesterday I was using 5.25 floppies. The whole point being that the
text you are alluding too may not be that far from the truth.

-- 
Jerry ✌
jerry+f...@seibercom.net

Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or ignored.
Do not CC this poster. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header.

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Mario Lobo

Hi;

First of all, forgive me for top posting but I don't want to disturb the 
debate between Jerry and Polytropon. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I 
saved it in separate folder. It is just plain good reading, not only because 
of the issue at hand, but also because of the elegance and intelligence of the 
arguments presented by each of them, and because it was delightful to notice 
how their cultural backgrounds influence their presentations, to the point 
where even when using harsh words didn't carry offense.

I firmly believe that this is why FreeBSD exists. Because it is backed up by 
people of this caliber, whether as users or developers. Even the trolls and 
flame wars here (not in NO way implying that this thread was one!) make more 
intelligent and enjoyable reading than in any other forum I go.

In my humble user opinion, that is why FreeBSD is more than relevant. To me, 
at least, is indispensable, both as a tool and as a reference for every other 
OS in existence. I am not arguing here that my preference is better than 
anybody else's. FreeBSD itself is wide enough to fit a huge number of them. 
This universe expands even more if you add the other BSDs.

This is just a thank-you note and for sharing a simple permanent feeling of 
relief for having made a good choice.

The only offense that keeps coming back is the post's subject.   

Best regards,

-- 
Mario Lobo
http://www.mallavoodoo.com.br
FreeBSD since 2.2.8 [not Pro-Audio YET!!] (99% winblows FREE)

On Monday 18 July 2011 17:31:41 Polytropon wrote:
 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:48:46 -0400, Jerry wrote:
  On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:58:08 +0200
  
  Polytropon articulated:
   Here the circle closes: Without STANDARDS, you wouldn't
   be able to view the digital pictures you took with a
   camera 10 years ago because the manufacturer decided
   to use a proprietary image format without any documentation,
   as you should only use the software supplied by the
   manufacturer. Dropping program version X and advertising
   version Y with the new models of the digital camera,
   and everything you'll have is a bunch of files nobody
   can read anymore. You can also see this in computer
   media, although with a lower half-life period.
   
   If you want to get into the future, rely on established,
   open and free standards.
   
   In my opinion, there is no alternative. Everything else
   would just increase costs (e. g. migration costs). But
   there are fields of use where costs simply doesn't matter
   (as it seems).
  
  I apologize for cherry picking this; however, your analysis is so
  faulty that I was force to. You camera analogy is simply absurd.
 
 I wanted it to be understood as an analogy.
 
  You were aware that Kodak dropped the C22 development process decades
  ago which effectively make all films designed for that process useless.
  It also spelled then end of GAF, but that is another story. KODACHROME
  Film was discontinues after a 74 year run. Actually, it was created due
  to Kodak's inability to properly stabilize the layers in the color film
  it was trying to create; but that is another story. I still have
  several collector's grade cameras that used films such as the 116 and
  616 designations. These films were discontinued in 1984.
 
 You're talking hardware (film material) here, not software.
 
 Your analogy illustrates how technology does disappear. It
 gets more and more complicated working with film material,
 as digital cameras allow you to do all the things that you
 could do with expensive cameras only in the past. Even
 professionals have switched (of course to expensive and
 therefor professional camera models), both for photographing
 and for movies.
 
 In software, see planned obsolescense and digital medieval
 times (digital middleage) and movements that want to keep
 witnesses of our today's culture.
 
 This means you will _always_ have to judge: Need a short-term
 solution that is the best for a short term, or need a long-
 term solution that is good (or even just good enough) for
 a longer period of time.
 
 Sloppily engineered and halfway done solutions can - by means
 of marketing - be sold for the first kind of products quite
 easily, and constantness is not an important topic for the
 main markets (home consumers).
 
  Should I sue
  Kodak, or any other manufacturer for their failure to continue support
  for these devices? When wan the last time you purchased a new Polaroid?
  News Flash: It was discontinued. Now, can you guess why? Perhaps you
  have noticed people using cameras that don't apparently use any film.
  You might want to investigate that further. You will find that newer
  technology supersedes and eventually obsoletes older technology.
 
 It's _always_ that way. Interestingly, some oldest technology
 still prevails. There are still books made of paper even though
 there are alternatives. In the last year, more paper was used
 and printed than in the year before, and the trend

Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Chad Perrin

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 04:22:45PM -0400, Jerry wrote:
 
 I think the explanation is rather simple, Give the user what he wants,
 not what you think he wants. You are never going to satisfy every
 conceivable user, so concentrate on the core users. Microsoft has done
 that extremely well. On the latest Windows 7, getting wireless up and
 running is the most effortless thing I have done in awhile. Windows
 does everything but fill in the password.

This is where we find a dividing line between users who want different
things.  Yes, you turn on your Win7 laptop (or wake it up) in a coffee
shop, and it connects automagically -- in fact, you probably don't even
realize it has connected.  Hopefully it connected to the coffee shop's
network, and not one of those occasional skimming networks that
masquerade as coffe shop networks and exist to harvest login data and the
like.  The dividing line between two schools of thought on the matter in
this example should be obvious.



 Correct me if I am wrong, but even network manager is not available
 on FreeBSD is it?

That's no great loss.  NetworkManager is the fifth horseman of the
Apocalinux:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/opensource/?p=2429

If it is still not available on FreeBSD, my only comment is Keep up the
good work.  Things like NetworkManager are among the few cases where I'm
*glad* when someone locks up the source with the GPL, dissuading anyone
from importing that disaster area into an OS I like to use.  Software
that makes the computer behave in a(n unproductively) non-deterministic
manner should stay in the Ubuntu and MS Windows ghettos where it belongs.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]


pgp0xe8KxaChB.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

2011-07-18 Thread Robert Bonomi

 Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:01:20 -0400
 From: Jerry je...@seibercom.net
 Subject: Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore

 On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 22:31:41 +0200
 Polytropon articulated:

  Your TV example is very good. I've recently read a text
  that predicts the future of CDs - a text from the late 80's.
  When we consider what we are _currently_ using, the text
  predicting no important future for CDs looks quite funny.

 You are undoubtedly familiar with the 1986 quote:

 I think there is a world market for about five computers a   Remark
 attributed to Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board of International
 Business Machines)

*SNICKER* 

So much for your reseearch skills. 

Thomas J. Watson _died_ in NINETEEN FIFTY SIX.  If  he made a remark in
1986 it would have been world-shaking news.

You are citing a 1986 .sig item from a _USENET_  posting by a Convex Computer 
employee.  The purported remark occurred in _1943_.  *IF* it was made, it is
worth noting that, as a prediction, it _was_true_ for *TEN*YEARS*.  Now,
how many other 'predictions' in the field of computing have survived _that_
long?

Reputable sources have it:
   Although Watson is well known for his alleged 1943 statement: I think 
there is a world market for maybe five computers, there is scant 
evidence he made it.

There *is* 'some' evidence, albeit _not_ conclusive, that his son, Thomas 
J. Watson, Jr. said something _remotely_ related in 1953, to wit:
   But, as a result of our trip, on which we expected to get orders for 
five machines, we came home with orders for 18.

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Re: Lennart Poettering: BSD Isn't Relevant Anymore