Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!usc!nic-nac.CSU.net!newshub.sdsu.edu!saturn!larryr From: larryr@saturn.sdsu.edu (Larry Riedel) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD Date: 8 Jul 1995 00:31:23 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Lines: 54 Message-ID: <3tkjks$6he@pandora.sdsu.edu> References: <3qfhhv$7uc@titania.pps.pgh.pa.us> <3tffhq$qfu@pandora.sdsu.edu> <id.3FDL1.S1F@nmti.com> <3thnov$1nv@pandora.sdsu.edu> <id.TFEL1.8UE@nmti.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: saturn.sdsu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Peter da Silva (peter@nmti.com) wrote: > Larry Riedel <larryr@saturn.sdsu.edu> wrote: > > How is "spend more time on a product" equivalent to "provide a > > full-time coverage on the net"? > > You're the one who's demanding that I did not demand or even ask that anyone do anything. I said what I think needs to be done to successfully compete for the average user with Linux. > *every* developer provide a full > time coverage on the net as part of their duties as a developer. Does "*every* developer provide full time coverage" have some unambiguous meaning? It certainly does not mean every developer would spend 40hrs/wk since the average developer would not approach spending that much time, or even 1/10 of it. If it means that every article which might have some question/issue which should be addressed by a developer will be read by someone on the team and a response posted by a developer if appropriate, then yes I think that FreeBSD should provide this kind of "full time coverage on the net" if it wants to have a reputation for support of the users that is as good as Linux has - but this "full time coverage" would be provided by the team as a whole, not redundantly by each and every individual developer. I am sure that all the articles in this group DO get read by at least one team member, so "full time coverage" is already provided to the extent that the articles are read, and there is no need for every developer to read all of the articles in order for the team to provide the rest of the coverage - the heads-ups to the appropriate developers, and responses when appropriate from them to USENET. Much of this happens anyway; of course from a marketing standpoint, a critical part of this "coverage" would be an acknowledgement that USENET is a "correct" place for users to ask questions and expect they will be read by someone on the team and addressed by a developer if appropriate, as a follow-up article. > > How is "spend more time on a product" equivalent to "provide a > > full-time coverage on the net"? > > If you can't make the connection then it's obviously going to be beyond me. The "connection"? I did not say that there is no "connection" between them. There is some "connection" in the sense that they both have to with spending time on the product. However, they are not equivalent, because one has to do with the quantity of time spent, and the other has to do with the allocation of that time to particular tasks, such as writing code, writing documentation, reading USENET, sending mail to other developers, etc. Facilitating USENET support for FreeBSD does not require that the developers spend more time on the product than they are spending right now. Larry