*BSD News Article 48944


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!noc.netcom.net!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!uknet!newsfeed.ed.ac.uk!edcogsci!richard
From: richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin)
Subject: Re: Why isn't NetBSD popular?
Message-ID: <DDGEM7.395@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: HCRC, University of Edinburgh
References: <40ohil$8rb@pandora.sdsu.edu> <DDD8FG.L0B@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <40t6tu$2cv@sundog.tiac.net>
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 11:58:52 GMT
Lines: 25
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:742 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:4449 comp.os.linux.advocacy:16422

In article <40t6tu$2cv@sundog.tiac.net> Jim Williams <williams@tiac.net> writes:
>>The main reason *I* switched to FreeBSD (after running NetBSD 0.8 and
>>0.9) was that they had more frequent releases.

>If you really like frequent releases then perhaps you should switch
>to the Linux 1.3.x experimental kernel series.  I hear they release
>new patches just about every night.

I think you missed the point: I *don't* want daily releases.  As
someone else remarked, current+date identifies a NetBSD "release", but
that's much too frequent.  What I want are releases that are
sufficiently frequent that you don't fall far behind current
development, but sufficiently infrequent that many other people will
be using exactly the same version.  FreeBSD provides this.

Please don't interpret this as a claim that FreeBSD is better than
NetBSD (or Linux).  It's just the main reason I switched, and I
mentioned it to indicate that "marketing" wasn't (as claimed) the only
reason that more people used FreeBSD than NetBSD.

-- Richard

-- 
"... we were extremely sceptical, like most people, about 'conspiracy
 theories of history' ..."        - The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail