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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!swidir.switch.ch!univ-lyon1.fr!news-rocq.inria.fr!news2.EUnet.fr!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!news.msfc.nasa.gov!pendragon.jsc.nasa.gov!ames!newsfeed.gsfc.nasa.gov!news!kstailey From: kstailey@leidecker.gsfc.nasa.gov (Kenneth Stailey) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Why isn't NetBSD popular? Date: 16 Aug 1995 19:32:12 GMT Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA Lines: 33 Message-ID: <KSTAILEY.95Aug16153212@leidecker.gsfc.nasa.gov> References: <DDACyE.CBt@seas.ucla.edu> <40ohil$8rb@pandora.sdsu.edu> <DDD8FG.L0B@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: leidecker.gsfc.nasa.gov In-reply-to: richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk's message of Tue, 15 Aug 1995 18:52:26 GMT Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:788 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:4714 comp.os.linux.advocacy:17099 In article <DDD8FG.L0B@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) writes: In article <40ohil$8rb@pandora.sdsu.edu> larryr@saturn.sdsu.edu (Larry Riedel) writes: >> I'm posting this message to all appropriate newsgroups. I'm interested in >> hearing what makes FreeBSD and Linux much more popular than NetBSD. >Marketing. Well, partly perhaps. The main reason *I* switched to FreeBSD (after running NetBSD 0.8 and 0.9) was that they had more frequent releases. Now of course you can run NetBSD-current, but the regular(ish) numbered releases of FreeBSD means that many other people are running the very same version as you, so you're much more likely to find someone who's solved your problem or who has built some piece of software for the version you're running. -current + the date (I'm running August 9, 1995 right now) of sup gives you a "version number". Then the problem becomes "too many versions". As for formal releases, core believes they have to be perfect. Core switches the version number, adds "_BETA" to it and stops adding new features, only bug fixes until the problem reports stop. Then "_BETA" is removed from the version number and the release is frozen. Any fixes after this are in separate patch files. As a result you see fewer formal releases since they slow down development. It's a trade off, more bureaucratic but better quality. ~Ken