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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!zombie.ncsc.mil!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!Germany.EU.net!ieunet!maths.tcd.ie!maths.tcd.ie!not-for-mail From: tim@maths.tcd.ie (Timothy Murphy) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,alt.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc Subject: Re: a monthly FreeBSD magazine (and other *BSD's too) Date: 3 Jan 1996 23:37:47 -0000 Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Lines: 57 Message-ID: <4cf40b$9ri@bell.maths.tcd.ie> References: <4ajc07$sb7@unix2.glink.net.hk> <4c9op2$k9o@mark.ucdavis.edu> <4ca3gu$4nc@news1.halcyon.com> <4cdijr$hjg@toplink1.toplink.net> <4cesep$pb1@agate.berkeley.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: bell.maths.tcd.ie Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:31756 alt.os.linux:6780 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:11306 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1702 jkh@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard) writes: >Furthermore, I don't think I can ever satisfy Tim as he'll simply just >blow up at something else (I'm still waiting for him to actually >CONTRIBUTE something, mind you, though there's always hope for the coming >millennium :-) but I can at least put to rest this silly didea that >the FreeBSD group is somehow insensitive to the requirements of common PC >hardware. ... >You see, there is this concept of "available time and resources" that >many people who haven't developed software are just going to have to bear >with me on for a moment here. I know that it's a somewhat radical notion >to hold that time or resources could possibly be limited for anyone, and >I know that users like Tim actively pooh-pooh it in favor of the more popular >"time as a mobius strip" theory which contends that developers have >infinite amounts of both, but in the FreeBSD world it would nonetheless >appear that we're being forced to live within the laws of physics. Am I the Tim referred to? (Or am I suffering from persecution complex?) If I am, the idea of being counted with the enemies of FreeBSD surprises me a little. I am actually running FreeBSD on a 386, and can say after scientific testing that it is much slower than Linux on a Pentium :-) [We recently added 12 FreeBSD boxes as `X-terminals' to the system I nominally direct -- maths.tcd.ie.] I honestly believe that FreeBSD is good for Linux, and Linux is good for FreeBSD. In my experience both are completely stable, and for the home user (like me) there is absolutely nothing to choose between them. I consider the licence discussion a complete irrelevancy to the 99% of users who are not commercial software developers. I have criticised the documentation of FreeBSD in the past, and consider that it still remains behind that of Linux (cf the "Linux Bible"). However, while Linux documentation has not improved at all recently, FreeBSD has been making a huge effort, and will hopefully equal its rival in the near future. Finally, I would suggest that many of the people posting in support of FreeBSD are actually harming their cause by implying that FreeBSD is aimed at "power users" rather than the home PC owner currently using Windows. (Of course I am not suggesting Jordan subscribes to this view.) If FreeBSD is to succeed it must aim at that market. -- Timothy Murphy e-mail: tim@maths.tcd.ie tel: +353-1-2842366 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland