*BSD News Article 66060


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From: somsky@dirac.phys.washington.edu (William R. Somsky)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX)
Date: 16 Apr 1996 19:09:44 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <4l0r9o$4th@nntp5.u.washington.edu>
References: <NELSON.96Apr15010553@ns.crynwr.com> <NELSON.96Apr15173839@ns.crynwr.com> <yfg68b0fpqo.fsf@time.cdrom.com> <NELSON.96Apr16100200@ns.crynwr.com>
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In article <NELSON.96Apr16100200@ns.crynwr.com>,
Russell Nelson <nelson@ns.crynwr.com> wrote:
> 
> We must win the desktop.  You disagree.  Oh well.
> 

WHY?!?  Why must we "win the desktop"? There is _absolutely_ no reason
to believe that Free Unices can only succeed by "winning the desktop",
unless you narrowly define success as "winning the desktop".  Free
Unices can survive and succeed perfectly well in the niche market of
those of us who want a _UNIX_ without a lot of excess fluff and baggage
purely for the sake of trying to win over windows users.  Now, this
doesn't mean work can't work be done on some of this -- as long as it's
well-done, optional, and doesn't detract from the real Unix core, I'd
welcome it -- but as soon as you make "winning the desktop" your sole,
overriding, and obsessive concern, you'll start sacrificing everything
else that others of us want Free Unices to be to this tin idol of
yours.

Well, anyway...  I guess I better step down off of this soapbox before
I fall and break my neck...  I'm sure I'll have plenty of offers from
people willing to do it for me...
________________________________________________________________________
William R. Somsky			      somsky@phys.washington.edu
Department of Physics, Box 351560		 B432 Physics-Astro Bldg
Univ. of Washington, Seattle WA 98195-1560		    206/616-2954