Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au!news.apana.org.au!cantor.edge.net.au!news.mira.net.au!inquo!news.seinf.abb.se!erinews.ericsson.se!cnn.exu.ericsson.se!uunet!in2.uu.net!129.115.10.31!naiad.utsa.edu!uthscsa.edu!nexp.crl.com!usenet From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.misc Subject: Re: Linux vs BSD Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 22:45:24 -0800 Organization: Walnut Creek CDROM Lines: 42 Message-ID: <33322E84.42877E5C@FreeBSD.org> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <slrn5fejrn.353.bet@onyx.interactive.net> <5d7spf$8n6@web.nmti.com> <5d9p55$t1h@news.ox.ac.uk> <5dadfr$cnu@web.nmti.com> <n4stf5.tq2.ln@zen> <E6sIEF.1qE@truffula.sj.ca.us> <5gpvf8$4h1$1@usenet.logical.net> <333092B4.7DC23153@webshuttle.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: time.cdrom.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2-RELEASE i386) To: Tim Tassonis <timtas@webshuttle.ch> Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:166873 comp.os.linux.advocacy:90314 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2901 Tim Tassonis wrote: > Mostly, but not completely. I chose (or stick to) Linux as well because > it's one of the few software products at least partly from Europe, while > any other systems is from America. Nothing against Americans, but their > dominance in the software maket is just too big (not their fault though, > but the European's). So my choice is as well based on the fact that > Linux is more international. You'd be surprised. :-) Well over half of the FreeBSD development project is not located in the U.S, and if anything the Americans are now a minority group. Just because the original bits came from Berkeley (and even parts of those bits came from U.K. and Australia if you read the history of BSD development, and some of the other universities world-wide which participated) it hardly qualifies BSD as a uniquely "American" effort. In fact, just based on PR efforts and user coverage, it's the Japanese would appear to be doing the most in the FreeBSD market. :) And yes, speaking as someone who lived in Europe for around 7 years, I agree entirely that the American dominance in the software market is the purely the fault of the various EC countries who said "Rapid response to change? What's that!? We don't want it! We don't need it! We believe in the old and important traditions, like summer beer festivals and paper tape readers!" Fortunately this is now changing, but it took a long time - probably too long. I think the EC pretty much managed to marginalize itself in the computer industry, and not for lack of some nifty products (I think of Acorn in the U.K., or PCS in Germany before Digital swallowed them up). Americans, on the other hand, aren't comfortable if a building stays up for more than 2 or 3 years or if a major road isn't widened or diverted at least twice. One could almost say that the computer field was tailor-made for people of our mentality. :-) Oh dear, now I've probably started a divergent thread which will last for at least 20 articles while the american and european hackers duke it out over this, haven't I? :-) -- - Jordan Hubbard FreeBSD core team / Walnut Creek CDROM.