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From: Tim Daneliuk <tundra@tundraware.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Musings On A Commercially Viable FreeBSD
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 18:10:43 +0000
Organization: TundraWare
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:39689
I have been a long-time FreeBSD user/hack/administrator. It is an
outstanding
and stable system worthy of "run-your-business" mission-critical
applications
(thanks a million, Jordan et al). In fact, having fiddled with almost
all the Unix and desktop OSes over the past 20 years, I'd argue that
FreeBSD:
1) Has as good or better quality code as anything on the market,
2) Has a more rational release mentality than most commercial products,
3) Enjoys far better and more responsive support (here and at the web
site)
than *any* commercial OS I've seen/used/installed.
However, IMHO there are still some realistic obstacles to wide-spread
*commercial* adoption of FreeBSD. It seems to me, we still need the
following:
1) Kernel threading
2) SMP Support
3) A major DBMS product (Oracle, Informix, Sybase...) w/ODBC support
4) A complete JDK implementation w/AWT, all the libraries, etc.
1) and 2) are on the way in 3.0, I believe. 4) is probably just a matter
of
time, but 3) is a real issue.
I would love to recommend FreeBSD in my current work situation. My boss
(the
CTO) is most open to this. However, it is hard to sell a business
person
on a FreeBSD solution when you cannot offer one of the "Big 3" DBMS
products
in the mix. DBMS needs are simply too pervasive in commercial
applications
to be ignored when specifying a system. Once you have the DBMS,
everthing
follows such as accounting packages, inventory control, and so on.
Others here have (rightly) pointed out that commercial software vendors
are driven not by porting costs, but by support and maintenance costs
when
determining a product line P&L. In order to get, say, an Oracle port,
we
the FreeBSD community would have to convince them of several things:
1) There is enough of a business opportunity for them to make it worth
it
2) They could sell both product licenses *and* support agreements
3) The market space is large enough to sustain itself over time
IMHO, if we cannot do these 3 things, we will never see a major DBMS
player
on FreeBSD. If that is the case, I fear that FreeBSD will be relegated
to
being a high-end hackers delight with little significant penetration
into
commercial applications.
We who work in this industry need to ponder this and learn the lesson
that
IBM and then Microsoft taught everyone so well: Operating Systems get
sold
not on their merits, but on the body of tools and applications software
they
drag with them.
The question is, How do we do this? Can a forum be created for
commercial
FreeBSD advocacy? Is there a large enough installed or potential user
base to attract the big tool and applications players? Could we
convince
a visible hardware player (Compaq, Dell, Gateway...) to offer a FreeBSD/
Hardware "bundle" to raise visibility in the commercial sector? Should
we
pursue the BSD/OS approach and create an idiot-proof "Internet In A Box"
kind of product?
I would hate to see something of the caliber of FreeBSD get swept into
the dustbin of technology because nobody noticed. Yes, yes I know there
are probably tens of thousands of us who use it very day, but that's not
commercial critical mass.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Tundra" Tim Daneliuk
tundra@tundraware.com