On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 12:49:23PM -0600, Brandon Falk wrote:
> Why is it that FreeBSD is so far behind Linux in popularity? The fact
> that lots of companies are not very supportive of FreeBSD (ex. NVIDIA
> and ATI 64-bit drivers) is really starting to bother me.
o IBM
When IBM first started getting mixed up with Linux, I was concerned,
thinking they'd do to it what they did to OS/2, (it's still a concern
actually) but it seems to have actually done some good for Linux.
Apple kind of screwed the FreeBSD community by taking BSD and
some-how hiding it from their users. You don't exactly see Apple
"bragging" that they use BSD, it's more like their dirty little
secret. (Apple is, IMO, a horrible company to get as far away from
as possible, arrogant, snarky and just plain awful.)
o Dot Com
During the 90's there was much talk about "linux technology" on the
financial news networks by people who didn't understand it.
There are a lot of people who have no idea what UNIX is, or even
what an operating system is, but they've heard about "linux".
Usually, they say "linux is good for servers, windows is good for
desktop" we need this changed to "linux is good for desktop, freebsd
is good for servers".
o RedHat/Debian/Mandrake/...
Linux has more "openings" for 3rd parties to create their own
distros, this means, multiple vendors have reason to promote it.
(Not suggesting anything here..)
o gtar/tar/star/btar/blah
In BSD (DragonflyBSD,FreeBSD,OpenBSD) there is a real attitude
problem, the idea seems to be "GNU sucks and you should use BSD
alternatives". I like the GNU, I don't like having to have 18
versions of "make" around (gmake, make, bmake, smake...) or 20
variants of "tar". Most people don't know or care about such things.
You don't really see GNU-folk bashing BSD, why does BSD have to bash
GNU? Why not say the GNU complements BSD for certain things?
Probably lots of other factors I'm leaving out. (Such as commercial
support by multiple vendors, you can see the word "Linux" on various
product boxes)
> I guess I would
> like to have a bit of a discussion of what could be improved to increase
> the popularity of FreeBSD, as honestly I can do almost everything in
> FreeBSD that I can in Linux, so why can't FreeBSD thrive as much as
> Linux. Is it that it is harder to install/configure? Any opinions/ideas
> on this situation?
I like both platforms.
I'd say bug hosting providers about it, call radio shows, bug vendors
about it. Hosting providers and radio shows in particular. (If you know
someone at IBM... bug them too..) just get the word "FreeBSD" into the
collective.
It would be good to find an "IBM for BSD", but it would appear Oracle
and IBM are the only companies left..
There is one really CRITICAL thing I have to say..
Don't alienate linux users!!!!
FreeBSD isn't trendy enough to "pull an apple", we can't afford to be so
arrogant.
I was on a linux IRC channel the other night, this FreeBSD nut-job
joined and started telling all the linuxer's that "their platform
stinks..." this isn't helping... the right way is to tell them linux is
great for A,B,C but FreeBSD is better for X,Y,Z.
Don't alienate people, no one likes to hear they're stupid. (and many
linuxers do identify strongly with their platform, an attack on linux is
personal)
I see a lot of this going on, from general attitudes to pictures of
penguines being sexually assaulted. This paints FreeBSD into the the
image of a childish, and frankly offensive, gang of creeps no one would
want to be associated with. (the irony being of course, most FreeBSD
folks tend to be a little older, while linux tends to have a lot of
"punks")
Linux and the flyswatter can get away with it because microsoft is soooo
huge and it's not as sexually charged. People don't "identify" with
insects like a butterfly as they might a penguin, frog or other animal,
and anyway, windows users don't usually feel as personally connected to
their OS.
If you were IBM, how would you feel about supporting a platform with
cartoons of its mascott raping a partner? (or even competitor..)
Microsoft (as a server) is the problem, not Linux.
Linux seems to be doing more to take over the windows world, this has
problems (like crappy bloated windows-like software on linux.. that
eventually infiltrates FreeBSD..) but I still think it's good that linux
is doing that. FreeBSD meanwhile, stands at the ready for server stuff.
Tell people how great freebsd is, not how crappy linux is. Remind them
that we're all "unix-like", so you're not loosing anything by selecting
freebsd for server stuff, you can still use linux as a workstation.
Jamie
--
http://www.geniegate.com Custom web programming
Perl * Java * UNIX User Management Solutions
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