Subject: Re: as seen on /.
To: None <netbsd-advocacy@netbsd.org>
From: Andy Ruhl <acruhl@gmail.com>
List: netbsd-advocacy
Date: 02/27/2005 20:34:53
On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 15:17:59 -0500, Jan Schaumann
<jschauma@netmeister.org> wrote:
> http://bsd.slashdot.org/bsd/05/02/27/1755229.shtml?tid=7
> http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=7946+0+archive/2005/freebsd-current/20050213.freebsd-current
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2005-February/thread.html
> 
> Well, I'm sure many of you have seen this.  So why do I bother posting
> this here again?
> 
> Well, I think this shows that we have done a very good job of
> advertizing NetBSD recently.  It shows that by every NetBSD enthusiast
> advocating just the benefits of NetBSD (and pkgsrc) we -- you -- have
> done a great service to advance NetBSD and bring it into discussion.
> 
> I also think it's noteworthy that people advocating NetBSD appear to
> stand out as people who argue based on the merit of the product alone,
> not so much on the basis of ``hey, look, product X really sucks, we're
> better!1!!'' -- and simply stating ``NetBSD does X very well'' clearly
> is the best way to help spread NetBSD.
> 
> So, thanks to all those who keep advertizing NetBSD and do so in a
> professional and civilized manner without spreading FUD about other
> products!  Let's keep it up!

I think you already said it, but maybe you didn't.

There's a few ways to look at this:

1. Wow. They noticed!
2. Hmm, how to respond?

He did say one thing that is absolutely true, that each OS still has
it's merits. This is 100% the case. FreeBSD still has some cool toys
that the other 2 can't match.

But I still think that NetBSD is the correct place to start from, and
the platform independence model is showing itself to be extremely
relevant these days. If NetBSD had some of the same cool toys FreeBSD
had, I don't think there would be much of an argument.

I've got a FreeBSD 4.10 server that I've been using since about 4.1
(was Linux before that), and I'm having to make a tough decision about
whether to do FreeBSD 5.x or NetBSD 2.x.

Even though I am mostly using NetBSD for everything else these days,
the decision is not at all clear.

In the end, I think the drama-less upgrades of NetBSD are going to win out. 

Andy