Re: [cobalt-developers] nice knowing you all!

[Arthur Corliss <corliss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 23 Sep 2000, Dennis wrote:

> Can you spell "B S D"?
> 
> In counterpoint, they could have used another "free OS" without the
> restrictive GPL license (BSD comes to mind) and built an application driven
> appliance rather than trying to generically support LINUX on their box.
> Their boxes are nothing special (slow and expensive compared to a 1U PC
> alternative), and they are consumed dealing with all of the pitfalls of
> linux, keeping up with seemingly daily changes that have little to do with
> their product, and dealing with thousands of penguinites who demand
> unending support for free...

Ahh, here we go into license bigotry.  I use both, and both have their
strengths, no doubt.  But what spurred this discussion on was two simple facts
that BSD doesn't address:

	--Linux was definitely a factor in the success of Cobalt.  Nice
	  loyalty showing to consider dumping them now
	--There are more packages ready to install for Linux than any
	  other OS, so if you want to let them tinker with the internals,
	  why make them compile from source?  And before you tell me some
	  crap like that isn't an issue, you need to explore the number of
	  neat little proggies that some nitwit developed solely on Linux
	  without an ounce of consideration for making it portable.  As a full
	  time IRIX user, I run into this all the time.  Those of us writing
	  portable code (and conscious of endian and register size issues) are
	  in the clear minority.

Yes, FreeBSD has a Linux compatibility layer, and Solaris has one in
development.  Do I have to tell you what I think of compatibility layers?
Waste the hardware, go ahead, waste cycles remapping kernel calls.

> Supporting Linux proper is a nightmare, and Im sure that a very small
> percentage of sales are to people who care...mainwhile the small pct of
> those that do are eating their lunch in support time.

That's completely ludicrous.  As a company that has to support a wide variety
of Unices in businesses here, Linux is no more a support hardship than any
other Unix.  In fact, with the tremendous amount of attention it gets, I'd
wager that I find solutions quicker and easier than with any commercial Unix.

> Without the "hype", no commercial vendor would use linux, because its not
> as good as BSD (an opinion shared by most people with substantial
> experience with both) and its license is not friendly to commercial vendors.

BSD is rock solid, there's no doubt.  But the simple market reality is that
Linux is getting the attention, and more development is being concentrated on
it.  Applications drive acceptance, and applications are what the users want.
In that view, moving away from Linux makes little sense.

Your license quibble, BTW, is utter crap.  You can license any code that runs
on top of Linux any way you want.  As long as you're not linking against GPL'd
code (thought much LGPL code alleviates the problem), you're fine.  And guess
what, what application are most people using on the Cobalts?  Is it Apache?
Is that GPL?  I thought not.  Give it a rest.

If, however, you *want* to take advantage of GPL'd code, then suck it up.
You're using their tools, you have to comply with their licenses.  Ironic that
you're whining about it, thought, when even the BSD's use a great deal of GNU
cli tools.  What's that all about?  Hell, even Solaris and IRIX have GNU
bundles ready to install off the installation disks.

Your political leanings in the license arena is a herring, pure and simple.

	--Arthur Corliss
	  Bolverk's Lair -- http://www.odinicfoundation.org/arthur/
	  "Live Free or Die, the Only Way to Live" -- NH State Motto