FreeBSD Popularity

[Jamie]

On Mon, Mar 01, 2010 at 10:24:19AM -0500, Roger wrote:
> FreeBSD should continue to innovate and not imitate.
> I was a Linux (Desktop and Server) user, now I am a FreeBSD user
> (Desktop and Server) and I could not be any happier.

I'm a freebsd server user, tried it on the desktop but some applications
just didn't work. 

> I did not install FreeBSD because someone came and got in my face and
> advocated about it. I did it on my own.

Obviously you had to have known about FreeBSD to do it on your own. 

> FreeBSD got me just by being FreeBSD and by offering what it offers.
> No marketing needed.

I disagree to some extent, case in point is the jail functionality,
there are linux users who consider chroot to be the same thing, they
simply don't know the difference (worse.. there are packages out there
claiming to give it jail functionality but really it's just a chroot'ed
login, this is misleading)

Performance under heavy load is another thing linux users probably
aren't aware of. (I wasn't!)

It's hard to find a hosting provider that'll do FreeBSD, this I assume
is because people aren't asking for it and people aren't asking for it
because they probably don't know about it (or why it's good for server
level stuff) 

Clearly, some "marketing" is needed if we are to have choices in the
future about hosting.

It's not linux users in particular though, a lot of people who *make the
decisions* don't even know what linux is, they just hear a lot of hype
about it and figure "everyone else is using linux, so it must be
better".

I see this all the time with PHP and MySQL, when I suggest postgresql
for some applications, it's "brought to my attention" that postgresql
has "fallen behind" mysql by the business owners who make these
decisions. (and PHP... well.. thats way better.. because it won the
popularity contest)

These are people who don't know what linux or UNIX or referential
integrity is. They don't see that just because it's "easier" to get
started with linux or mysql, it doesn't make them better tools, it
just makes them more popular tools among the masses.

When 20 people say mysql and I say postgresql, in the eyes of someone
who really doesn't know.. they'll always choose mysql.

> So I would love it if FreeBSD continues to improve and involve without
> being influenced by Linux, Windows or Mac.

I don't mind if freebsd takes the good things from linux and mac, I just
hope the base system never requires an X server and a bazillion gnome
libraries... :-)

One thing about linux and marketing, linux HAS done a lot of good toward
bringing alternatives to the windows crowd mindshare.

Jamie
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