FW: FreeBSD donation (sponsorship)

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Charles Ulrich
> Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 7:54 AM
> To: Loren M. Lang
> Cc: stheg olloydson; freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: FW: FreeBSD donation (sponsorship)
>
>
>
> Loren M. Lang said:
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> I speak only for myself, not the FBSD project or community. I think
> >> this is a lovely spam^H^H^H^Hoffer. One question though, would you be
> >> hosting freebsd.org on a Linux or Windows server? Judging by your site
> >> it could be either.
> >> http://www.netnation.com/products/managedhosting.php
> >> Who decides?
> >
> > $ telnet www.netnation.com http
> > Trying 204.174.223.48...
> > Connected to www.netnation.com.
> > Escape character is '^]'.
> > HEAD / HTTP/1.0
> >
> > HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
> > Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:30:10 GMT
> > Server: Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) Debian GNU/Linux PHP/4.1.2 mod_ssl/2.8.9
> > OpenSSL/0.9.6c mod_jk/1.1.0
> > Location: http://www.netnation.com/
> > Connection: close
> > Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
> >
> > At least it's not Micro$oft IIS 4.0
>
> What kind of silliness is this? A genuine offer of support comes
> literally out
> of thin air he two of the three responses that the FreeBSD community sends
> back are borderline hostile. One accuses the originator of being
> a spammer and
> the other engages in a tasteless display of OS bashing. What
> evidence have you
> that their intentions were not sincere?
>

Charles, I think it is valid for the question to be asked as to why
the poster isn't using FreeBSD.  Of course the original poster can
choose to ignore the question if they don't want to answer.

Microsoft makes it very clear to any of their vendors (Connexxion etc.)
that those vendors must host on Windows.

I think you would find the same attitude among Apple, Sun, and
others.  And if you think the responses here are bad you ought
to try offering to host a Linux website in a Linux group on
FreeBSD, you would be lucky to escape with any skin left.

Note that the original poster took pains to explain that they
were a hosting company since 1997.  This explanation is irrelevant
if all they wanted to do is to know the address to send money to.
It seemed pretty clear to me that the offer was the usual

"We're a hosting provider and you seem to have a busy website,
we will host it for free for you in exchange for a link to us"

Perhaps I am too cynical for you, but it so happens that I work
at an ISP and we have made the same offer before to others.
(Not to FreeBSD)  This is very common in the industry in fact.
His post was pretty close to what I've sent out myself before.

I must hasten to add there's nothing wrong with quid pro quo
among commercial hosting companies.  Probably 3/4ths of the
501(c) organizations on the Internet are hosted for free due
to these kinds of arraingements.  Hell, look at us, we should
talk - Silicon Breeze got a plug right on the front of the
freebsd.org website, and there is a quid-pro-quo going on
there.

So his post really wasn't out of line, with the exception that
he quite obviously didn't know what he was making his offer to.

And as well, his post was not surprising - as if you search the
donation pages, you will find that hosting is the one thing that
is NOT listed in the want pages for donations!

Ted