Slashdot rejects "BSD is NOT dying" article

Mike Hoskins mike at adept.org
Sun Sep 28 14:05:14 PDT 2003


On Sun, 28 Sep 2003, Michal Pasternak wrote:
> Everyone should also check
> http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/09/01/most_reliable_and_fastest_hosting_company_sites_during_august.html

that's great and all, but let's face it...  even as a loyal BSD bigot, i
know a lot of those uptime numbers are also related to the fact that
many companies have "load balancers" with large server farms...  so
"detecting a failure" isn't quite what it sounds like.  (BTW, i just
checked and ~3-4 out of the top 10 sites with the highest uptimes were
BSD; one Linux, one Win2k, one Solaris 8...  the stats change a lot.)

but we all know that...  and the netcraft results are interesting
nonetheless.  i think too many people become obsessed with uptime though.
i can load a desktop machine with just about any OS but Windows, stick it
in a colo, have it do very little, and it'll have "high uptime".  what
does that mean really?  nothing.  it may look good on netcraft stats
pages, but that's about it.  i think most real sysadmins are focussed more
on overall stability (which certainly ties into uptime), security and ease
of management a lot more than uptime alone.  after all, in today's world,
if you're following a sane patch/test/deploy schedule for your production
site, uptimes for individual boxes will likely be limited to 1-3 months
(that's my experience with BSD, Linux, Solaris and Windoze).

it is funny though...  you'd think slashdot rumor mill types would at
least try to start rumors that aren't so easily disproven by well known
and reasonably trusted sites.

-mrh

--
From: "Spam Catcher" <spam-catcher at adept.org>
To: spam-catcher at adept.org
Do NOT send email to the address listed above or
you will be added to a blacklist!


More information about the freebsd-advocacy mailing list