Ask for FreeBSD support here! Let's join forces!

[Marc G. Fournier]

On Thu, 24 Aug 2006, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:

> On 2006-08-20 15:46, Mark Kane <mark at mkproductions.org> wrote:
>> On Sun, Aug 20, 2006, at 16:25:21 -0300, Charles A. Landemaine wrote:
>>> On 8/20/06, Don Witt <witt at cylogistics.com> wrote:
>>>> The next release of Adobe flash developer will have a revised
>>>> license which will include FreeBSD. This was per the product
>>>> manager.
>>>
>>> License is not the most important. What is important for the end user
>>> is having a native version of his own operating system :)
>
> Agreed.
>
>> I read this last month:
>>
>> http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2006/07/api_review.html
>>
>> The using ALSA for sound in version 9 doesn't sound very good for
>> getting it to work on FreeBSD even if/when the license allows it. I
>> don't understand why it's so hard for them to make it compatible with
>> more OSes. They are in the business of selling software to create
>> content in their proprietary Flash format, but if that can't be viewed
>> on every common OS, then I think/know developers will not develop
>> exclusively in Flash as much.
>
> I'm probably stating the blatantly obvious, but the trick is how we can
> convince them that FreeBSD is a "common OS", I guess :)

That is why I wrote up and setup bsdstats.org ... see 
/usr/ports/sysutils/bsdstats ... get included ... the idea is to get 
continuous, monthly numbers on deployments of FreeBSD, what versions are 
in use, what architectures ... and, if you so desire to add it, what 
hardware is in use also ...

It started as an attempt to get numbers for hardware vendors to show that 
porting drivers to us is 'a good market', but it definitely applies to 
anything else ... showing realistic numbers to show that we are a "common 
OS" and not a hobbiest OS ...

This is *not* a short term project though ... there are 5-10 new hosts 
being added daily, but "it had to start somewhere" ...

Please note that alot of work was done with ppl on -questions to reduce 
the security implications of this script, to the point that we don't store 
anything in the database that could be traced back to a specific machine 
(ie. no IP, no hostname) ... *and* we taken steps to try and mitigate 
'fakers' ... no way to eliminate them completely, but our hope is that as 
the numbers get higher, the %age of 'fakers' will drop to a neglible 
amount ...

See http://www.bsdstats.org for current results ...