What sort of market does FreeBSD provide ... ?

[kevlar Hodge-Podge]

I just want to see if I understand the issue correctly.

>From what it sounds like there would need to both be a server for all the 
individual machines to connect to, and some sort of scripted client to 
capture info on the machine and send it to the server. When asking about 
older machines such as the RELENG_4 mail server mentioned, wouldn’t that 
person have to go back and in stall this software on the machine? Also if 
this project were to work, it would almost have to be placed as a high 
priority install, if not almost mandatory. When and how often would the 
client contact the server? Every reboot would seem like a good time, but 
possibly more often. Would it be possible to modify a very thin email client 
to work as the client, meaning the server would send an email, and when 
received it would prompt you “would you like to send uptime/user data now?” 
perhaps even being able to choose what types of data to send. I think the 
average person would be more likely to send more info if they knew exactly 
what was being sent.



>From: Darren <freebsd at bitfreak.org>
>Reply-To: freebsd-advocacy at freebsd.org
>To: User Freebsd <freebsd at hub.org>
>CC: freebsd-advocacy at freebsd.org, "Julian H. Stacey" <jhs at flat.berklix.net>
>Subject: Re: What sort of market does FreeBSD provide ... ?
>Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 18:23:12 -0700
>
>User Freebsd wrote:
>>Who *big* recognizes FreeBSD as a viable operating system, at least 
>>openly?
>
>When PHK asked the FreeBSD community to donate USD16,500-33000 so he could 
>spend 3-6 months working regular hours on FreeBSD, Pair Networks (pair.com) 
>donated USD20,000.
>
>I don't know if that's "recognition as viable" or not, but businesses 
>generally don't give $20k to anyone without a reasonable expectation of a 
>solid return on investment.
>
>>Hell, how many ppl are still running 3.x or 4.x systems, vs the newer 
>>stuff?
>
>I have a few systems running the "final" RELENG_4.  These are only doing so 
>because they're internal file or mail servers on older hardware. They're 
>stable, problem free and have low exposure with no applicable security 
>flaws.  I can't justify depriving a business of critical IT services for 
>the several hours it will take to do the rebuild.
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