What I would like to see, or "How many FreeBSD boxen are out there?"

[User Freebsd]

On Wed, 26 Jul 2006, Aftab Jahan Subedar wrote:

> IMHO this is the first and oldest one.
> http://www.netccraft.com

That is a web hosting survey ... it doesn't take into consideration 
firewalls, desktops, mail servers, file servers, etc, etc ...

What I'm suggesting is some means of tracking who is using FreeBSD, what 
they are using it for (narrow scope, ie. web hosting, firewall, etc ... 
nothing fancy there), but, also, eventually extended to include 
information about the OS itself (none sensitive information only):

        Version of OS
        Hardware Drivers In Use (via dmesg)
        Physical Hardware in Use (not sure if that is possible)

For instance, it would be nice to be able to go to ppl like ICP Vortex, 
which appear to support fbsd4 and fbsd5, but not 6.x or 7.x, and say: 
"Hey, X out of Y FreeBSD machines running out there are running your 
cards", to show them that there *is* a market ...

The problem is that right now, there are no concrete #s, only a bunch of 
speculation and guesses ... even places like Netcraft don't give a clear 
picture, since it only focuses on one *aspect* of the market place ...




> -- 
> Aftab Jahan Subedar
> CEO/Software Engineer
> Subedar Technologies Ltd
> Subedar Baag Bibir Bagicha #1
> North Jatrabari
> Dhaka 1204
> http://www.DhakaStockExchangeGame.com
>
> On Sunday 23 July 2006 00:09, User Freebsd wrote:
>> On various lists, including this one, there is talk about how to we make
>> hardware vendors sit up and take more notice of us ... alot of the
>> negative responses back seem to be 'we are too small of a group', but, of
>> couse, nobody out there can really give any even *reasonable* numbers of
>> desktops and servers deployed with FreeBSD ...
>>
>> What I'd love to see is a *project initiated* (or FreeBSD Foundation)
>> FreeBSD reporting mechanism similar to:
>>
>>  		http://www.mreriksson.net/uptimes/myuptimes
>>
>> Something just for FreeBSD users (well, all *BSD users should be invited)
>> ... uptime not being the really big thing here, but stuff like version of
>> FreeBSD being run, country being run in, maybe have it part dmesg on
>> startup and report devices in use, etc ...
>>
>> Come up with reports like # of hosts using fxp vs em devices, etc ...
>> although it may be a bit more difficult, I don't know, but report on
>> specific hardware being used ...
>>
>> Statistics that either Core, or the FreeBSD Foundation, can use to show
>> vendors they are talking to about what is currently in use ... but also to
>> show developers themselves what device drivers are actually in use, that
>> sort of thing ...
>>
>> Nothing that I'd think would be 'sensitive information', but information
>> that would be useful from either a marketing, or support, point of view
>> ...
>>
>> And market / promote it ...
>>
>> Basically, unless I'm mistaken, right now we have *nothing* to base
>> numbers on, except maybe the netcraft report(s)? ... but, that only
>> includes hosts running web servers ... how many are running firewalls?
>> desktops?  mail servers?  etc ...
>>
>> We need to show vendors we aren't some "hobbiest group", and towards that
>> end, producing some sort of up to date #s would really help, I would think
>> ... show them we are a market worth looking at ...
>>
>> ----
>> Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
>> Email . scrappy at hub.org                              MSN . scrappy at hub.org
>> Yahoo . yscrappy               Skype: hub.org        ICQ . 7615664
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----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email . scrappy at hub.org                              MSN . scrappy at hub.org
Yahoo . yscrappy               Skype: hub.org        ICQ . 7615664