Why FreeBSD not popular on hardware vendors

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:48:55 +0100 (CET),
Wojciech Puchar <wojtek at wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> wrote:
>>> thousands of unix software that runs on unices including FreeBSD?
>>
>> I don't see the difference.  If a program runs on FreeBSD it runs on
>> FreeBSD, so it _is_ something that FreeBSD users may be interested in
>> for their every day work.  Does it really matter if the particular piece
>> of software also runs on AmigaOS?  Not really, IMO :)
>
> do you ask say - microsoft - about supporting program that doesn't run
> under windows, but runs under - say - MacOS.

In the hypothetical scenario that I would be a Mac user who is happy
with his MacOS application, why would I want to bother with Microsoft at
all?

In the other hypothetical scenario that I would be a happy Microsoft
user who finds something nice about MacOS, would I ask MacOS people if
they want to port their program to Windows, or would I ask the rest of
my Windows pals if they know of an equivalent program for my OS?

> no.

You are drawing a hypothetical scenario out of thin air, a fictional
answer that *I* would give in that case, and then responding to that
answer.  It sounds like fun, but it isn't very useful as an argument
that proves some unstated point.

> so stop asking on FreeBSD group about flash support. it's not FreeBSD
> developers job.

I'm not asking FreeBSD developers about flash support.  One of the
reasons is that I _am_ one of the FreeBSD developers, so I (usually)
know what works and what doesn't.  Another reason is that Flash is not
everything.

There are literally _thousands_ of programs that one can use on FreeBSD.
You seem to be fervently pushing an agenda that FreeBSD should do one
thing or that freebsd-questions should do another, but you are missing a
very important point:

FreeBSD is not something because we "wish" it to be that thing.  It is
and it becomes what we _make_ it be.

So, if you want it to be an OS that ignores anything that has not been
specifically `designed for BSD', including the thousands of programs
included in the Ports collection, you are free to do so with _your_
installations of FreeBSD.  What irks me and really gets me to spend some
time answering posts in this thread is that you seem to believe that it
is ok to tell everybody else what to do with *their* FreeBSD time or
what to support on freebsd-questions by spending _their_ time writing
helpful answers to user questions.

I'm afraid this isn't going to work very well.