Ask stupid questions and you'll get a stupid answers, was: Technological advantages over Linux

[Victor Sudakov]

Aryeh Friedman wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 25, 2020 at 11:24 AM Victor Sudakov <vas at sibptus.ru> wrote:
> 
> > Michael Watters wrote:
> > >
> > > On 7/24/2020 9:39 AM, Ottavio Caruso via freebsd-questions wrote:
> > > > Why do I have to choose between Linux and FreeBSD? Why can't I have
> > > > both? I also use NetBSD, OpenBSD, Android, occasionally Windows. Am I
> > > > a traitor? Am I an infidel?
> >
> > > While it's fun to test out and play with different OSes it makes life
> > > much simpler if you standardize on *one* platform.  Most organizations
> > > have standards and policies about what operating systems are allowed on
> > > their servers.
> >
> > This is very true. And when it comes to choice between Linux and
> > FreeBSD (as a company policy), despite my love for FreeBSD and long time
> > (over 20 years) experience therewith, I find there is very little I can
> > now rationally present as arguments to choose FreeBSD over Linux.
> >
> 
> If stability is not a factor then you likely have no real argument because
> Linux has a long history of "borrowing" to put it politely tech from

Do you know how to present "stability" as a measureable parameter in an
OS advocacy process? No, Debian or CentOS don't just panic or crash
unexpectedly, if you mean that. Even the modern Windows does not.

If by "stability" you mean "architectural purity" then yes, I see your
point, but it's not very valid in the eyes of a businessman.

A point "you can do XXX only with FreeBSD" is a valid point. But I
cannot find such points for the present. 

Root-on-ZFS and BEs are great, no doubt, but I can do without them while
I have AWS (or any other hypervisor) cheap and fast VM snapshots.

> > Very simple questions from the management:
> >
> > 1. If we decide to run FreeBSD on AWS ARM64 instances, how are you going
> > to upgrade them? Via buildworld on each? Not funny.
> >
> 
> AWS has all kinds of problems so why use them at all instead of a cloud
> provider that gives you a true VM and easy migrations paths.

Please name one, with the number of features comparable to Amazon and a
better FreeBSD support. 

> 
> >
> > 2. What if we eventually decide to roll out docker?
> >
> 
> Docker is a bag on the side of a kludge that solves no real problems except
> hiding a fundamentally misarchitured OS. 

Sorry, I can't say that to the management. That is, I can, but their
reaction will be "Please go sober up and return when you are ready to
talk shop."

>  If you really want to use Linux
> then do it as a VM on a FreeBSD host to for stability reasons.

Again, please define "stability."

-- 
Victor Sudakov,  VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN
2:5005/49 at fidonet http://vas.tomsk.ru/
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