[nycbug-talk] FreeBSD Testimonials and Support

[pete wright]

On Apr 12, 2005 12:14 PM, Gordon Smith <g at bin-arts.com> wrote:
>  
> As a part of a proposal, I need to recommend an operating system to be used
> to run the server software for a highly available web application.  I'd like
> propose FreeBSD; however, I need to educate the management team receiving
> the proposal so that they will feel more comfortable selecting FreeBSD.  I'd
> appreciate any information you might provide about FreeBSD users,
> significant FreeBSD-based apps, and FreeBSD support vendors that you might
> recommend as experienced and reliable.   
>   
> The CEO would also like to be able to address the topic of SCO's litigation
> should it arise in customer conversations - that is, why FreeBSD is immune
> to, not demonstrably related to, or indemnified from SCO's legal approach. 
> If a good case can be made here, it would be a "good marketing bullet" for
> FreeBSD. 
>   
> In the absence of such information, I'll need to propose the use of a
> prominent Linux product (such as Red Hat or SUSE) *instead* of FreeBSD.   
>   
> Thanks in advance for your help! 
>   
> 
> Gordon Smith 
>  
>   

I think the first place to start when choosing any OS is to define
your problem that you are trying address.  Then one should take this
and see what features that any available OS can uniquely address this
problem.  One example would be the jail feature in FreeBSD that can
provide things that say a plain chroot can not address, or for
business reasons the BSD license is much more attractive than the GNU
license.  There are many things that FreeBSD specifically, and BSD in
general, excels at and there are things that GNU/Linux excels at.  So
basically I'd just try to find things that FreeBSD can uniquely
address in your situation and base your argument on that.  Now it may
happen that FreeBSD may not be suited for your particular
task...although if that is the case then maybe you can get your CEO to
fund some development to address this short coming ;)


-pete



-- 
~~o0OO0o~~
Pete Wright
www.nycbug.org
NYC's *BSD User Group