Posted by
Hemos
on from the selling-it-to-the-world dept.
jogega writes "There is an article at OnLamp that gives some advice on how to sell BSD solutions commercially. It talks about the best way to present your solution, get the job done, and most important show that BSD is a very strong alternative in the market."
13 comments
Don't be a zealot.
by
TrumpetPower!
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Mr. Lucas makes an excellent point: just because you might have the superior technical solution--one that would be everything the company needs and cost no money--it won't do you much good if The Powers That Be have closed minds.
Opening closed minds takes a looong time. Dont' try to do everything all at once, and don't nag while you're doing it.
b&
-- All but God can prove this sentence true.
Re:Don't be a zealot.
by
redwing25
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I agree completely. The higer-ups think that since something is free has has to be a worthles, pieced together system.
Maybe we should tell them that it will cost thousands of dollars, then use BSD and pocket the money. Hey, whatever it takes!
Rob
walk the walk...
by
JDizzy
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I agree with the author.... but I would like to share some of the experiences I have on this subject.
First off, I'm a junior level unix admin... The older more polished guys I work with tend to keep me at bay since I'm young. Well, to make this story short, I built-out a few FreeBSd servers to backup the main email servers, webservers, and DNS cache.
In effect I choose to install BSD in only the places that I can leverage all the positve things, and none of the negative itmes. For instance, since our email servers would go down all the time, I added my backup mail server to the mix, and it took over the deliver of email before anybody knew the main server was down.
Since BSD cost nothing except the hardware it is install on, I further compounded the issue with my boss. He loves to play mind games with my budget. When I told him I was using a free Operating system he almost got mad since he didn't have the cost leverage with me. My boss really loves to play mind games, did I mention that? Anyways... I repeted the the above several times, but with different various services, and each time it was a FreeBSD to the rescue situation.....
I can name several situations tha tI had a cheap bsd box installed on sub 1000K hardware, dong the job of a failled enterprise server that cost serveral orders of magniture more cash.
This is the way Open source will penetrate the datacenter... it has to prove itself..
-- It isn't a lie if you belive it.
Another example of walk the talk
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I'm not your normal OpenBSD geek, wear a tie most days, and operate the Checkpoint firewall for a few thousand node network. When it came time to upgrade our DNS server, the consultant that helped with the firewall installation had pointed me towards OpenBSD. I had been installing it on old hardware, and after getting comfortable with it, set up a DNS server that showed them it could be done. Result: went from an aging DEC Ultrix to two Dell 2400s running OpenBSD.
Next the Windows Server group was trying to get the entire campus on DHCP, and were failing miserably using the Microsoft solution. I thought, why not see if I could do that, and in the process, discovered that OpenBSD already had the DHCP server software in its base install. In two days I had a running DHCP server on a Compaq 350mhz Server I borrowed from the server group, and was able to serve DHCP addresses to any of our 15 campus network segenmts. Result: in a meeting the Big Boss said, well I guess we'll go with his (mine) solution. They were prepared to spend $70,000 to get it going.
Next came windows 2000 and active directory, and the MS server boys tried to set up a DHCP/dynamic dns server, and well, as you can see, we got the DHCP part right away.
The cool thing that happened, while at SANS in New Orleans this January, the Sendmail vulnerability was announced. I needed to upgrade my sendmail and was a 3 hour flight at best away from the office. As luck would have it the Hotel I stayed at in New Orleans had Ethernet connections in the room for $10 per day, so I VPNd back to the office, remotely upgraded the OpenBSD system software on three servers, downloaded and installed the port of the latest Sendmail and restarted them all. Viola! no more vulnerability and I enjoyed sending an email saying that we were protected. Logs showed Sendmail probes within the day.
Comparing that with the Microsoft group that is good at upgrading their server, because that is what they do.....again and again. I just checked and of the now 20 OpenBSD machines I administer, for IDS, f/w logging, DNS, DHCP, performance graphing with MRTG (my boss's boss checks the MRTG graphs constantly on our 10 Meg Internet link and the 160 remote dial in lines, "hey! what's that spike?"...) many have uptimes over 200 days.
So use which ever one you like, Free/Net/Open, you won't be sorry. btw, if Checkpoint FW-1 was offered on OpenBSD, we would use it too. I'm too busy to build a firewall using pf to take it's place right now.
And in case you were wondering, code talks, personalities make for good/. posts, but don't matter in the day to day world of getting my job done.
Re:Another example of walk the talk
by
F2F
·
· Score: 1
that machine does nothing but firewall and redirect to internal hosts, it has something like 8 megs of ram and no hard drive:)
despite the obvious bragging value, this box clearly shows that using a free software solution does _not_ result in extraneous maintenance costs
:)
Re:Another example of walk the talk
by
zentex
·
· Score: 1
aww c'mon! you're slinging FUD everywhere...
(dont get me wrong) I preach BSD everywhere it's needed, but I prefer to use a 2K server for DNS/DHCP in a corporate environment (just cause it's easier:-)
...those Windows "administrators" must have been dumber than dirt. It's a no brainer to setup DHCP (read: point click, "oh my god becky!, it works"), and DNS (which has dynamic built-in under WIN2K) is a little harder, but if you can pour cereal into a bowl and then pour milk into the *same* bowl, you can set that up too.
Your relevancy of DHCP and DNS holds no water, you should be beating those who call themselves "administrators" for being stoopid.
-- Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
*BSD is dying
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: -1, Troll
Netcraft Confirms: *BSDs dying
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when
last month IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of
1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft
survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this
news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing
in complete disarray, as further exemplified by
failing dead last in th recent Sys Admin comprehensive
networking test.
You don't need to be a
Kreskin to
predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces
a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD
because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many
of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows
like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo
states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are
there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is
roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD
users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD
posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article
put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are
(7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the
number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek,
abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was
taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also
dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All
major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD
is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is
to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to
decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For
all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
*BSD is dying
Re:*BSD is dying
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
So what exactly are you trying to say? Just give it to me straight. Do you think there is any hope for BSD? Please.... don't sugar coat it. I can take it. What are you do think about the future for BSD?
Re:*BSD is dying
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: -1
you posted this about 2 months ago. Why is wasabi systems and countless other BSD enterprises thriving if BSD is dead?
BSD is Dead
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Completely, totally DOA. The/. community would appreciate it if the BSD is Dying troll would update hir facts to reflect this change of circumstances.
Thank you.:)
PS plesae remember XP R00|$!!!
How to thwart BSD and stay Linux or Win32
by
gruntvald
·
· Score: 1
Just subscribe your boss to an openBSD mailing list, any one will do, then ask a question about the filing system, or SMP, boot loaders, or journalling, or security, or, in fact, anything NIH. Rest assured that the juvenile response will destroy any possibility of switching.
Free BSD and how to turn a profit
by
NGTV13
·
· Score: 0
Ok, we've seen it happen, and happen well, with linux. People get a free OS, make it their own, box it, ship it, make it puurrrrty, and turn a profit (red hat has done this greatly, despite that i know i'll get flamed for saying that...). Why can't this work for freeBSD? I mean, the latest version of FreeBSD that i own (4.3) might as well be Slackware 8.0 (ok, well, kinda reverse that...). And it is a commercially viable solution, that, if given a monetary incentive, could blossom into a great OS (not that I don't like it now, but it needs it's share of work and testing and the such)....
Just thought i'd pass along my ideas
NGTV|3
-- I'm not saying that god doesn't exist, merely that he is not necessary - hawking
Slashdot Mirror
Mr. Lucas makes an excellent point: just because you might have the superior technical solution--one that would be everything the company needs and cost no money--it won't do you much good if The Powers That Be have closed minds.
Opening closed minds takes a looong time. Dont' try to do everything all at once, and don't nag while you're doing it.
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
I agree with the author.... but I would like to share some of the experiences I have on this subject.
First off, I'm a junior level unix admin... The older more polished guys I work with tend to keep me at bay since I'm young. Well, to make this story short, I built-out a few FreeBSd servers to backup the main email servers, webservers, and DNS cache.
In effect I choose to install BSD in only the places that I can leverage all the positve things, and none of the negative itmes. For instance, since our email servers would go down all the time, I added my backup mail server to the mix, and it took over the deliver of email before anybody knew the main server was down.
Since BSD cost nothing except the hardware it is install on, I further compounded the issue with my boss. He loves to play mind games with my budget. When I told him I was using a free Operating system he almost got mad since he didn't have the cost leverage with me. My boss really loves to play mind games, did I mention that? Anyways... I repeted the the above several times, but with different various services, and each time it was a FreeBSD to the rescue situation.....
I can name several situations tha tI had a cheap bsd box installed on sub 1000K hardware, dong the job of a failled enterprise server that cost serveral orders of magniture more cash.
This is the way Open source will penetrate the datacenter... it has to prove itself..
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
I'm not your normal OpenBSD geek, wear a tie most days, and operate the Checkpoint firewall for a few thousand node network. When it came time to upgrade our DNS server, the consultant that helped with the firewall installation had pointed me towards OpenBSD. I had been installing it on old hardware, and after getting comfortable with it, set up a DNS server that showed them it could be done. Result: went from an aging DEC Ultrix to two Dell 2400s running OpenBSD.
...) many have uptimes over 200 days.
/. posts, but don't matter in the day to day world of getting my job done.
Next the Windows Server group was trying to get the entire campus on DHCP, and were failing miserably using the Microsoft solution. I thought, why not see if I could do that, and in the process, discovered that OpenBSD already had the DHCP server software in its base install. In two days I had a running DHCP server on a Compaq 350mhz Server I borrowed from the server group, and was able to serve DHCP addresses to any of our 15 campus network segenmts. Result: in a meeting the Big Boss said, well I guess we'll go with his (mine) solution. They were prepared to spend $70,000 to get it going.
Next came windows 2000 and active directory, and the MS server boys tried to set up a DHCP/dynamic dns server, and well, as you can see, we got the DHCP part right away.
The cool thing that happened, while at SANS in New Orleans this January, the Sendmail vulnerability was announced. I needed to upgrade my sendmail and was a 3 hour flight at best away from the office. As luck would have it the Hotel I stayed at in New Orleans had Ethernet connections in the room for $10 per day, so I VPNd back to the office, remotely upgraded the OpenBSD system software on three servers, downloaded and installed the port of the latest Sendmail and restarted them all. Viola! no more vulnerability and I enjoyed sending an email saying that we were protected. Logs showed Sendmail probes within the day.
Comparing that with the Microsoft group that is good at upgrading their server, because that is what they do.....again and again. I just checked and of the now 20 OpenBSD machines I administer, for IDS, f/w logging, DNS, DHCP, performance graphing with MRTG (my boss's boss checks the MRTG graphs constantly on our 10 Meg Internet link and the 160 remote dial in lines, "hey! what's that spike?"
So use which ever one you like, Free/Net/Open, you won't be sorry. btw, if Checkpoint FW-1 was offered on OpenBSD, we would use it too. I'm too busy to build a firewall using pf to take it's place right now.
And in case you were wondering, code talks, personalities make for good
now that I got your attention
um...
GOAT!
The Slashdot Effect: A new for
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when last month IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in th recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
*BSD is dying
Completely, totally DOA. The /. community would appreciate it if the BSD is Dying troll would update hir facts to reflect this change of circumstances.
:)
Thank you.
PS plesae remember XP R00|$!!!
Just subscribe your boss to an openBSD mailing list, any one will do, then ask a question about the filing system, or SMP, boot loaders, or journalling, or security, or, in fact, anything NIH. Rest assured that the juvenile response will destroy any possibility of switching.
Ok, we've seen it happen, and happen well, with linux. People get a free OS, make it their own, box it, ship it, make it puurrrrty, and turn a profit (red hat has done this greatly, despite that i know i'll get flamed for saying that...). Why can't this work for freeBSD? I mean, the latest version of FreeBSD that i own (4.3) might as well be Slackware 8.0 (ok, well, kinda reverse that...). And it is a commercially viable solution, that, if given a monetary incentive, could blossom into a great OS (not that I don't like it now, but it needs it's share of work and testing and the such)....
Just thought i'd pass along my ideas
NGTV|3
I'm not saying that god doesn't exist, merely that he is not necessary - hawking