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NetBSD Online Store Opens
jschauma writes "The NetBSD Project now has an online store where you can indulge yourself in some merchandise-mania and at the same time support your favorite OS. All profits from the store will of course go directly to the NetBSD Foundation; at the moment, the available items include t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, clocks, mousepads, logo pads and tote bags. The sale of printed versions of The NetBSD Guide and the pkgsrc Guide is currently being evaluated. For other ways to make a tax-deductible (in the US) donation, please see the donations page."
Wouldn't it be better to open a generic BSD store instead?
I would think that you could make more money that way, as there are more BSD fans than Net-BSD fans.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Posters of the deamon mascott. Large format. Is there any place to buy them?
Clicky Clicky
As someone who have been suggesting it for years, I am really glad that they have finally made the store. This is a much better way to support a project like this, because people are generally more likely to buy cool merchandise (like on Amazon) than to send money not getting anything in return (like lobbying). I hope a portion of the revenus stream will go towards the development of Debian GNU/NetBSD because there is a lot of platforms I want to have Debian on, and it doesn't seem that Linux--or even HURD--will be nearly as portable as NetBSD any time soon, and as a long-time GNU supporter I must admit that I say it with a great deal of jealousy and at least an equal amount of admiration. For those who are not familiar with NetBSD's exceptional portability, or those who think that their pathetic operating system (Micro$oft) is portable because it supports Intel and AMD, here is a list of platforms that a really portable operating system should support: acorn26, acorn32, algor, alpha, amd64, amiga, amigappc, arc, atari, bebox, cats, cesfic, cobalt, dreamcast, evbarm, evbmips, evbppc, walnut, evbsh3, evbsh5, hp300, hp700, hpcarm, hpcmips, hpcsh, i386, iyonix, luna68k, mac68k, macppc, mipsco, mmeye, mvme68k, mvmeppc, netwinder, news68k, newsmips, next68k, ofppc, pc532, playstation2, pmax, pmppc, prep, sandpoint, sbmips, sgimips, sh3, sh3eb,
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Cardboard Coffin $20
Spade for diging $10
Flowers for the deceased $5
Pissing on the grave of a dead OS - PRICELESS
Pissing on the grave of a dead OS
Seeing an idiot pissing on a freshly buried cardboard box with CDs get caught, fined for public indecency and vandalism and getting a misdemeanor on his permanent record - Hilarious.
The idiot's brother digging up the box with CDs and becoming a developer for the dead OS - PRICELESS!
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It
... facts are facts. ;)
FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."
NetBSD:
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (30 Sep 2004)
OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
*BSD in general:
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent 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 fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be the Amazing 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, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
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 dilettante 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.
Fact: *BSD is dying
Almost every post here has been a take off BSD is dying.
But I can't blame them. While cafepress is nice to help the person selling money, the quality of the product is horrible. I'd rather give my money directly to the project than waste an extra $10 on a crappily screenprinted hat or mousepad.
Just skip it. Cafepress sucks.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Does anyone actually wear clothing like this? I personally can't stand big logos or clothes that represent a non-athletic company, geographic location, or event, no matter what the logo is. I just can't picture myself ever wearing clothing about an OS outside of my toolshed, or at some that-os meeting.
I can understand a mug, a coaster, or a bumper sticker (on a beater pickup), but a shirt? I think it would be better to make things that actually relate to an OS, like a computer chassis, or those hard DVD covers, or _something_.
If I got OS-apparel as a present, I would wear it when I am working on a vehicle, or working in the yard.
This is very sad that most of posts in BSD stories these days are nothing more than the reposts of old and boring BSD-dying trolls. So when I saw this story I decided to post something at least slightly more interesting, i.e. an information about the little known Debian GNU/NetBSD project and links to webpages describing countless platforms supported by NetBSD. I also expressed my sincere admiration towards the NetBSD team for developing such an amazingly portable system. If you take a look at the entire thread you'll see that it was the only post that didn't say that (1) BSD is dying, (2) NetBSD store is a bad idea (BSD mall is better), or (3) those t-shirts are ugly. Unfortunately, utterly incompetent moderators blinded by their pathetic fervor of down-moderation madness have moderated this post all the way down to -1, Troll in a matter of minutes. You can see for yourself. Needless to say, because of such a childish behaviour I am very unlikely to post anything informative about BSD in the future. BSD may not be dying, but thanks to such infantile and dumb moderators any even remotely interesting discussions about BSD on Slashdot surely are. Very sad.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I'm sure some of you may find this interesting: http://www.bsdfreak.org/modules/news/article.php?s toryid=83
shop.envescent.com - Computer hardware and more.
$15.99 for a coffee mug?