The comment about a puslisher requiring idemnification is a bit irrelevant to the situation at hand.
Let's assume for a moment I write a "bulletproof" piece of software. Checked every condition, made every test, did everything possible to make sure it never "failed" (for some definition of failure).
What about your hardware? What about the OS? What about the 300 windows trojans that reside on your system? Am I responsble for what happens when they cause the program to segfault/bluescreen? Do you blame Microsoft/Linus Torvalds/*BSD teams? Do you sue all the trojan writers (that would be nice, but really... )?? These are problems no publisher has, assuming their printing machine works that's the end of their "interoperability" issues, that is about as unlike the software world as you can get.
The key point this person misses is that "software" often isn't a single thing you can point to and say "that piece broke!". Occasionally its obvious something was crappily designed and should have been caught, but often it isn't. If an application in windows crashes... was it the OS? the application? the fact I had 10 viruses running? the anti-virus progam I installed that does wierd things to my PC and slows it down by 10% (funny how that sounds like a virus isn't it)?? Who the hell knows. And unless and until you can get every single piece of a system to pony up and write "bulletproof" software, this situation will not change.
I'm not advocating the current situation is good or that everyone shouldn't strive to be better, certainly much can and should be done. But I'm not holding my breath to wait for it...
"But many are simply curious about why a new user would choose Linux over FreeBSD, despite FreeBSD's technical superiority."
Technical superiority.... ?
How? Because you have a more mature TCP/IP stack? How does one define "Technical Superiority" without resorting to marketing-type hyperbole?
If you want to say "*BSD has been around longer, evolved from an existing, tested code base, has had more time to have its more traditional components tweaked, and is more tightly controlled" then please say that.
But don't say "Technically superior".
I remember checking out the *BSD platforms about a year ago and I could find *no* real SMP support to speak of. It was "in the works" as it went, and when I tried it (a dev. snapshot was all I could find...) I was greeted by a locked up box.
On the other hand I've been running Linux on that same box (updated processors recently) for well over a year and while the SMP performance has certainly improved recently, I've never had stability problems.
(And your claims for server support are rather thin if you can't support something that has been in mainstream use for years in other OS's... even under the dread NT;)
So which one is superior? Neither. *BSD is often more stable because of stricter controls on accepted code and a longer period of time to stabilize. Linux encourages innovation and new features (whiz-bang or otherwise) and often provides support for a broader range of hardware than other UN*X/*BSD OS's. (Notice I don't say "Superior Support" ?:)
The bottom line (as has been put often enough before..) is that both are excellent OS's (though both still have lots of things that can be improved). While loud-mouth advocacy may help sell cars and M$ products, I've always believed that those of us who run real Operating Systems should be mature enough not to fall into that trap. Have I been misled..?
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The comment about a puslisher requiring idemnification is a bit irrelevant to the situation at hand.
Let's assume for a moment I write a "bulletproof" piece of software. Checked every condition, made every test, did everything possible to make sure it never "failed" (for some definition of failure).
What about your hardware? What about the OS? What about the 300 windows trojans that reside on your system? Am I responsble for what happens when they cause the program to segfault/bluescreen? Do you blame Microsoft/Linus Torvalds/*BSD teams? Do you sue all the trojan writers (that would be nice, but really... )?? These are problems no publisher has, assuming their printing machine works that's the end of their "interoperability" issues, that is about as unlike the software world as you can get.
The key point this person misses is that "software" often isn't a single thing you can point to and say "that piece broke!". Occasionally its obvious something was crappily designed and should have been caught, but often it isn't. If an application in windows crashes... was it the OS? the application? the fact I had 10 viruses running? the anti-virus progam I installed that does wierd things to my PC and slows it down by 10% (funny how that sounds like a virus isn't it)?? Who the hell knows. And unless and until you can get every single piece of a system to pony up and write "bulletproof" software, this situation will not change.
I'm not advocating the current situation is good or that everyone shouldn't strive to be better, certainly much can and should be done. But I'm not holding my breath to wait for it...
"But many are simply curious about why a new user
;)
:)
would choose Linux over FreeBSD, despite FreeBSD's technical superiority."
Technical superiority.... ?
How? Because you have a more mature TCP/IP stack?
How does one define "Technical Superiority" without resorting to marketing-type hyperbole?
If you want to say "*BSD has been around longer, evolved from an existing, tested code base, has had more time to have its more traditional components tweaked, and is more tightly controlled" then please say that.
But don't say "Technically superior".
I remember checking out the *BSD platforms about a year ago and I could find *no* real SMP support to speak of. It was "in the works" as it went, and when I tried it (a dev. snapshot was all I could find...) I was greeted by a locked up box.
On the other hand I've been running Linux on that same box (updated processors recently) for well over a year and while the SMP performance has certainly improved recently, I've never had stability problems.
(And your claims for server support are rather thin if you can't support something that has been in mainstream use for years in other OS's... even under the dread NT
So which one is superior? Neither. *BSD is often more stable because of stricter controls on accepted code and a longer period of time to stabilize. Linux encourages innovation and new features (whiz-bang or otherwise) and often provides support for a broader range of hardware than other UN*X/*BSD OS's. (Notice I don't say "Superior Support" ?
The bottom line (as has been put often enough before..) is that both are excellent OS's (though both still have lots of things that can be improved). While loud-mouth advocacy may help sell cars and M$ products, I've always believed that those of us who run real Operating Systems should be mature enough not to fall into that trap. Have I been misled..?