The fight for FreeBSD at work

gkontos said:
Monopolies is definitely not the FreeBSD way...
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True, but I was thinking in the sense of corporations or at least people with titles such as director or manager that have no real technical background, they like to be told who/what is recommended instead of making a choice based on technical merit...at least in my experience.
 
roddierod said:
True, but I was thinking in the sense of corporations or at least people with titles such as director or manager that have no real technical background, they like to be told who/what is recommended instead of making a choice based on technical merit...at least in my experience.
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Very true. In my experience those guys need to keep theirs asses covered. They usually tend to choose big brand names so that nobody can easily point the finger...
 
To avoid the "one platform" idea you will have to push the "best tool for the job in question" idea.
I'm not saying that "one platform" should not be used; but you need to use it where it fits.
If the company is really thinking about switching (which is different from some boss or manager ranting because he has had a bad day with his current tools or IT services), they should sit down and plan how they want to do it.
What is their core business? Will it benefit from switching to Linux (or another platform)? Does it make sense to also switch office and support tools to the same platform? (Developers are in a way easier; it usually makes sense to have them run on the same platform that your product or service runs on)
When they have a good idea about that, then it is time to sketch out a plan and start calculating the cost.

Remember, nothing is free. Even if you don't pay license fees for FreeBSD, Linux or some other FOSS, you still will have to pay for education / training and support.

If you can take away the fear and uncertainty, they only obstacle to selling your plan is the cost (ok, very simplified, but still).
 
Well, as of yesterday, the CEO switched his desktop to using LibreOffice and installed Thunderbird for his mail client. Because Thunderbird is also created by Mozilla, he switched his browser to Firefox. Thunderbird installed so quickly, he was shocked. Then it imported all his Outlook settings and mail and was as giddy as a schoolboy. "It looks like I might be able to finally get rid of all this Microsoft crap!"

Well, he calls all those things "Linux programs" and I haven't corrected him to "open source programs" yet.

The IT guy had never heard of Thunderbird interestingly.

So I'm making my little path in the woods. We'll see where it goes.
 
drhowarddrfine, you mentioned that your company is developing a product with an embedded GNU/Linux server. I made a strong argument for FreeBSD instead of GNU/Linux for product development in my company because of the more liberal BSD licensing, which allows source to remain closed if that is what is wanted. Another argument was that we had been through four different GNU/Linux distributions for server systems in a decade, each with its own quirks to learn. In the same time, FreeBSD has of course changed and progressed, but is broadly the same from a system administration perspective. Staff training is such a high cost, it makes sense to need to do it only once.

Something else I would suggest is to show your IT people a working FreeBSD box as at the moment they likely fear what they don't know. Mostly it's applications that require configuration and this is (mostly) the same on FreeBSD and GNU/Linux. Given that they are used to a Windows GUI I would suggest you show a FreeBSD system running x11/xorg with a window manager, shells/bash and some applications (looking not dissimilar from a default GNU/Linux distribution installation). Since your CEO has recently tried LibreOffice and Thunderbird, make sure to show him these running happily on the FreeBSD system :)
 
What You can do actually is to ask big VENDORS for FreeBSD support, for example IBM TSM or EMC Networker or HP DataProtector backup software does not have client for FreeBSD ... write an email/create service request/request for enhancement.

Same with all other software.

When they will see that their 'customers' are asking for such support maybe they will add it, then it will be easier to use FreeBSD in more corporate environment.
 
Hi,

In episode '074: That Sly MINIX' at BSD Now - (http://www.bsdnow.tv/episodes/2015_01_28-that_sly_minix) there's a link to a Youtube video by Jordan Hubbard called 'FreeBSD, not a Linux distro'. The show notes claim that:

This might be a good video to show your friends or potential employer if you're looking to introduce FreeBSD to them
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So, as well as showing FreeBSD working on a laptop or server it may be beneficial to highlight other positive community-type things that show FreeBSD and its longevity in a good light:

  • Forums like this one
  • The FreeBSD Foundation and the latest status report (including the recent $1M donation)
  • The FreeBSD Journal
  • Schedules from recent and future BSD conferences showing what's being worked on
  • Upcoming books about FreeBSD by Michael Lucas
  • The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System by Kirk McCusick et al
  • The depth of the (excellent) documentation
  • BSD conference videos
  • BSD Now podcast

I'm sure there are other things that I've missed.
Basically, I doubt very much if many other open source operating systems have such a fine history, pedigree and future as this one.

Hope that helps.
 
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