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<DIV>Warm Greetings To This DragonFlyBSD (dfly) Forum From A Long-Time Lurker
:)</DIV>
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<DIV>I agree with the spirit of Arnkjell Eriksen's remark that people who use
open source software should contribute something to it.</DIV>
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<DIV>However, it seems to me that the "moral" situation surrounding open source
software is more nuanced than a simple money-versus-time (e.g. time spent
working on the open source code) dichotomy.</DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>* * *</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>* * *</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV>The value of an open source software "product" is determined largely by the
size of its user population. Every user immediately contributes an
increment of user population, and thereby helps to improve the survival
prospects of that product. So it's not entirely fair to view otherwise
"non-contributing" dfly users as merely free riders.</DIV>
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<DIV>While the primary focus of dfly seems to be on providing a performant
reliable bare metal server operating system, please consider the frequent
postings to this forum, by hardy souls who are excited by the idea of using
resource-efficient dfly on their old / slow laptop / notebook computer. These
personal computing dfly pioneers (often cash-short students) struggle valiantly
with video driver issues (e,g, recent dfly forum tumult regarding NVidia
hardware). </DIV>
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<DIV>And the wise folks at the centre of the dfly development world, cheerfully
help these rugged personal computing pioneers to push dfly into a secondary
market of personal workstation usage. So, each personal computing dfly user
provides a double boost to the success of dfly (1. adding a user, and 2.
helping create a new dfly market segment)</DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>* * *</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV>Here's a second example of how adventurous dfly users are expanding the
dfly market. My personal interest n dfly is as a rock-solid reliable and
performant operating system with a robust file system, that can run in the
"cloud" on a VM on QEMU / KVM virtualization. I cannot cost-justify even the
least expensive bare metal server for my website application. But I can justify
a VM. </DIV>
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<DIV>And because dfly is so very performant, I know I'm going to squeeze great
value out of my VM rental fees with dfly. So I can afford to pay the rent for a
top-notch reliable and well-supported VM hosting service.</DIV>
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<DIV>Kudos to the dfly developer team for past efforts making quick fixes in
support of dfly users running on virtualized servers !! We saw some pretty
rapid fix turnarounds from the dfly development team, in response to calls
for help from one dfly user (not me) running a critical production app on
dfly under virtualization. This prompt action by the dfly development team
really warmed my old heart. And convinced me that my own strategy to use dfly on
a VM for my future website (not yet online) is a good one. </DIV>
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<DIV>Although I have had to pause my dfly work on a VM at <A
href="http://www.elastichosts.com">www.elastichosts.com</A> for too many
months, I do plan to get back to it. And once my website is up and running on
dfly, I do intend to contribute detailed notes on the dfly setup used. This is
why I remain subscribed to this forum and read carefully every posting. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Look forward to upgrading my dfly to 5.0 !! And to kicking the tires on
HAMMER2.</DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>* * *</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>* * *</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>As for contributing money to the dfly project, well, it may seem like a
good idea but, money comes with its own problems e.g deciding where and how to
spend it (and e.g. avoiding fatal reputational hits caused
by mis-spending it ...</DIV>
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<DIV>My 2 cents worth :)</DIV>
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<DIV>Best Regards,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Steve</DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=arnkjell.eriksen@outlook.com
href="mailto:arnkjell.eriksen@outlook.com">Arnkjell Eriksen</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=users@dragonflybsd.org
href="mailto:users@dragonflybsd.org">users@dragonflybsd.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, October 18, 2017 9:10
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Support</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>I think people who use any BSD should contribute something, if
not time than money. If you use something and would like to see it alive than
help to keep it alive.<BR><BR>Congrats on 5.0
release,<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>