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Subject: RE: Linux v. NetBSD pros and cons - preview
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:53:39 -0800
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Thread-Topic: Linux v. NetBSD pros and cons - preview
thread-index: AccU3GIms81zHAdWRI+lJEVHiFPsWAABO6MQ
From: "Jay Michlin" <jay.michlin@onstor.com>
To: "Andy Sharp" <andy.sharp@onstor.com>,
	"Tim Gardner" <tim.gardner@onstor.com>,
	"Larry Scheer" <larry.scheer@onstor.com>,
	"Brian Stark" <brian.stark@onstor.com>

Andy,

This looks like a good analysis, though I'll wait for comments from the
other cc's to be sure. The summary seems to be that Linux has all the
advantages of a current and popular system. Its disadvantages of more
effort to complete the port plus potential liability to the open source
community are probably not a serious issue if we commit to managing
them.

NetBSD has the emotional advantage that we're more familiar with BSD,
and apparently no substantive advantages otherwise.

I think your analysis needs to also look at the question of supporting
one O/S on Cougar and a different one on Bobcat, and whether it matters
that one is Linux while the other is some flavor of BSD. I expect that
the summary will be that we need to get both products to the same O/S in
either case, but we do not need to do that all at once. That is, we
could move Bobcat to Linux or NetBSD later, after Cougar ships. And
Cheetah is not an issue since it is near the end of its life.

The next step is the one you've already taken, which is to launch the
process of getting all of us receiving your email (and this one)
aligned. Once that happens, we need to extend the circle to Jonathan and
have whatever discussions he needs to come aboard (or maybe to get us
aboard a different decision). In parallel we should brief Paul and
Caeli.

Jerry comes after that, so that we can present to him a consensus of his
organization. If we can't, he will certainly organize discussions to
lead to that consensus, but I think it ought to be our responsibility to
achieve the consensus, if possible, before we review it with him.

Finally, we'll review the decision with Narayan, Bob and any additional
field leadership with an interest. The overall approach is to produce a
reasoned and sound engineering decision shared by everyone, and then
share it, including our reasoning, with the business part of the
company.

jay


-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Sharp [mailto:andy.sharp@onstor.com]=20
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 4:05 PM
To: Jay Michlin; Tim Gardner; Larry Scheer; Brian Stark
Subject: Linux v. NetBSD pros and cons - preview

Howdy folks,

Attached is a preview of the Linux v. NetBSD pros and cons research
document I've been preparing by me, incorporating some inputs from Larry
Scheer.

Please do not distribute this to anyone else at this time. Currently I'm
soliciting feedback from just the recipients of this email.  This is an
ongoing process and a later version of this document will be presented
to a wider audience for more feedback in the very near future.

Thanks,

a

/homes/andys/company/eng/cougar-os-selection.pdf
