* andrew clarke writes to All, on Sunday October 13 1996
   at 19:26:

 ac> Ok, so what is FreeBSD?  I understand it's a variation of UNIX for
 ac> 32-bit Intel PCs, but that's pretty much all I know.

Pretty much correct...

 ac> How does it differ from the various distributions of Linux floating
 ac> around?

"Various" is the keyword here. FreeBSD has only one distribution.
Consistency. :)

 ac> Can FreeBSD run Linux executables?

Yes, with the correct configuration. I don't use that myself as it eats up
extra memory.

 ac> Does FreeBSD come with source code,

Yes, it comes with full source as standard, precompiled packages that you
can install, and a set of 'ports' which are basically standard applications
with the minor changes needed to run on a FreeBSD system.

Ports are pretty clever, as they are only diff files. You go to the
relevant dir of the port you would like to install, and type
"make"; if it can't find the original source file on your system,
it FTPs it. All automatically.

 ac> and a GNU General Public Licence?

I don't think it's licenced under GNU, but it's public domain.

 ac> And what's in it for me?

I use FreeBSD since it happened to be the first unix system I installed,
originally I planned to install Linux, but now I'm pretty glad I chose
FreeBSD.

There is an entire network devoted to FreeBSD, with a range of services:
FTP, WWW, telnet(?) and IRC. The guys on irc.freebsd.org/#freebsd are a
pretty wacky bunch.

You still haven't guessed who I ran into on there. :)

Cheers.

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