
FreeBSD 10.3 officially supported on Microsoft Azure - tachion
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/partners/microsoft/freebsd103/
======
kefka
Let me explain what recently happened while testing Azure RemoteApp.

I was put in charge in comparing RemoteApp to our Citrix cluster, feature
compatibility, and cost. Now, I'm part of a university so that's "negotiated".
We're also part of I2, so data ingress/egress should be free as per our site
contract. (Yeah, it amounted to $5, but we were billed for it against our
current enterprise agreement).

I worked with a MS Engineer to set everything up. I set cost limits to kill
service if we go over $200 (past the free trial).... Well guess what? They
only give emails, not kill service. Your account will still accrue no matter
what. The engineer said that it could kill service. So, I had limits set to
'alert me'.

Until 2 months ago. They switched what was the Beta Portal to the main portal.
Doing this eliminated even my alerts I had. The account accrued around $2800,
with NO emails, No alerts, and NO questionable billing calls regarding 'non-
normal computing practices'.

I'm finishing up a paper and a post-mortem regarding this incident. Obviously
my university can absorb this, but the points stand:

1\. There is no adequate way of controlling your bill

2\. Billing calculations are done with many hours of lag-time. You don't know
the zinger you just got until later.

3\. There is __NO __fraud policy... Unless you count "Too Fucking Bad" as the
policy.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Did you try contacting them and asking for a refund? What did they say?

~~~
kefka
Oh yeah. I did that. 1 time through our executive agreement. That one was
unresolved and marked as resolved.

I then called again, promised that it would be taken care of. It was ignored
after the 3rd email.

I called again, and was given someone so daft that, even when requesting a
manager, he refused. That incident went nowhere.

I'm now on the 4th ticket. I _might_ be getting somewhere... But again, they
refuse to return calls and emails.

------
teamhappy
FreeBSD is getting a lot of love recently. That's awesome.

~~~
paride5745
Some of it it's a reaction to systemd hate.

~~~
Touche
Didn't Hubbard give a talk where he likes some of the design decisions from
systemd and wants to adopt them?

~~~
cm3
A more likely contender is Nosh. It's additionallyy inspired by SMF and
systemd and can import systemd's unit files. it also works on BSD and Linux.

~~~
snuxoll
> can import systemd's unit files

That's actually pretty neat. I don't have any real complaints about systemd,
but every alternative I've looked at is more painful to use for service
management. No longer having to hack together init scripts has been wonderful
for me, it took a 10 line unit file to get YouTrack configured as a proper
service on my CentOS 7 VM - I used to run JetBrains teamware products on
Windows just because dealing with custom init scripts was such a pain in the
ass.

~~~
JdeBP
> _it took a 10 line unit file to get YouTrack configured as a proper service
> on my CentOS 7 VM_

If you did it the way that other people have done it, wrapping _youtrack.sh
start_ and _youtrack.sh stop_ in a systemd service unit, with a sprinkling of
erroneous _Type=forking_ to get around the fact that that ends up running the
Java process as a quickly orphaned grandchild of where systemd expects the
daemon to be, and with log output explicitly redirected away from where
service management could handle it into an ever-growing private log file under
/usr ... then you have entered systemd House of Horror territory. "proper" is
not really the word.

* [http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/sy...](http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/systemd-house-of-horror/)

* [http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/sy...](http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/systemd-house-of-horror/tomcat.html)

~~~
snuxoll
I initially tried the Type=forking method, but systemd kept yelling at me (as
it should have) because it doesn't really fork correctly. I actually just run
the service in simple mode with a launcher script that contains this
abomination of a command:

/opt/jetbrains/youtrack/internal/java/linux-x64/jre/bin/java
-Dlauncher.app.home=/opt/jetbrains/youtrack/ -Djl.service=YouTrack
-Djl.home=/opt/jetbrains/youtrack -ea -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfmoryError
-XX:HeapDumpPath=logs -XX:ErrorFile=logs/hs_err_pid%p.log
-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -XX:MaxMetaspaceSize=250m -Xmx1024m
-Dorg.eclipse.jetty.server.Request.maxFormContentSize=5000000
-Dorg.eclipse.jetty.server.Request.maxFormKeys=10000
-Djetbrains.jetpass.admin.name=default_admin_name -jar launcher/lib/app-
wrapper/app-wrapper.jar AppStarter com.jetbrains.bundle.bootstrap.Bundle

~~~
JdeBP
Just remember to do things the daemontools way, and chain to the final daemon
binary from that script with the shell's exec command, and systemd should be
happy.

Contrast:

* [https://plone.lucidsolutions.co.nz/software-development/issu...](https://plone.lucidsolutions.co.nz/software-development/issue-tracking/youtrack/youtrack-v6.5-on-centos-7.1-as-a-zip-install)

And the redirection to $LOG and Poor Man's Daemon Supervisor in some people's
youtrack.sh:

* [https://www.howtoforge.com/running-youtrack-issue-and-projec...](https://www.howtoforge.com/running-youtrack-issue-and-project-tracking-tool-on-nginx-debian-wheezy)

------
attilagyorffy
ha, funnily just one day before code freeze of freebsd 11 :) nevertheless it's
great that freebsd is getting more attention these days.

------
pmh
Blog post from yesterday about the release: [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-
us/blog/freebsd-now-available...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-
us/blog/freebsd-now-available-in-azure-marketplace/)

------
rbanffy
I expected a new version of Microsoft Xenix since the 80's ;-)

------
vmp
And yet they sadly still do not accept prepaid credit cards. :(

~~~
kefka
Yeah, you know why, right?

So they can screw you over with "Unknown until later" bills, complete lack of
being able to control your funds and services, and what I call "Comcast Bills"
(AKA: pay what we tell you and GTFO).

Just read my previous comment (or the top one of this story). Doesn't even
matter if you're an enterprise with a site license of 150k people.

~~~
res0nat0r
It's actually because prepaid cards are high sources of fraud that cloud
providers don't want to deal with.

------
znpy
I am always a bit surprised by comments that give Microsoft a bad reputation
no matter what it does.

The computer science field has always been "ruled" by ideas and philosophies,
but in the end a company is a company, and the ultimate goal of a company is
to make money.

It isn't weird or evil that Microsoft is trying to make money using whatever
mean it can use.

By the way, it's crystal clear that a considerable Microsoft is pivoting to
become a cloud provider and in that sense the most obvious thing to do is to
provide developers with all of the tools they might need.

Kudos to Microsoft for being able to perform such a direction change.

Plus consider that competition usually means lower prices for customers.. We
should be happy that new players are diving into the cloud business.

~~~
aerique
Well, I don't know your age but a lot of us grew up during the 1990s and early
2000s and experienced Microsoft's bully behavior first hand while we were
trying to make Linux[1], Free Software and Open Source more popular.

That kind of trust is hard to win back.

It may be childish but I've been enjoying Microsoft's fade into irrelevance
the last decade.

[1] Amongst other OSes.

~~~
epoch1970
How exactly has Microsoft "faded into irrelevance"?

Various versions of Windows are used on probably 90% or more of desktops and
laptops, in both home and business settings. It still sees widespread server
use.

Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook are widely used.

SQL Server is quite common within many enterprises.

Azure is a major player, and is seeing more and more adoption.

The porting of .NET to Linux and OS X is making Microsoft's development
technologies available to a wider audience.

The Xbox brand of consoles is quite popular.

Microsoft has numerous offerings, across a range of sectors, that have huge
uptake and are quite successful. I don't think that "irrelevance" is the way
to describe Microsoft or their products.

~~~
aerique
Since I seem to have ruffled some feathers with my statement: compared to how
dominant Microsoft used to be, they're now just one of the companies offering
a certain product in many markets. This is a good thing.

"Irrelevance" was perhaps hyperbole but if you compare it to their past,
well...

I'd say the only product they have left where one doesn't have much of a
choice (in business mostly) but to use it is the Office line and even that is
debatable nowadays.

So while many businesses would trade with Microsoft's position in a blink,
they are not the unavoidable powerhouse they used to be.

~~~
spdustin
If you engage with corporate America at all, you'll find that Microsoft is not
only relevant, but immutably ingrained into the DNA of the company. Office,
SharePoint and SQL Server are not to be trifled with in corporate America - do
not make the mistake of discounting their relevance or significance in how
work gets done in the VAST majority of companies with >1,000 employees here.

~~~
rbanffy
> Microsoft is not only relevant, but immutably ingrained into the DNA of the
> company.

For the current generation, perhaps. There was a time Microsoft reigned pretty
much alone, where there were no other viable options. During that time,
Microsoft defined what a PC was and dictated what everything around one looked
like.

That's not the case anymore, and it hasn't been for quite some time. Where you
find Microsoft is much like where you expected IBM mainframes to be in the
90's - in high-inertia systems. It's too difficult (and, frankly, not that
cost-effective) to convert your documents to other formats or to cloud-based
office apps. What you gain from it is not enough. It's too difficult to move
your AD users. It's too difficult to port your apps to use other databases
after you fell for writing stored procedures in TSQL for everything.

Mainframes are not dead yet and will stay around for a while. Microsoft will
stay around for some time too, but it will never again dictate what a computer
is.

After all, if you look at a chicken really close, you'll realize dinosaurs are
still around too.

------
avodonosov
Microsoft is becoming a corporation of goodness? (Windows Subsystem for Linux,
now that)

~~~
ekianjo
Yeah if you forget on purpose they act as patent trolls at the same time with
Android, and try to make every file format incompatible with the previous
versions just to ensure you keep being locked in in their products. And
keeping a monopoly on PCs by having Windows installed by default everywhere.
Oh, and the forced windows 10 upgrade. Is that all good for you?

~~~
NicoJuicy
Forced free upgrade.

You don't want to know how much money they are losing with it, all because
they want a shift to a newer OS. Which makes their platform more future
proof..

Yes, it's forced, no doubt. But if i were Windows, i'd rather have a lot of
people a free upgrade ( and unknowing users forcing to upgrade), then leaving
everyone in the Windows Vista erra :)

~~~
userbinator
They are not losing any money, because Windows 10 is undoubtedly adware. It's
"free" because _you_ are the product, and they don't even try to hide this
fact:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10053622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10053622)
(a default install of Win10 communicates with third-party domains of well-
known ad-serving/analytics/tracking companies.)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9976298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9976298)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10053352](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10053352)

[http://betanews.com/2015/10/15/microsoft-now-uses-
windows-10...](http://betanews.com/2015/10/15/microsoft-now-uses-
windows-10s-start-menu-to-display-ads/)

[http://www.extremetech.com/computing/204595-lock-screen-
ads-...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/204595-lock-screen-ads-on-
windows-10-bring-us-closer-to-a-nightmarish-capitalist-dystopia)

~~~
yuhong
They aren't losing much money because most Windows sales are OEM sales. I
recommend that you read this: [https://hal2020.com/2013/03/07/what-if-
microsoft-had-done-wi...](https://hal2020.com/2013/03/07/what-if-microsoft-
had-done-windows-8-differently/)

------
gorm
Wow!

Legal Terms

© 2016 Microsoft. All rights reserved.

~~~
JdeBP
... followed by the full text of the FreeBSD Licence.

~~~
88ni223h2b
And? Still blatant copyright infringement:

    
    
      "THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY MICROSOFT 'AS IS'..."
    

One of the purposes of the BSD license is to give the original authors credit!

~~~
ivl
Microsoft is distributing a VM image of FreeBSD through their marketplace in
binary format, that has been modified to be used on their cloud service. The
license they choose to distribute it under is completely harmless, and you're
still sure to find the FreeBSD licence details inside the OS itself once it's
running.

There's no copyright issue here. Look at how literally any other VM image is
distributed, on Amazon, GCS, Digital Ocean...

