Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 08:31:43 -0500 (EST) From: Pat Lynch <lynch@bsdunix.net> To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: The Bazaar part II Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9912160745260.10407-100000@bytor.rush.net>
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OK, so we're all at the Bazaar , ok well theres only 5 or 6 of us, but hey its a start, we've unloaded over 50 CD's , 6 beanie Daemons, one small plushie Daemon and 4 or 5 mousepads, a toolkit cd, and a snapshot CD. and we're making it know that despite the fact that this conference is so Linux oriented, we're not about to let people forget us. I was talking to the sendmail.net folks (really cool people) and a reporter came over and asked "WHat is Sendmail"...so of course we spane tht enext 10 minutes telling her what sendmail was , then she says "I'm doing an article on Linux." I proceeded to ask her "Why Linux?, instead of the whole Open Source/Free Software Movement", and she said "Investors like Linux", so I proceeded to give her reasons why investors would like FreeBSD, if they only knew it was being run. (Yahoo, US West, Walnut Creek), and proceeded to explain, she asked me several more questions, recorded them on her handy dndy pocket recorder, (while my digital camera was stolen, but thats a different issue, and not her fault, I was only distracted by her) so anyway, I'm hoping I opened her mind up to the whole community, not just Linux (and specifically mentioned FreeBSD several times) Overall the Bazaar has been a clusterf***, and not many people here. Annelise, Lorraine, Chris Masto, Brian Reichert, Marc Rassbach, and Bob Bruce were essentially the "FreeBSD Contingent". We had a *BSD BoF yesterday as well, which went off rather well considering it was unorganized. Unfortunately trying to get everything else together left the BoF unplanned. A Technical BoF would have been cool, but it floated at the outset (partly because of me, and my dilemma of feeling like an outsider at an Open Source event, mostly because it REALLY seemed like a Linux event) to the advocacy issue. There were several, very well known problems identified with the BSD's and the advocacy movement (I call myself a pan-BSD advocate, while my first choice is obvious by the clothes I wear to these things , FreeBSD) and we identitifed problems but no solutions, hopefully Marc Rassbach and I will identify some possible solutions by the time we all leave this evening. Of course they will fall short of calling the distribution some alamagamation of core team members names (or maybe we should just use "Hubbix" (Jordan?)) as the OS name. Linux's popularity largely owes to Linus' name in alot of ways, heres an OS kernel thats named after a person, it makes him the De Facto figurehead of that particular part of the Open Source movement. The fcat that he's pretty friendly, and pretty charismatic as well helps. The Press has someone to focus on. We don;t have that. Nor do I think we really want to have that. Marc and I had dinner with Eric Raymond the other night and before edinner we had discussed BSD advocacy, and he said "I would like to the see the BSD's succeed, but I just don;t see it happening", and I asked the reason. He said it was due to the fact that we just don;t have the advocacy efforts and ethusiasm that Linux has, lets face it, the best hackers are not always the best advocates. Most of us would rather sit and hack code and play with machines that work, rather than get out and scream it from the rooftops. These kinds of activitiess thake alot out ot of us. After 3 days I'm pretty burnt out. I wonder how Jordan does it, or is he burnt too? ;) Anyway getting back on track, he said, we've got some real technical strengths over linux, but without he head-on approach in advocacy, he sees it sinking. I don't. I believe that to start doing that (the way Brett Glass has been saying for a long time) would violate the integrity of the personality of any of the respective *BSD projects. We're not rabid groupies, we rarely get that mentality, we're thinking people, and less likely to follow a trend in compuing unless it has sound merits technically. TO gain notoriety, we have to lose our strength? By the same token, the grassroots efforts are working out well I think, ok, maybe if we use the benchmark of linux as far as advocacy, we've failed. But I kindof see ourselves as a slow success. A well know linux-connected bookstore (linuxcentral) was telling me that 6 months ago, they recieved no calls requesting any *BSD items (CD's etc.), now they get people asking and requesting (specifically FreeBSD) quite a bit. He said that he thinks we *are* growing, and doing just fine. I think at some point that were going to contact Walnut Creek or FreeBSD.org about marketing the Complete FreeBSD and the 4 CD set. I mean I think some things were accomplished here. But not as much as I would have hoped. oh, the one other thing, Marc suggested we go into advoacting in the embedded market, where our licensing allows much more freedom. Anyway, thoughts? opinions? I have a couple suggestions, but nothing I have the time to take on currently, but I'll post those later. -signing off from the Bizarre -Pat __ Pat Lynch lynch@rush.net lynch@bsdunix.net Systems Administrator Rush Networking To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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