Date: Wed, 05 May 1999 14:39:24 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: jgrosch@MooseRiver.com, jmutter@netwalk.com, "Viren R. Shah" <viren@rstcorp.com>, Steve Kargl <sgk@troutmask.apl.washington.edu>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PCWeek article by Anne Chen -- Comments Message-ID: <37794.925940364@zippy.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 05 May 1999 10:54:52 MDT." <4.2.0.37.19990505102722.00c748f0@localhost>
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> Doing a better job would take a great deal of time and effort. If I could > arrange, somehow, to generate enough of an income stream from it, I'd do > it. Sorry, that's a cop-out attitude and it's like saying "I'd like to learn to climb, but I lack the funds to ascend Everest." You don't have to go for the #1 difficulty challenge right away and, in fact, it's almost always foolhardy to try and start hammering in the big end of the wedge. Pick something small and start from there, as many fine efforts have been started. You think the folks who created freebsdzine, daemonnews, the freebsd diary, freebsdrocks and many other fine (and effective) advocacy sites got paid money for it? You think it takes a personal fortune in the bank to write an effective magazine article? If you think either of those things then there are a number of people on this list who will jump to be the first to correct the misconception. And I don't want to hear anything about how these things would be nice but "they don't address the bigger picture" - you address the bigger picture by addressing many smaller pictures until you've gained the experience and the momentum necessary to tackle the big one. There are so few people who are both highly vocal AND who are leading by example, however, that I don't see critical mass as being anywhere close and it's not a leadership problem so much as a dysfunctional workforce problem. A lot of people *complain* about how bad advocacy is but very few actual do anything concrete about it, or even worse (Brett) they somehow come to the conclusion that bashing the few folks who *are* doing some kind of advocacy (and I'm not flying to Japan for 3 days at the end of this month for my *health*, to cite one example) is somehow a productive and winning strategy. That's like saying "we're grossly outnumbered, the enemy is attacking in human waves and we're down to 2 guys and a sergeant. Quick, somebody shoot the sergeant!" If that's not screwy, self-defeating behavior in action, I don't know what is. - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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