From owner-freebsd-chat Wed May 5 15:24:56 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from quackerjack.cc.vt.edu (quackerjack.cc.vt.edu [198.82.160.250]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 488C9154A9; Wed, 5 May 1999 15:24:49 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jobaldwi@vt.edu) Received: from sable.cc.vt.edu (sable.cc.vt.edu [128.173.16.30]) by quackerjack.cc.vt.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA09691; Wed, 5 May 1999 18:24:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: from john.baldwin.cx (jobaldwi.campus.vt.edu [198.82.67.63]) by sable.cc.vt.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA22506; Wed, 5 May 1999 18:24:42 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.3 [p0] on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.37.19990505141353.0468d2a0@localhost> Date: Wed, 05 May 1999 18:24:48 -0400 (EDT) From: John Baldwin To: Brett Glass Subject: Re: PCWeek article by Anne Chen -- Comments Cc: FreeBSD Advocacy , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On 05-May-99 Brett Glass wrote: > Those who are fostering awareness and encouraging change ARE contributing. > Coding is only one way to contribute, and at this point it is not even > the most important way. Gain more mindshare and a devoted following, and > the coders will follow. I agree. As I've said a couple of times now, the CS department here at Va Tech is considering switching from FreeBSD to Linux. All of the technical staff in the department support FreeBSD, but some of the professors don't use that to make their decisions. They decide based on what they read in PC Magazine over breakfast. They are looking specifically for FreeBSD in a shrink-wrapped boxes, or books on FreeBSD. They would love to see "Mastering FreeBSD", "FreeBSD Unleashed!", "FreeBSD for Dummies", etc. They are trying to satisfy employer's wants, and right now they see more companies going for Linux than FreeBSD. Technical merits such as a unified kernel and userland, central source repository, and the ports system can only get us so far. We each have to advocate in as many different ways as we can. And as Brett has said, marketing and coding are two different things and not people are good at one are good at the other. I'm a sys admin/coder who aspires to being a kernel hacker someday. Marketing is not my strength, so while I'll do what I can, some people are going to promote FreeBSD differently and in some ways more effectively than I do. > --Brett Glass --- John Baldwin -- http://members.freedomnet.com/~jbaldwin/ PGP Key: http://members.freedomnet.com/~jbaldwin/pgpkey.asc "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message