Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 20:16:42 +0200 (CEST) From: Lars Gerhard Kuehl <kuehl@lgk.de> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: A proposal for focus. Message-ID: <XFMail.980524201642.kuehl@lgk.de> In-Reply-To: <15760.896002665@time.cdrom.com>
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On 24-May-98 Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
> I've been watching the debates on this list ping-pong back and forth
> for the last couple of months now, and it occurs to me that one thing
> we're lacking here is even a reasonable consensus about what areas of
> FreeBSD advocacy to focus on first. Everyone's got all these good
Who could not agree. :)
> ideas and there's all this energy flowing, but it's also moving in a
> lot of different directions and, in some cases, even directly against
> itself. I'm not saying that a bit of uncontrolled ferment isn't a
> good thing, but without some sort of overlying structure and set of
> ground rules, it all quickly degrades to a room full of people trying
> to shout over one another.
The 'shouting' reflects structural shortcomings of the FreeBSD project.
Of course not technical deficiencies, but rather organisational.
FreeBSD was being silently commended as "the better free OS" over
a long time and people are now going to believe it. A year ago one could
carefully try to suggest using FreeBSD , today FreeBSD is for several
purposes a conceivable choice. This leads to new demands, which can't
be refused to be satisfied if FreeBSD shall continue its successful way.
> So, without trying to imply that my "vision" should supercede anyone
> else's (these are only suggestions), here are a couple of initial
> "ground rules" which I'd like to suggest:
>
> First, we agree to set aside, and strictly for the time being, all
> discussion on "commercializing" FreeBSD or the kinds of corporate
> entities we'd like to see formed to provide this or that support or
> this or that embedded product. I know that's a very large category of
> activity to set aside so casually, and don't think that I haven't
> spent a fair amount of time thinking it over, but I really think that
> choosing to focus on this *now*, right when we're really only just
> beginning to have a dedicated advocacy group at all, would be bad
> timing. I'd much rather we focused on gaining a better toehold in the
> free software community and attracting a greater number of followers
> there before even thinking seriously about spending much of our time
> and resources dealing with the far more demanding world of commercial
> software. I can appreciate people's impatience to reach "level two",
> but frankly I think we still have a ways to go in mastering "level
> one" and I'd really rather do that first since it'll also be a lot
> easier to contemplate a commercial venture if some larger compnent of
> the free software world is substantially more behind us.
How would you define the 'free software community'. Is Linux still part of it?
I don't really believe so. Linux is a market, remember only the 'Corel debate'.
'Free' is not sufficiently described by 'you can get the software and its
sources for no fee'. Free software is becoming the medium on and for which
commercial products are made. That's in some respects the opposite to the
situation ten years ago, when commercial products were needed for realising
and using free software. Today most free software and even a non-negligible part
of commercial software is implemented on free systems (netscape debate).
FreeBSD, I think, has two choices:
1. To get/have volunteer and commercial supporters
as well as commercial competitors
or
2. to get/have volunteer supporters and commercial competitors.
The latter wouldn't look very promising.
Economical success binds man power and knowledge. I'm afraid FreeBSD
won't have the opportunity to consolidate before getting a (more or less)
established OS. Things like 'winframe' or any flavour of 'nc'
unmisledingly show the (always intermediate) goal of the travel - as well
as the advantagous of serving capable OSs like xyzBSD.
The more it's fairly disappointing if you can convince a customer of the
advantages of FreeBSD and then must say, "unfortunately FreeBSD would not
even satisfy 10% of your demands". :-(
> My second suggestion is that we agree to knock it off with the
> negative advertising. If we're to win at PR, it won't be because
> we're better at pointing out our opponent's flaws than we are at
> extolling our own virtues. A certain amount of pointed comparison is
> all well and good in certain contexts, but it's not a substitute for a
> good sales approach.
Indeed, many mails of the last weeks had got a lot in common with letters of
disappointed lovers. And everyone knows, sympathy is much better propagated
by other strategies.
FreeBSD needs a community which shows that it believes in its OS - technically
and economically, but not religiously.
Nota bene - the community needs to appear like that, not necessarily each
member.
Lars
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EDV-Beratung Em: kuehl@lgk.de
BSD User Group Hamburg, Germany
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