Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 22:53:23 -0500 From: Steve Ireland <stevei@black-star.net> To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: please, a little sanity about the logo Message-ID: <420C2C33.4020607@black-star.net>
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Hello, As a rule I don't post to mailing lists, especially about bike sheds, but I have seen a firestorm on this list and questions@ concerning the logo and most of them are vitriol or hysteria or vitriolic hysteria. First, I've been using, selling, and supporting FBSD since 2.2.2. In that time, I think I have become as fond of Beastie as anyone. While selling nearly a thousand installations (not systems), I have never encountered a problem over the logo, and I have put many a Beastie badge on a case. Changing a brand identifier is not something to be done on a whim. In the case of FBSD, which has a "community" rather than a corporate hierarchy, decisions like this need to be floated and allowed to settle before being finalized. This leads to the first question, should the logo be changed. Frankly, I don't know. Absent marketing studies, no way exists to know. Were studies done? If yes, will they be shared? If studies were not done, what methodology was used to determine the current logo is a hindrance to FBSD gaining market share? This leads to the second question, how pick the new one. Considering Beastie has been around since the beginning with no real objection until, apparently, recently, how do you (whomever "you" are) know the one you pick to replace it will be _better_ and not just different? This leads to a suggestion others have already made, a splitting of FBSD into hobbyist and professional branches. The hobbyists keep Beastie, the .org site, and the non-profit status. The professionals get the new logo, the .com site, and pay for use and support (perhaps an annual subscription?). Now, an issue not yet brought up. I believe the real problem with FBSD market share has more to do with its lack of visibilty in the market itself. Other than mentions so rare that links to them are posted on the website, I see almost no news concerning FBSD. Looking through advocacy@'s archive, I seen almost no pro-active posts. So let me make this into one. Here are my suggestions to improve FBSD market share, regardless of logo change: 0. Dedicated marketing department - The Foundation as it currently exists is clearly insufficient to meet FBSD's needs. You think Redhat or Suse don't have one? 1. Advertise - There are many ways to do this besides a full-page glossy in Sys Admin. For instance, ask people using FBSD for hosting to mention that fact in their own ads. If the example of yahoo.com didn't come up from time to time on the lists, who would know they use it? 2. Make it easier for the media, etc. to find an authorative source - How many times have people posted "How do I find a FBSD spokesman" on various lists (especially questions@) and been given inappropriate responses from random community members. In my opinion, that has done more harm than any logo ever will. 3. Performance matters - As much as I hate this issue, it is a real one. Look at CPU, RAM, and hard drive sizes. More is better. A common refrain is how well *nix does on slow systems compared to Windows (or, emphasizing its lack of performance, Windoze). 5.3 is observably slower and less stable than 4.11. Now I have to convince customers that the slower version is the better choice. I don't even try. I won't even mention 5.x until it is at least as good as 4.11. 4. Quality support for common hardware - Anyone using USB 2.0 without problems? Trouble free installation while using a USB keyboard? SATA raid controllers? (Please don't give the tired line, "Code it yourself if you want it." That's ANOTHER reason FBSD suffers in the marketplace.) To sum up, if changing the logo is being done for sound business reasons, based on sound business information, all well and good. If its being done to appease religious zealots (as seems to be the case), then FBSD will be a laughing-stock. All of the "printing" issues seems like an after-the-fact justification to me, especially considering that I not have ever seen any printed FBSD literature other than the few commercially available books. In either case, I doubt a logo change will have a beneficial impact given FBSD's other marketing shortcomings. For better or worse, Steve Ireland
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