Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 03:37:20 -0800 From: "Timothy Beyer" <beyert@cs.ucr.edu> To: <chat@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Where is FreeBSD going? Message-ID: <002a01c3d449$727cd2b0$650a0a0a@aeonrem>
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Brett Glass wrote: >FreeBSD also keeps falling farther and farther behind Linux in the area = of >advocacy (and, hence, corporate adoption) Granted, this is true. However, you should be more specific when you=20 refer to advocacy. When I think of the term "advocacy," blind, = relentless=20 loyalty comes to mind. This is one of the things that bothers me about=20 Linux in particular, since it seems to have the most "advocates" of any = OS=20 that I have used. Linux Users and Developers [in the "advocate" = category]=20 insist Linux is "superior" to other offerings, (usually windows, when in = actuality, its strengths are quite different) quite often without = stating, or even=20 understanding what exactly constitutes these "superior" qualities of the = operating system. This comes across to most people as zealotry, and as = a=20 result, people will think less of the hard work done by the developers, = many=20 of whom would only express an opinion that they fully understood. Quite = frankly, it was this type of behavior in the Linux community that kept = me=20 away from using non-proprietary operating systems for a long, long time. Yes, you are correct that more people need to promote *BSD, the BSD = license, etc, but I think the term "advocate" implies the wrong emphasis. Keep = the elitism at the minimum, or else the majority will take it the wrong way. Blind faith could potentially hinder corporate acceptance, though it = would be unlikely to encourage it. >Many of the developers actually have an antipathy toward advocacy, >since they dislike answering newbie FAQs and don't want too manypeople = to >adopt the OS for fear that it'll overcrowd their "sandbox." Yes, thats quite true of FreeBSD developers. While these individuals = are typically rational, productive individuals, they most likely don't = produce the required volume of noise to give a name to FreeBSD. However, it is = nice to know that people exist who put money where their mouth is; I don't = see that in some other free software communities. --Tim
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