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Date:      Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:35:41 +0800
From:      Erich Dollansky <oceanare@pacific.net.sg>
To:        Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org, advocacy@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Explaining FreeBSD features
Message-ID:  <42BA2E0D.2090001@pacific.net.sg>
In-Reply-To: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNMEMGFBAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com>
References:  <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNMEMGFBAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com>

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Hi,

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> 
>>I do not think that it the design of Windows which makes it target. It
>>is the kind of support people with no knowledge get which makes it.
> 
> 
> People pay for Windows, not for FreeBSD.  The support structures are
> totally different because of this.  If support is what hinges on getting

I am not talking of the support people get by paying for it. Just go to 
any support forum, mailing list or what ever name it has and compare the 
tone used there.

The support is done by volunteers just like here.

While people asking 'dumb' questions around FreeBSD just get a RTFM 
while the same question around Windows might gives them a lot of verbal 
abuse plus the answer. If a person wastes its time to write 'RTFM', the 
same person could also write 'RTFM at page xx' and the answer is useful.

>>If people with no knowledge would get proper answers when they run into
>>problems instead of the hint to read the manual would help a lot here.
>>
> 
> 
> Why should they?  If they were paying someone for FreeBSD support that
> is one thing.  Nobody is getting paid to answer questions on the mailing
> list and on Usenet, if a no-knowledge person asks a question that is
> answered in the manual, then it is going overboard already, to even
> tell them to RTFM.  They really shouldn't be asking questions if they
> haven't RTFMed.
> 
Why do I hear people crying about the acceptance of FreeBSD in this list?

It is the atidute shown above which stops people jumping onto FreeBSD.
> 
>>What is the difference to FreeBSD if the system is running once?
>>
> Bringing a large number of ignoramuses on board who are dedicated to
> continuing to be ignoramuses, does not help the FreeBSD project at
> all.  It may help some people making money off servicing those people,
> but otherwise they are deadweight.
> 
Then, never complain that FreeBSD does not reach a higher market share.

> You know, even raw newbies who have RTFM can help the FreeBSD project
> by answering posts on the support forums with pointers to the manual!!
> 
Yes, just let them do so. But it happens to rearely.
> 
> Proper help is in the manual, it is in my book, and in Greg Lehey's book,
> and in several other books written by a number of people.  My book is

I have to take my neighbour with her Ph.D. in biology again. We can 
assume she has proven not to be a plain idiot. She got some of the book, 
looked at them for some days and said 'why should I study IT before I 
can use FreeBSD'.

> I am sorry you are going to have to do better than that.  The proper
> help is out there, you just have to spend a little effort looking for it.
> 
It is out there but written in a language a none IT person has problems 
with.

The starter of this thread is trying to do something into this direction.
> 
> I can only ask why do you bother to garden in the first place?  Without
> that background, you don't know why the pesticide that she recommends
> works.  And next season if it doesen't work, you don't know why either.
> 
I hope you never fall sick or have to undergo a serious surgery. As long 
as you do not understand how the whole procedure works, the doctor will 
not be able to treat you.

> It's like the saying "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach
> him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"  You just want the fish - I
> want to feed myself for the rest of my life.
> 
No, I want to make him able to catch the fish without knowledge of breeding.

> Sadly, your attitude is one of the reasons that the United States is
> being
> run into the ground by a bunch of religious conservatives these days.
> Those
> people are just like you - they don't want to know anything about Stem
> Cell
> research, they just want to be told whether it's bad or not.
> 
> Honestly, before you knock it, you should try to understand how the world
> works sometime.  It's really a better way to live.  Do you really want to

Let me put it this way. A long time ago, we call it now stone age, the 
people started to realise that a group of people shows better results if 
they specialise. The people better in hunting went hunting, the people 
better in 'farming'. Despite one group did not know how the other group 
got their kind of food, they shared it.

Erich



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