Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:26:55 -0600 From: "Matthew D. Fuller" <fullermd@over-yonder.net> To: peter lageotakes <plageotakes@yahoo.com> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: (FreeBSD) for Linux Users Message-ID: <20040115042655.GW41788@over-yonder.net> In-Reply-To: <20040114075335.21841.qmail@web14611.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040113221936.GJ41788@over-yonder.net> <20040114075335.21841.qmail@web14611.mail.yahoo.com>
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[ Combined a few responses since they overlap mostly ] Peter / David, > 1) Adjust the color scheme. It makes it somewhat > difficult to read though the site. In the time my page has been up with that color scheme, most people have really liked it. However, there's always been a sizable minority who really dislike it, and a number who just can't deal with it at all. So, I've always had it on my "someday" list to go ahead and put together a few alternate stylesheets. And this is as good an excuse as any. So, if you'll look at the bottom of the navbar, there's a selector for a few alternate color schemes. Hopefully, one of them should be a little less painful for you. > 3) The connection is very, very slow. While the connection isn't exactly a speed demon, the pages are pretty light. Once in a while, though, it does just drop out for a few minutes; you may have hit it over that. > 4) Deeper coverage on packages vs. ports with emphasis > to portupgrade. These are the sort of things I was intentionally avoiding. There's lots of resources on the Hows; my feeling is that when you don't understand the Whys, you'll have a hard time finding the Hows, and a harder time understanding them when you DO find them. I want to try and delineate the Whys, with just enough How to demonstrate them. If I tried to do both, it would be even LONGER. Nobody wants that :) > 5) Remove "Chaos vs. Order". Your slamming a > development model. Both models have merit (compare and > contrast). I wasn't slamming it. The Linux model practically requires, just by its very construction, an abundance of chaos. That's not necessarily _BAD_, and I didn't intend for it to be taken as pejorative. I've added a comment making it a bit more explicit. Y'see, this is why I hate this kind of writing. Sooner or later, someone [not directed at you, but just in general] is going to come up with "That's not always true" or "That doesn't mean we're wrong" or so on. How many times do I have to write "These are all generalizations riddled with exceptions, and when I say 'X is Y' that doesn't imply a value judgement" in one essay?! > 6) Remove the ego. IE: "BSD users are a bunch of > elitist self-centered rude snobs." Yup. And proud of > it. " That's supposed to be irony, not ego. Smiley added to clarify. I've always been a bit uncomfortable with that section anyway. How do you prove or disprove a charge of "elitism"? It's either going to be both sides handwaving and saying "It seems to me", or you're going to pull out some kind of bizarre statistic. Pretty icky either way. I've gone through and done some reworking and clarification in it, and added a bit more. > One other thought, how about bumping up the Philosophy > and myths up towards the top and dispel some of the > preconceived notions about BSD. I messed a lot with the ordering of the pieces (the "Design" and "Technical" sections, particularly, flip-flopped at least a half dozen times). I think making those moves (to me) makes it not flow quite as well, since you're trying to understand the really abstract before the concrete. However, it is intentional in my rants that they be at least somewhat random-access. I've written it to be read all the way through, but with an eye toward keeping it usable by picking out pieces. That's one reason I have the indexes everywhere (that, and I *HATE* sites with multi-page articles, that don't provide indexes, or only in special places). It's not perfect, but it gives a little flexibility. > PS: don't forget to mention that their is ~10,000 > prog's in the ports collection. A huge bonus. Well, shoot; I thought I put that in there! I sprinkled a few mentions in the Program Availability myth section; it seems the best place for it to have an impact. > 2) It is very critical of Linux users. > 3) Remove personal bias > 2) It is way too condescending towards Linux and Linux users. > 7) Most important; be objective. This is the hardest one, because so much of its interpretation is subjective. Some parts of the essay WERE, in fact, written after I'd just spent 12 hours wrestling with something that should have taken about 10 minutes, but didn't because of the way the [Linux] system was put together. I hate RPMs (and all binary packages for that matter) with a passion that knows no bounds. I think it's impossible to write anything like this, and avoid making any value judgements anywhere. I try to make it obvious and severable where I AM doing so, and to never do it unwittingly. I went over the whole thing, both piecemeal and as a whole, many times before I stuck it up on the web. However, when you read anything (particularly your own writing) that many times, you get so used to it and so sick of it that you WILL miss those sort of things. With some more distance, I've gone through it again and fiddled with a lot of wording and added some clarifications. I'd appreciate any pointers to specific sections that you still find particularly egregious in those ways. > I applaud your work in the advocacy of *BSD. Please do > not the above statements in a negative way. You do > have great foundation to the site. I like the lay out > and the index. I take it as constructive criticism (which I _hope_ is in the spirit it's intended :). I know a lot about me; particularly, I know that I hate criticism and get very defensive and stubborn about it. I s'pose it's probably some sort of character flaw or something. Still, I try. I hope some of the changes I've made help cover your concerns. Please, if you can, go through it again and see if it works better for you, and if (as above in the 'bias' section) there's anything you could specifically point me at. Thanks loads, guys. -- Matthew Fuller (MF4839) | fullermd@over-yonder.net Systems/Network Administrator | http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/ "The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, is because I haven't figured out how to light the middle yet"
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