From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Jul 3 20:59:34 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id UAA05312 for freebsd-advocacy-outgoing; Fri, 3 Jul 1998 20:59:34 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from softweyr.com ([204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA05305 for ; Fri, 3 Jul 1998 20:59:28 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from obie.softweyr.com (zaphod.softweyr.com [204.68.178.35]) by softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) with SMTP id VAA02226; Fri, 3 Jul 1998 21:59:23 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 21:59:23 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199807040359.VAA02226@softweyr.com> Subject: Advocates, speak up! (re: just something to say) From: Wes Peters To: jkb@best.com, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Reply-To: Wes Peters In-Reply-To: References: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-Mailer: BeatWare Mail-It 1.6 (TrialWare) X-BeOS-Platform: Intel or clone Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by hub.freebsd.org id UAA05307 Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG My hidden microphone recorded Jan B. Koum (jkb@best.com) saying: % % Hi all, % % I just wanted to say something here since this list has been quite % lately. Basically, many of you already know this, but anyway. % Whenever I have to convince someone who is not very technical why % they should use FreeBSD, I usually try not to bore them with how great our % vm is, or why is it better to have centralized and hence better controlled % code. I usually tell people something like this: % "Look, here is an example: yahoo. Their stock is skyrocketing and % they are doing excellent. Yes, they are using FreeBSD. They have in house % support for it, but still, they must know what they are doing - their % whole operation is FreeBSD based. Another example is Hotmail. Even though % they got bought by MS, they are still using FreeBSD on the front end to % run their servers since NT couldn't' handle the load. Want another % example? Take a look at Best Internet -- they jut filed for IPO". % Something in the lines of the above paragraph usually gets a % message through to the suits that to have successful company you don't % need NT or Solaris. You just need to have people with a clue. But that is % another subject. Frank Pawlak called me yesterday to chat about what is happening, and what isn't, in FreeBSD-Advocacy. As we talked, we decided success stories like the above are *exactly* what we need to convince business people (i.e. "suits") that FreeBSD is a suitable choice for *their* business. Managers may not be the smartest people in the world -- if they were, they'd be kernel VM developers -- but they are extremely risk averse. In other words, they don't want to stick their necks out. In order for them to say yes to using FreeBSD, they want to see two things: 1) A business case. How will using FreeBSD improve their bottom line, versus say NT or Linux on a server, or Linux, VxWorks, QNX, LynxOS, etc. in an embedded system? 2) A success story (or 20). They want to make sure they're NOT breaking new ground; that is "risk taking," which is severely punished in most (US, at least) companies. Frank and I agreed that an outline for a prototypical success story would be helpful to this group, and an EXAMPLE success story would be even more helpful. Since I volunteered to write one a while ago, he *encouraged* me to get on with it. ;^) I'll be doing that this weekend, as long as my life doesn't intrude. (See below). Please, folks, if you have any contributions to make in this discussion, hop in now. Take the initiative like Frank did - find another Advocate, or someone who should be an Advocate, call him or her on the phone, send direct email. % Anyway, happy 4th to those who celebrate (I don't, I just enjoy % the day off) and lets make some noise on this list. *I* spent the afternoon riding a steam train with my family, including my two-year-old daughter, who walked up and down the train several times going "choo choo choo." She charmed the other passengers nearly as much as she charmed me; they would make whistle sounds "woo woo" as we passed. We also got to meet Karl Malone, of the Utah Jazz NBA (pro basketball) team; he had rented the caboose for a family outing. We learned a bit of American history, too: the rail route for this train, through Provo Canyon in north-central Utah, was first surveyed by the US Army Corps of Engineers as a possible route for the transcontinental railroad in 1839, by a young engineering officer named Jefferson Davis. Mr. Davis was later the first (and only) president of the Confederate States of America, near whose capitol I was born, as was my father and older brother. Happy Birthday, America! -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message