Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 10:58:21 +0000 From: Scott Mitchell <scott@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>, Licia <licia@o-o.org>, "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@u.washington.edu> Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Let's nail some things down. Message-ID: <19981029105821.G9354@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> In-Reply-To: <19981029204848.W25247@freebie.lemis.com>; from Greg Lehey on Thu, Oct 29, 1998 at 08:48:48PM %2B1030 References: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9810281808020.7221-100000@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu> <Pine.BSF.3.96.981028205707.13136A-100000@o-o> <19981029161049.Q25247@freebie.lemis.com> <19981029100843.F9354@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> <19981029204848.W25247@freebie.lemis.com>
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On Thu, Oct 29, 1998 at 08:48:48PM +1030, Greg Lehey wrote: > On Thursday, 29 October 1998 at 10:08:43 +0000, Scott Mitchell wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 29, 1998 at 04:10:49PM +1030, Greg Lehey wrote: > >> On Wednesday, 28 October 1998 at 21:00:15 -0600, Licia wrote: > >>> On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Jason C. Wells wrote: > >>>> On Thu, 29 Oct 1998, Greg Lehey wrote: > >>>>> It's too early to cast them in stone. In addition, we haven't looked > >>>>> at the third category, the "not FreeBSD, but vendor supplies > >>>>> installation aids for FreeBSD users". > >>>> > >>>> If the vendor built binaries for us and provides the install aids,then my > >>>> vote is that that is still "Designed for". > >>>> > >>>> Now that you have mentioned it. Perhaps "Designed for" is a bit > >>>> presumptuous. Any better ideas? > >>>> > >>>> "FreeBSD Native" is good but perhaps nerdy. > >>> > >>> Perhaps to cover all three major cases, there could be three labels? > >>> > >>> FreeBSD Native : runs without emulation > >>> FreeBSD Compatible : runs with emulation, no or trivial effort needed > >>> FreeBSD Adaptible : runs with emulation, non trivial work needed > >> > >> A good start. At least the categories are easy to understand. We > >> need to consider whether the words "native", "compatible" and > >> "adaptable" create the same impression on a potential buyer as they do > >> on us. Any other ideas? > > > > Sorry to step into this so late, but: I think anyone seeing one of these > > logos on a box in a store probably isn't going to know or care about the > > difference between 'native', 'compatible' and 'adaptable'. They want to > > know that it will run on their machine without any major screwing > > around. > > Agreed. This suggests that the base logo should look the > same for all three (two?) classes of certification. > > > I agree that there should be a separate higher level of certification for > > vendors who bother to produce a FreeBSD-native version, but if something > > requires more than (maybe) downloading a port to get it working, then does > > it really deserve to be certified? > > Yes. There aren't that many commercial products that work with > FreeBSD. We want to have them all. But you're right, it doesn't > deserve to be certified to the same level as those that work out of > the box. > > For example, I'm currently looking for a scanner. You can buy > scanners for almost nothing nowadays, but do they work with FreeBSD? > If I don't have much money, I may prefer to buy one for $50 less and > download the port. What I want to know is whether the &(*&^*^Y*& will > work at all. > > > I suspect (although maybe I'm being unfair) that the kind of person > > who cares about "Works with..." logos isn't the type to spend hours > > fiddling around just to get a piece of software installed. > > There are lots of different people who care about these logos, > including myself. I don't think you should jump to conclusions about > their technical expertise or interest. Point taken. However, I wouldn't want someone with a lot less technical expertise than you and me to buy something on the strength of a FreeBSD certification only to discover that they had to spend hours/days/weeks downloading and configuring other bits of software before they could get it to work. For this reason I think the 'works with a lot of effort' category needs to be very clearly differentiated from the other two, if it exists at all. The credibility of any certification programme won't be enhanced if we go slapping logos all over products that require an inordinate amount of effort to install. If there's a port to automate it all, then great, otherwise you may be in for a nasty surprise when you get the box home. Please understand that I'm entirely in favour of a 'works with FreeBSD' programme -- just don't dilute its' worth by overdoing it! Scott -- =========================================================================== Scott Mitchell | PGP Key ID |"If I can't have my coffee, I'm just <scott@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> | 0x54B171B9 | like a dried up piece of roast goat" QMW College, London, UK | 0xAA775B8B | -- J. S. Bach. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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