Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 18:48:19 -0500 (CDT) From: Jay Nelson <jdn@acp.qiv.com> To: "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net> Cc: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, mike@smith.net.au, dshanes@personalogic.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Fw: Your Article "Freeware: The Heart & Soul of the Internet" Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980409180601.1026A-100000@acp.qiv.com> In-Reply-To: <199804092221.RAA02226@dyson.iquest.net>
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On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, John S. Dyson wrote: [snip] >The problem with FreeBSD, is that people working on FreeBSD are generally >older, and find evangelism to be painful. Also, people using FreeBSD >are busy using it, as opposed to worshipping it. > >How do we (really) deal with this? I suggest we don't evangelize, per se. I agree that most of use are older -- and it appears that most of use deal with real clients in the real world. The cost of an OS is the scheme of the commercial world is not a deciding factor. Support and reliability is a major factor. The reliability is as good or better than many commercial Unices, support is generally better from the standpoint of joe admin, since fixes and notices are available weeks and sometimes months before commercial Unices. The only two critical pieces missing are commercial recognition and visible support. Many of us in the field are already delivering support and we will continue. Visibility, though is another matter. I remember the first issue of the FreeBSD Newsletter and thought it was good. Parts of that could have been rolled into news releases, especially the Yahoo article on page one -- but I didn't see anything show up in the trade rags. And, that's where I think we can make some headway. Most corporate decision makers read the rags -- including Forbes. The rags are constantly whining about NT -- so NT gets the recognition. All the rags get are NT releases. What I suggest is this: First -- Jordan -- since you're the main man in this, put the pencil to the paper and figure out what it would cost to mount a program of professional news releases -- including customer profiles. Look at the number of CD-ROMS sold and divide cost by CDs and add to CD cost. Look at the newsletter and consider subscription. Most of us can afford some extra bucks and would be happy to spend it for the credibility. Think in terms of two to three times per month for the news releases. Second: poll the rest of us for contributions. Many of us are using FreeBSD in production environments. (Yeah, I'll volunteer -- even though I can't write worth a plug nickle.) With Yahoo and cdrom.com, all the ISPs out there and those of us in the commercial world, there _have_ to be some interesting stories. Third: for all of us who never bothered to register (which includes me) lets do it, so there is a reasonably accurate account of installed systems. Statistics don't mean much in the real world, but it's what made NT "great" and will help with the first point. The credibility will do us all a great deal of good. If we want the promotion and credibility though, we have to belly up to the bar and be willing to pay as well as contribute. If we're not willing to do that, we shouldn't be arguing the issue. -- Jay To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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