Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 07:20:25 -0500 From: "Brian J. McGovern" <mcgovern@spoon.beta.com> To: hackers@freebsd.org, julian@whistle.com Subject: Commerical applications (was: Development and validation tools...) Message-ID: <199701161220.HAA03853@spoon.beta.com>
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> Here's a question/idea...if I work for a large company and >want to get the head of IS to look into/appraise the viability of >using FreeBSD over some commercial product, I'd like to be able to >go to him with a proposal that states "Company XYZ is using it for >this/that purpose"...and be able to back it up somehow... > When one goes for a job, one usually puts at the bottom of their >CV "References available upon request"...can we do something like that? > Ie. Julian works for Company XYZ, and has convinced the company >to use FreeBSD. Company XYZ is a very respected company, and they >submit their name as part of a list of references. Then, when requested, >a simple list of 3-5 companies get produced from that list, maybe even >have it so that they are industry-related companies... > Then, go one step further...create a quick WWW form that me, >as an employee can go to and request a list of references that I can >use inside of my proposal. *Most* ppl tend to look at the references, >but never actually call them (don't they?)... > They already have something similar on one of their Web pages. The problems I've seen in every case (Scudder, Stevens and Clark (aka. "Scudder"), Motorola ISG, Concord Communications are the big 3 that I've tried at since FreeBSD became stable) falls in to two categories. The first is man power support. Every one of them tossed the grenade of: If you left, who would support these systems? For some reason, managers failed to believe that if you had worked on *BSD-style systems (including, but not limited to SunOS, AIX, etc), you could make a reasonable conversion. They also seem to believe that once you're doing a job, most people can't learn something new (at least thats what they ALL told me. Go figure). The second came down to direct support. If they lost box X doing critical application Y, they wanted a support contract to have someone there instantly (had I not already been a contractor, I probably would have thought about starting my own business ;) ). I really think what FreeBSD needs right now is a tremendous push in the PR arena. For a lot of Sun-heads (a generic term I use for anyone who won't work on anything less than 'workstation' grade hardware), PC versions of Unix are 'toys', and they're usually the ones you have to fight to get something like this in. Secondly, the concept of "Freeware" scares people off. I know a company (Telebit) that bought BSDI boxes, simply because FreeBSD was Freeware, and BSDI was a commercial product that they could put money down on. They never bothered with a support contract. Anyhow, this isn't the right list for this drivel really, so I'll wipe it up here. I just think if everyone wants a good commercial presence, the following has to get done: 1.) Marketing (specifically to managers/IS) to show that FreeBSD isn't a toy OS. 2.) More people doing commercial support would be cool. But I think even better would be a commercial support listing in the release notes, and a BIG reference on the home page (often, I send potential users the release notes, or send them to the home page). 3.) The 'gurus' of the world have to start dropping it on resume's and such so the management of the world realize its a supportable product. 4.) We have to take a bat to every trade rag that says Unix is dead :) JMHO :) -Brian
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