Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 12:24:38 -0500 (EST) From: Bill/Carolyn Pechter <pechter@shell.monmouth.com> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: On advocating FreeBSD and the Halloween memo... Message-ID: <199811031724.MAA28109@shell.monmouth.com> In-Reply-To: <709.910110116@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Nov 3, 98 08:21:56 am
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> > [ caution - this is a bit long. Lots of points here I've been > wanting to cover for awhile and now seems as good a time as any.. ] > > OK, so we've all seen this latest bit of Linux leaping about and > shouting from the rooftops and some of us have even gone "agh!" and > run around a bit ourselves, but now that we've all hopefully calmed > down again I'd like to say a few words about this and the state of > FreeBSD advocacy in general. Agreed... Actually, the memo was interesting. I'm going to re-edit it to drop the ESR comments and reread it. I want to see the unedited MS comments to judge on its own merits. > > First off, just to cover the Halloween memo in brief, yes it appears > to be genuinely from Microsoft and yes, it appears to be genuinely > full of statements culled from various Linux evangelists who feel no > pangs at making blatantly false pronouncements like "Linux is the only > OS experiencing growth" or "Linux is the only contender for the x86 > platform." These types of statements are pure hooey, of course, and > FreeBSD is currently doing better than it has at any previous point in > its history. Our releases are starting to finally hit their stride, > it seems (and try to remember back to the days when it was more like: > "My god! We did it! A release!"), and our rate of innovation and > self- improvement hasn't been higher since the 2.0 days - it's very > encouraging to see that we can spur ourselves to such heights of > productivity *without* legal injunctions staring us in the face! :-) > Yup.. > Second, we have to keep sight of the fact that none of this is > particularly new or even interesting. We know that Linux is the > current poster child of the press and we also know about the press's > irritating predilection for focusing on one and only one champion > rather than looking more in depth at the situation. We can yell and > scream all we like, but we're not going to change the fact that for > many journalists investigating "Open Source", Linux is the first and > possibly only thing they're going to look at. It simply has the right > sized hype-bubble surrounding it where we do not. So far. Actually, having Linux in the sights of MS keeps them from looking at us... and I think they have much more to worry about from the *BSD community. (Although I feel a unified BSD thrust on installation, SVR4 package support, Unix95 complience would be better, although not too likely. Imagine loading Solaris X86 binaries on FreeBSD, Sun FrameMaker on NetBSD...) > We also have to accept the fact that ISVs are going to target their > products at the much more obvious Linux market and try to strike deals > with it, going "FreeBSD? What's that?" when asked about a native > port. The same goes for investment, selling shares in Red Hat, Inc., > etc. Money always goes after the visible markets first. > > What you have to ask yourselves, looking at the dynamics of this > situation as dispassionately as possible, is whether all of this is > necessarily as bad a thing as some of the gloom-n-doomers would have > us believe. Looking at only the superficial indicators, it's easy to > say that "Linux is winning and we're losing", pointing to the stacks > of Linux books and magazines in the bookstores, the Clinton > transcripts where he mentions Linux, the Goodyear blimp circling > overhead with Linus's smiling face shining from it, etc etc. It's > especially easy to say that when you hold Linux and FreeBSD in your > mind as equivalent products, started at the same time and with the > same overall development mentality. That's the mistake. Linux and FreeBSD didn't start at the same time. Linux started from nothing. *BSD's got over 20 years of history and engineering in it. We SHOULD be proud of this and advertise that. > > The fact of the matter is that Linux and FreeBSD are NOT equivalent > products with identical user and developer communities surrounding > them, however. We've *always* been lower key about things, preferring > to quietly focus on the business of steadily turning out quality > products to only moderate fanfare. It's no use screaming for teams of > FreeBSD fan dancers to come out and start singing the praises of > FreeBSD in full 4-part hyperbole with some grinning, cigar-chomping > promoter standing in the background - that's just not us. The > nay-sayers will also say that "this not being us" will surely be our > downfall since you gotta sing and dance now if you want to be noticed, > but I'm really not so sure about that. To my way of thinking, we have > our style and we have our niche and they're both respectable in their > own way. Not everyone buys toilet paper because a team of singing > rabbits (to paraphrase the great Rod Serling) suggested it on > television, and some people DO react positively to the somewhat less > superficial attributes of quality, consistency and a focus on the > technology rather than on standing in front of the cameras and saying > things like "open source validates the concept of a basic human > sociological tropism towards cooperation and the free and open > exchange of .." to some vapid blond on Technology Week. Well, Eveready's done real well with a bunny and Intel's done well with a guy in a bunny suit. Ah, if I can FreeBSD flamethrower an MS guy in a bunny suit on TV just once 8-). Win95, it needs rebooting and rebooting and rebooting... WinNT, it needs resources and resources and resources... FreeBSD, it keeps running and running and running... > > That kind of approach might also get all the sound bites this week, > but remember the old "15 minutes of fame" effect and the fact that the > press is going to get bored with Linux eventually and go off in search > of other things they don't understand to dissect. When that > inevitably happens, it's going to be back to quality and those groups > who remained true to their basic operating principles and didn't get > sucked in and destroyed by excessive growth or hype. The > opportunities for wandering off and getting lost in the woods in > pursuit of some bright and shiny object have never been higher than > they are now, and somebody's bound to panic and go off and do > something stupid in an effort to differentiate themselves. I don't > think we have any need to panic at all and should simply keep doing > what we're doing and try to do it as best we can. > > I'm not saying that there's no room for improvement, and some > alliances *are* being made with various artist/marketing types whom we > think can help us get the attention we deserve, but it's not the same > as saying that we're going to drop everything and go play Linux's game > now. That would be the wrong move and I can only point to the history > of BSD itself when searching for good examples of technologies which > have remained viable long after "losing" a war to a competitor. BSD > "lost" to SYSV over a decade ago, but did that kill it? Quite > apparently not and it appears to be doing better today than it ever > did even back in its heyday, when it ran on a large collection of > VAXes but hardly any of the commodity (68K) hardware at all (you had > to buy an obscure 32016 based machine if you wanted to run BSD at home :-). > The situation today is vastly improved by comparison and most people > don't even stop to think about that. > It's time to stop worrying about the *BSD vs. SysV history and flame wars. SysV won. They've got the applications we need here commercially (Frame, Acrobat Distiler). I'd put FreeBSD on the desktops for my office in a minute if it could do those things under emulation or otherwise. We (my office and probably most IS driven shops) need Win95's office97 compatible output from a Word Processor and Spreadsheet to make Linux or SCO or Solaris or *BSD my desktop box. Right now I'm recommending Ultra 10's with Insignia's RealPC Pentium emulation. I'm working on crash problems in Win95 with Word, however. > In any case, I didn't mean this posting as a fluffy "we're fine!" > sorta thing, though I do think that people sometimes lose sight of our > own growth rate and notable successes when furrowing their brows over > the latest Linux PR victory, I do have a summary of points I think we > can and should improve: > > 1. Keep pushing the magazine articles out. These seem to be easier for > people than books and I've largely given up on trying to incite a > FreeBSD book to happen - I guess that will just occur in its own > good time. Walnut Creek CDROM is still paying a bounty for magazine > articles (matching funds for your fee) and has enabled more than one > person to buy a new machine for the price of one weekend's writing > for a good cause. Pick a target publication and go for it, folks! > I've done about 3 of these so far (maybe more, I forget :) and can > say that it's not that hard. You generate a simple article outline and > you submit it to the editor along with your proposal for what > you're trying to accomplish with the article (just a paragraph or > two of text, not a thesis). If they're interested, they'll send you > back details on how long they want the article to be (generally > 500-1000 words) and how much they're willing to pay. When they > pay, send us a photocopy/FAX of your royalty check and we'll pay > too. It's that simple, and it good for FreeBSD to appear in print > like this since it reaches outside the somewhat closed audience of > the mailing lists. > > 2. Look at Linux as a door opener, not a threat. I mean this, folks, > even you rabid Linux haters out there. Consider very carefully the > fact that if customer A needs a PC to do server job B, customer A is > going to do one of four things: > > A) Buy NT > B) Buy a commercial Unix > C) Buy Linux > D) Buy *BSD > > Those really are about the only 4 options for building a department > fileserver or gateway box with cheap, commodity hardware (we'll assume > the people who don't want cheap buy Cisco gear, Suns and NetApp filers > anyway) and let's look at them in turn: Having NetApp filers and Suns I'm looking to something as nice and easy to admin and reliable as my FreeBSD stuff for general computing use and desktop use. I think FreeBSD beats Solaris and SunOS hands down for quality. I believe I get better support from FreeBSD mailing lists than ANY vendor out there. The NetApp's fine but limited and I'd love to have a FreeBSD 486 box on my desk instead of an Ultra 10. > > A) If they buy NT, you can pretty much write them off. By the time > they realize what they've gotten themselves into, the investment > (or embarrassment) is generally too great to back out of anyway and > it's actually very few IS shops that seem to claw their way back from > NT and install a free OS instead. Sure, you hear widely trumpeted > stories whenever some large ISP does make it back from NT, but its > very rareness is what makes it something to trumpet about. NT is > Darth Vader here and we must fear his control of the dark side > (marketing) and the fact that "everybody knows NT" when the issue > of personnel comes up with most pointy-haired managers. > > B) Is a much better option since at least the customer has accepted > Unix as their savior and can potentially be won over at > some point by OSS, but the fact that they chose a commercial Unix > probably also means that they have deep-seated needs for tech support > or inter-operability with other parts of the IS shop and you'll probably > have to work on them for awhile to win them over. > > C) Here now we've at least accomplished two things: We've got the > customer admitting that they want Unix and that they want a free Unix. > Furthermore, they've chosen a solution which we think we can beat > in all the taste tests if we can just get the CD in front of their > faces. All in all, this has got to be the easiest conversion of the > three and a definite win if their only other options were A or B. > > D) Yay! Of course we like this one, but if it's not FreeBSD then > we still have a bit of a conversion job to do and it might even require > something like a SPARC port to be able to offer the same cross-platform > inter-operability that the user has chosen the other *BSD for. It's > something to think about, and certainly no better than the Linux > scenario in some ways (again, if you're just thinking about this from > the pure, mercenary "how do we get more FreeBSD users" perspective). > > > 3. Hold your advocacy to a higher standard, and by this I mean that > if we're to weather this whole PR blitz period with our reputation > for being "the calm and level-headed ones" intact, we can't stoop > to the level of some Linux advocates when trying to make short-term > gains against their PR blitzes. Sometimes you just have to be Gandi. Sure. Let's lay out a plan beyond elf migration... Let's figure on having a FreeBSD press blitz in a year with 3.0 really moved to -STABLE and our emulation stuff ready... > > When the press have gone away, believe me, people will remember > which groups stuck to their guns and didn't compromise their > identities or ideals and which went sort of nuts and participated > in a few raping and pillaging sessions. I'd far rather be the > group still standing there when the smoke clears going "Yup, we're > still here and still doing good software without the fanfare or > fancy costumes. Have a look!" OK, when do we go forward. I think it's time to say something like "by June 99 we need Full 100% Linux emulation including /proc and installation tools for rpm's and such" and by December 99we should be beta-ing Solaris x86 and Unixware compatibility (including install capability). > > To put it another way: If FreeBSD were a respected musical > entertainer, I would want her to be the one who stuck to doing > the kind of music she liked and always did it well rather than > horrifying us during the disco years by suddenly putting on spandex > pants and lip-syncing to formulaic, song-factory material or > shrieking out heavy-metal lyrics in heavy makeup with Axel Rose 10 > years later. :-) Sometimes the price of "success" is too high. The point is *BSD is more versatile than a server OS and I don't want to concede the desktops to remain the Apache webserver alone. > > - Jordan > Bill +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Bill and/or Carolyn Pechter | pechter@shell.monmouth.com | | Bill Gates is a Persian cat and a monocle away from being a villain in | | a James Bond movie -- Dennis Miller | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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