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Date:      Fri, 11 Apr 1997 09:41:15 -0400
From:      dennis <dennis@etinc.com>
To:        chris@acme1.ruhr.de, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Cc:        haas@lion.de
Subject:   Re: Commercial vendors registry
Message-ID:  <3.0.32.19970411094113.00691d28@etinc.com>

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At 01:27 PM 4/11/97 +0200, Christoph Haas wrote:
>Hi,
>
>a few days ago I saw a little discussion in one of the lists about a 
>"commercial vendors registry", and I saw Jordan saying that he would like 
>some kind of "registration desk" for 3rd party developers. So I decided
>to set up a registry, but before I do the whole work I just wanted you to
>know about my ideas (and of course I want to hear what you think about
>it). So come on and share your thoughts about it with me...
>
>
>Commercial Vendors Registry
>
>1. It would be useful to have a few webpages with information for vendors
>to read about news and ongoing changes to FreeBSD. 
>
>1.1 Vendors should also have a chance to register themselves, so that
>they get news and information about certain changes by mail. On this
>registration page vendors should be able to provide all the facts and 
>features they think necessary for us to know.
>
>[excerpt of an example page]
>
>Name:
>E-mail address:
>Position:
>Company Name:
>Postal Address:
>Phone / Fax:
>
>Product's name:
>Description:
>Http-link:
>
>[to be continued, your suggestions here]
>
>1.2 Additionally they should provide us with a few things we need to know
>about their product by checkmarking the parts of FreeBSD that are
>important to them:
>
>[excerpt of an example page]
>
>Our product relies on:
>
>[] Kernel
>	[] Filesystems
>		[] UFS
>		[] NFS
>		...
>	[] VM Support
>	[] SMP
>	[] Drivers
>		[] Network
>		[] SCSI
>		...
>	...
>
>[] Userland
>	[] X11
>	[] Backup [tar, dump, ...]
>	[] ...
>	...
>
>[to be continued... ;-]
>
>So we get a chance to inform registered vendors about major changes in
>those parts of FreeBSD that are important to them (let's call it "early
>notification program"). 
> 
>2. We need a place on our webserver to give every vendor a chance to
>present his product. (Yes, I know allready have a place for that, but I
>think it needs to be brushed up).
>
>3. There should be a single e-mail address for questions coming in from
>commercial vendors (something like commerce@freebsd.org). 3rd party
>developers should have a chance to get in contact with us and tell us
>about their needs, problems and (most important ;-) success stories.
>This address should also be used as some kind of "complain department",
>so that we can redirect problems with certain parts of FreeBSD to the
>responsible developer (remember: not everyone is subscribed to all
>mailing lists).
>
>So, what do you think about it ??
>
>	Christoph

I think that any vendor who does not have a developer on the hackers list
isn't
committed enough to recognize...... The hackers list is the best registry you
can have, and although there is a lot of irrelevant banter (as there is on 
any list), it gives a philosophical understanding of what is going on rather
that just snippets of effectual data.

Checklists are almost always inadequate, although I suppose required for
any automated attempt at implementing such a scenario. I don't know how
you would implement "kernel", as I cant imagine that you could quantify
the impact of a seemingly trivial kernel change on any particular product.

I would suggest that you encourage vendors to participate in freebsd's future
rather than just read about it. The hackers list is the best registry you
could
have, and although there is some irrelevant banter as there is on any list,
it provides a philosophical insight to the development of FreeBSD rather than
just snippets of data.

Dennis



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