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Date:      Wed, 05 May 1999 18:24:48 -0400 (EDT)
From:      John Baldwin <jobaldwi@vt.edu>
To:        Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
Cc:        FreeBSD Advocacy <advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai <asmodai@wxs.nl>
Subject:   Re: PCWeek article by Anne Chen -- Comments
Message-ID:  <XFMail.990505182448.jobaldwi@vt.edu>
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.37.19990505141353.0468d2a0@localhost>

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On 05-May-99 Brett Glass wrote:
> Those who are fostering awareness and encouraging change ARE contributing.
> Coding is only one way to contribute, and at this point it is not even
> the most important way. Gain more mindshare and a devoted following, and
> the coders will follow.

I agree.  As I've said a couple of times now, the CS department here at Va Tech
is considering switching from FreeBSD to Linux.  All of the technical staff in
the department support FreeBSD, but some of the professors don't use that to
make their decisions.  They decide based on what they read in PC Magazine over
breakfast.  They are looking specifically for FreeBSD in a shrink-wrapped
boxes, or books on FreeBSD.  They would love to see "Mastering FreeBSD",
"FreeBSD Unleashed!", "FreeBSD for Dummies", etc.  They are trying to satisfy
employer's wants, and right now they see more companies going for Linux than
FreeBSD.  Technical merits such as a unified kernel and userland, central
source repository, and the ports system can only get us so far.  We each have
to advocate in as many different ways as we can.  And as Brett has said,
marketing and coding are two different things and not people are good at one
are good at the other.  I'm a sys admin/coder who aspires to being a kernel
hacker someday.  Marketing is not my strength, so while I'll do what I can,
some people are going to promote FreeBSD differently and in some ways more
effectively than I do.

> --Brett Glass

---

John Baldwin <jobaldwi@vt.edu> -- http://members.freedomnet.com/~jbaldwin/
PGP Key: http://members.freedomnet.com/~jbaldwin/pgpkey.asc
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!"  -  http://www.freebsd.org


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