From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jan 25 14:01:32 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8549516A4CE for ; Sun, 25 Jan 2004 14:01:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from 82-41-27-158.cable.ubr04.edin.blueyonder.co.uk (82-41-27-158.cable.ubr04.edin.blueyonder.co.uk [82.41.27.158]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 86C4043D1D for ; Sun, 25 Jan 2004 14:01:28 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from andrew@cream.org) Received: from cream.org (spatula.flat [192.168.0.2]) by myriad.flat (Postfix) with ESMTP id 27089BA; Sun, 25 Jan 2004 20:53:25 +0000 (GMT) Message-ID: <40143CC3.6010709@cream.org> Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:01:39 +0000 From: Andrew Boothman User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.6b) Gecko/20031205 Thunderbird/0.4 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Kris Kennaway References: <4013EA9D.6040808@cream.org> <20040125134151.M52260@mail.tacorp.net> <20040125185753.GA12995@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk> <40141B3D.9070901@cream.org> <20040125194721.GA28036@xor.obsecurity.org> In-Reply-To: <20040125194721.GA28036@xor.obsecurity.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Less messages to FreeBSD.org lists X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:01:32 -0000 Kris Kennaway wrote: > On Sun, Jan 25, 2004 at 07:38:37PM +0000, Andrew Boothman wrote: > > >>Agreed, but it would seem surprising to me that FreeBSD's installed base >>is growing and mailing list traffic isn't. We have no method for >>estimating the number of installed FreeBSD boxes, but I would have >>thought that mailing list traffic was quite a good indicator. > > > Statistics are available and have been posted from time to time in the > past. CD sales, FTP downloads, website traffic from FreeBSD clients, > Netcraft webserver counts, etc. I don't recall any other indications > of shrinking user base (on the contrary, my memory is that they > support robust growth). I'm glad if that's the case. I don't feel that FreeBSD constantly chases market share in the same way that a certain penguin-oriented OS does, but no one would be happy to hear that we had a decreasing user base. >>Perhaps we're just so good and documenting now, that nobody needs to ask >>a question? ;) > > > Don't underestimate that possibility. A hell of a lot of work has > gone into improving the documentation, and a lot of mailing list > traffic is in the category of newbie questions that are answered in > the documentation. FreeBSD does have excellent documentation, I always kick myself when I work something out on my own and then realise a few days later that it was all laid out in the handbook for me. Perhaps this does adequately explain decreasing list traffic... Andrew