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Date:      Wed, 14 Apr 1999 10:39:04 -0700
From:      "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com>
To:        paul@originative.co.uk
Cc:        advocacy@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: More of my totally ineffective PR efforts in action. :-) 
Message-ID:  <10884.924111544@zippy.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 14 Apr 1999 17:09:02 BST." <A6D02246E1ABD2119F5200C0F0303D10FEC4@octopus> 

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> I don't think we should pigeon-hole ourselves as a server only OS. With the
> performance of hardware these days the distinction is not very distinct.

I certainly don't object to the idea of making ourselves a better
desktop platform, if only because a lot of us still use FreeBSD as our
principal desktop box, but I still don't think it should be our primary
focus.  We simply don't have the resources to focus on multiple targets
and I really, honestly, don't think there's a lot of future in the
desktop for us anyway, at least certainly not as a major selling point.
The server is what we do best and we need to focus on our strengths if
we have any chance of carving out a solid niche for ourselves.

Consider also the rather formidable competition we have in the desktop
arena.  We have Microsoft, obviously, along with Linux and BeOS, the
latter offering significantly better multimedia/desktop capabilities
than any of the others and promising to be a real bear to compete with
once it matures.  It may be considered sexy in some circles to play
Iraq and martyr yourself against a set of far stronger foes, but
that's just not my cup of tea.  We already have a very good story to
tell on the server side, along with some great customer testimonials
(nobody has ever said FreeBSD was an awesome desktop, at least not in
print :), and we need to play to our strengths and run with that.

Let's not divide and conquer ourselves by attempting to be everything
to everyone - that approach is one which, historically, has simply
never worked.

- Jordan


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