From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jul 22 18:09:22 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3A88116A4EE for ; Sat, 22 Jul 2006 18:09:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@hub.org) Received: from hub.org (hub.org [200.46.204.220]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B960B43D46 for ; Sat, 22 Jul 2006 18:09:21 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd@hub.org) Received: from localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.208.251]) by hub.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 593C6290C6D for ; Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:09:19 -0300 (ADT) Received: from hub.org ([200.46.204.220]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.208.251]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 88754-09 for ; Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:09:20 -0300 (ADT) Received: from ganymede.hub.org (blk-224-179-167.eastlink.ca [24.224.179.167]) by hub.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B8727290C46 for ; Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:09:18 -0300 (ADT) Received: by ganymede.hub.org (Postfix, from userid 1027) id A148B5D156; Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:09:20 -0300 (ADT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ganymede.hub.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9CB795C1DA for ; Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:09:20 -0300 (ADT) Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:09:20 -0300 (ADT) From: User Freebsd To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20060722145621.A1799@ganymede.hub.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Subject: What I would like to see, or "How many FreeBSD boxen are out there?" X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 18:09:22 -0000 On various lists, including this one, there is talk about how to we make hardware vendors sit up and take more notice of us ... alot of the negative responses back seem to be 'we are too small of a group', but, of couse, nobody out there can really give any even *reasonable* numbers of desktops and servers deployed with FreeBSD ... What I'd love to see is a *project initiated* (or FreeBSD Foundation) FreeBSD reporting mechanism similar to: http://www.mreriksson.net/uptimes/myuptimes Something just for FreeBSD users (well, all *BSD users should be invited) ... uptime not being the really big thing here, but stuff like version of FreeBSD being run, country being run in, maybe have it part dmesg on startup and report devices in use, etc ... Come up with reports like # of hosts using fxp vs em devices, etc ... although it may be a bit more difficult, I don't know, but report on specific hardware being used ... Statistics that either Core, or the FreeBSD Foundation, can use to show vendors they are talking to about what is currently in use ... but also to show developers themselves what device drivers are actually in use, that sort of thing ... Nothing that I'd think would be 'sensitive information', but information that would be useful from either a marketing, or support, point of view ... And market / promote it ... Basically, unless I'm mistaken, right now we have *nothing* to base numbers on, except maybe the netcraft report(s)? ... but, that only includes hosts running web servers ... how many are running firewalls? desktops? mail servers? etc ... We need to show vendors we aren't some "hobbiest group", and towards that end, producing some sort of up to date #s would really help, I would think ... show them we are a market worth looking at ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email . scrappy@hub.org MSN . scrappy@hub.org Yahoo . yscrappy Skype: hub.org ICQ . 7615664