Date: Thu, 04 Mar 1999 11:28:35 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com>, dyson@iquest.net Cc: chris@netmonger.net, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Guess we've lost the server market too...? Message-ID: <4.1.19990304110928.00ba9b10@localhost> In-Reply-To: <43602.920537678@zippy.cdrom.com> References: <Your message of "Wed, 03 Mar 1999 14:54:24 EST." <199903031954.OAA01376@y.dyson.net>
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Jordan: While I understand that you personally would never want to be what anyone would consider a "rabid" advocate of FreeBSD, any product or project that has any hope of success needs at least some of these. Guy Kawasaki, who more than anyone was responsible for the marketing success of the Macintosh platform, has a lot to say about the importance of having fanatic supporters. If you haven't read his books, you should. Again, any product that doesn't have its share of pull-out-all-the- stops, rabid, wild, total FANATICS as supporters is not only unlikely to succeed but unlikely to be worthwhile at all. This is one of the standard benchmarks for a really good product: if it's worth anything at all, at least SOME people will fall in love with it. I'm not suggesting that YOU be such a fanatic or that you give an unconditional blessing to the actions of such people. But at the same time, as a level-headed proponent of the platform, you must recognize their importance in the larger scheme of things. Your part, as a "voice of reason," is vital, too, but again, it's only one component of the whole picture (just as the marketing types and press relations people are). >Do we need better advocacy? Of course, that's a boolean constant. >Are we making progress with this? Yes. More than ever before, in >fact. I'm not spending this week in San Jose for my health, ya >know. :) Do we need an advocate corps of trolls, flamers and blatant >scam-debate marketslimers on our side to do this? Most definitely >not. Again, Jordan, if you take a level-headed look at the history of successful products and platforms, you can see that fanatics are necessary -- in fact, vital. Linux would be nowhere without them. And the Amiga failed largely because it didn't have enough of them (as well as enough competent press relations people). The "voices of reason" were there, and it wasn't enough. This isn't to say that this contingent should descend to being "trolls, flamers and blatant scam-debate marketslimers." But the fact that people are fanatical DOES attract necessary attention and interest. That's when your cooler-headed group can take over and close the sale. >Remember the old "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" >quote from Vietnam? That's the kind of insane logic trap I think >this discussion's now heading in. The notion that you should discourage fanatacism is EXACTLY that kind of argument. Don't let your personal distaste for doing such activities yourself get in the way of the big picture. FreeBSD *needs* one or two raving loonies and a larger number of very eager boosters who are fanatical to a lesser degree. To restrict promotion of FreeBSD to the kind of advocacy that you PERSONALLY like to do (and are VERY GOOD at doing, I might add) will doom it altogether. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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