Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:12:37 -0500 From: Brandon Gooch <jamesbrandongooch@gmail.com> To: Milo Hyson <milo@cyberlifelabs.com> Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD problems and preliminary ways to solve Message-ID: <CALBk6yLnfo0EXdhXGF011Od%2Ba184eLbCWAwARBsshmY8XSGOmg@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <04EEADEE-380F-48A0-BBBF-1A1673228F90@cyberlifelabs.com> References: <slrnj4oiiq.21rg.vadim_nuclight@kernblitz.nuclight.avtf.net> <705869186.20110819012421@serebryakov.spb.ru> <slrnj4r3rl.2853.vadim_nuclight@kernblitz.nuclight.avtf.net> <alpine.BSF.2.00.1108190911480.93669@fledge.watson.org> <slrnj5atk2.7nm.vadim_nuclight@kernblitz.nuclight.avtf.net> <04EEADEE-380F-48A0-BBBF-1A1673228F90@cyberlifelabs.com>
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On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 9:42 PM, Milo Hyson <milo@cyberlifelabs.com> wrote: > On Aug 24, 2011, at 3:09 PM, Vadim Goncharov wrote: > >>> walking all over the competition. =A0Buzz is a critical part of selling= ideas in >>> open source (for better or worse), and there's no reason we can't play = in that >>> game a bit while maintaining our boring and staid personalities :-). >> >> Sure. And taking surveys into account, we could just simply summarize: >> FreeBSD needs marketing :-) > > That begs the question of to whom FreeBSD should be marketed. Home users?= Small-office admins? Datacenter admins? Embedded developers? > > - Milo Hyson > Chief Scientist > CyberLife Labs, Inc. > FreeBSD should be marketed to DEVELOPERS. Users of all skill levels have needs, wants, and ideas. Developers are the ones who implement these things in code. I think the question is "how do we lure the developers?". FreeBSD is well documented for an open source project. In particular, the Handbook serves as an excellent guide and reference for FreeBSD from an end-user's perspective. But is the documentation for developers as well-structured? I'd like to hear stories from the devs out there in this regard. Perhaps the FreeBSD current developer community (see: decades of experience and knowledge) should focus on the creation (or revision) of solid, comprehensive documentation for developing software in the FreeBSD environment. Even something as simple as this forum post is an awesome place to start: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=3D1566 Maybe a restructuring of the primary FreeBSD website is in order, with an emphasis on marketing to developers, from the fresh (university students) to the seasoned (industry minds involved in company decision-making process). I believe that a beneficial side-effect of being a developer-centric OS will the eventual refinement of FreeBSD as a "first choice" desktop operating system. Seems to me that developers are more likely to use the operating system for day-to-day "desktop" tasks, fixing and adding features they require (eventually moving away from running Mac OS X or some Linux distro on their laptops to running FreeBSD primarily). Eventually, enough development occurs in key areas such as hardware support and features (reliable suspend/resume, Wireless N, KMS/GEM, etc...), that it's feasible to imagine a group spinning their own "distro" -- would that really be so bad? We don't seem to mind the PC-BSD folks, who are doing a fine job as things stand :) Imagine a horde of new college graduates, with FreeBSD under their belts (instead of some Linux distribution), ready to deploy it as soon as they have the chance in their new roles as system administrators and engineers -- sounds great to me. More bodies, more eyes, more minds -- this brings along with it more energy. We should focus on making FreeBSD the most developer-friendly OS out there. -Brandon
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