Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 17:50:03 -0600 (CST) From: Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com> To: Greg McPherran <sw2@mediaone.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Your Mascot Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0108121742130.73919-100000@ren.sasknow.com> In-Reply-To: <001b01c1233e$46397640$6501a8c0@ne.mediaone.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Greg McPherran wrote to freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG:
> Hello,
>
> I'm Greg McPherran.
>
> I am a software engineer - 17 years.
Forgive me, but the above hyphen makes your statement ambiguous. I do not
want to make an incorrect assumption. Have you been a software engineer
for 17 years, or are you 17 years old? If it is the former, we might be
able to use your help, depending on your experience.
> I'm all for FreeBSD and am considering installing it. I advise you to
> use a different mascot besides the little daemon. It's not good
> marketing.
Why not? Does an innocent little red smiling daemon in running shoes haunt
you in your dreams at night? Obviously, you've never seen that "f----
paperclip" (quoting Microsoft) in Windows! At least ours doesn't pop up
and say "It looks like you're trying to write a shell script". Sheesh.
> Also, you could spif up your web site and really make it fancy. This
> will attract people to FreeBSD.
Perhaps it would. Are you volunteering? FreeBSD is an open-source project
developed and maintained by individuals who want to contribute.
In its current form, www.FreeBSD.org is a useful tool for documentation,
support, and advocacy of FreeBSD. In true UNIX fashion, if the website is
to do one thing, and do it better than anything else, my first choice
wouldn't be for it to look "fancy" (your word).
> As Microsoft knows very well, it's not just the quality of the product
> - it's the presentation. FreeBSD is far superior to Windows in many
> ways. Why not get the attention you deserve by marketing yourselves
> much better?
Indeed. The comparison between Microsoft and FreeBSD is rather stretched,
however, as, for the most part, the respective audiences are markedly
different. This has been covered in many a flame war past, and the jist of
it still echoes on this list: Marketing FreeBSD is inherently different
than marketing Windows.
Case study: We didn't spend inordinate sums of money producing Flash
movies with Gilbert Godfried about the demise of clri when fsck came
along.(1)
"Fancy" web sites do not go a long way to show off FreeBSD's strengths as
an operating system. A large percentage the FreeBSD community is comprised
of dedicated system and network administrators from a wide spread of
industries, including but certainly not limited to telecommunications,
education, manufacturing, and the arts. That is not to say that a "fancy"
web site would not, in some small way, improve the image of FreeBSD. It is
merely not a priority.
> Thank You,
> Greg McPherran
(1) btw, for those that don't know what I'm talking about, do a search on
Microsoft for the demise of Clippy. It doesn't make me want to buy
XP, but it's a gas!
Thanks,
- Ryan
--
Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com>
Network Administrator, Accounts
SaskNow Technologies - http://www.sasknow.com
#106-380 3120 8th St E - Saskatoon, SK - S7H 0W2
Tel: 306-664-3600 Fax: 306-664-1161 Saskatoon
Toll-Free: 877-727-5669 (877-SASKNOW) North America
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.4.21.0108121742130.73919-100000>