Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 07:32:41 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" <dyson@iquest.net> To: wes@softweyr.com (Wes Peters) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, brett@peloton.physics.montana.edu, brett@lariat.org, jkh@zippy.cdrom.com, advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD emulation for linux Message-ID: <199903251232.HAA00287@y.dyson.net> In-Reply-To: <36F9D424.2397F563@softweyr.com> from Wes Peters at "Mar 24, 99 11:13:56 pm"
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Wes Peters said: > > My posit is that FreeBSD hasn't been marketed at all yet, so we cannot ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > yet tell if it will be successful. The differences between FreeBSD > and OS/2 are so large I don't think there are any lessons to be learned > there at all. > My posit is that what little marketing that it has had, has been almost entirely incompetent. The only successes have been by luck. Hopefully, the new marketing position will give FreeBSD a chance. I was terribly emotionally let-down by those who were trying to "wing-it" outside of their level of competence. I (and others) saw that, and the credibility of FreeBSD has historically suffered because of it. (FreeBSD has succeeded only because of the support of WC Cdrom and technical excellence from technical contributors.) FreeBSD has had quality, forward looking and technology capable developers, but some of those who have *tried* to do marketing were just doing it "wierdly". Remember, Beta was better, and so was OS/2. Appealing to "quality" only works if there is proper marketing and strategic decision making. (It does *seem* that quality hasn't figured into the success formula very significantly, but I don't think that is generally true, but is true for my cited examples.) With real marketing (and not the pervious silly spurts and starts), FreeBSD will have a chance of not being pushed aside. Note that Beta and OS/2 had respectable markets (in absolute numbers), but the relative numbers were sad. The key to FreeBSD's success is for competent marketing to keep the relative numbers high enough, so that 3rd party software will be produced. (Another key, is that there will be enough visibility for it to be a "choice" for more people.) ANY notion that the userbase will keep FreeBSD alive is only circular and wishful reasoning. The userbase will become *relatively* smaller if the reason for choosing the non-default choice (FreeBSD) isn't sufficient. The growth of a userbase beyond a certain point will require more than technical competence. The choice of an adequate marketing person has been needed for a long time, and I wish the best. -- John | Never try to teach a pig to sing, dyson@iquest.net | it makes one look stupid jdyson@nc.com | and it irritates the pig. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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