Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 17:21:28 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net> To: brett@lariat.org (Brett Glass) Cc: mike@smith.net.au, dshanes@personalogic.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Fw: Your Article "Freeware: The Heart & Soul of the Internet" Message-ID: <199804092221.RAA02226@dyson.iquest.net> In-Reply-To: <199804092140.PAA04541@lariat.lariat.org> from Brett Glass at "Apr 9, 98 03:40:47 pm"
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> > As an industry and trend watcher, I have a compelling sense that the > next few months will represent an "inflection point" -- that is, a > period during which a major change in attitude and direction will be > felt in the computer industry. Freely redistributable operating systems > will suddenly acquire serious credibility and will no longer be able to > be ignored by the mainstream media nor by developers. However, as the > rise of Microsoft has shown, most users will fail to investigate > alternatives and will adopt only those products with the largest installed > base and the most press coverage. Thus, FreeBSD stands to suffer as much > as to gain from the paradigm shift. > I agree especially with your last statement. > > If there is not an exceedingly strong effort to promote FreeBSD as superior > to Linux, Linux -- which has a larger installed base -- will be catapulted > to a dominant position while FreeBSD will see no noticeable increase in > its user base or its popularity. FreeBSD needs to have a few "zealots" and > "evangelists" -- just as Linux does -- to stubbornly insist that > FreeBSD be included in every forum where Linux is discussed. It also needs > some calmer proponents to take up the slack. Perhaps a new slot on the > core team -- "Chief Evangelist" -- is in order. > The problem with FreeBSD, is that people working on FreeBSD are generally older, and find evangelism to be painful. Also, people using FreeBSD are busy using it, as opposed to worshipping it. How do we (really) deal with this? John To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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