From owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Feb 15 20:38:52 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0E14916A4CE for ; Tue, 15 Feb 2005 20:38:52 +0000 (GMT) Received: from antivirus2.tbc.net (antivirus2.tbc.net [207.112.224.207]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A4D8743D4C for ; Tue, 15 Feb 2005 20:38:51 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from harrison@tbc.net) Received: from [209.100.183.159] (adsl-183-159.tbcnet.com [209.100.183.159]) by antivirus2.tbc.net (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id j1FKcmGs028360 for ; Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:38:48 -0600 Message-ID: <42125E71.30804@tbc.net> Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 14:41:21 -0600 From: Shawn Harrison User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS - amavis-milter (http://www.amavis.org/) Subject: Assuming We Want FreeBSD to Grow: Who Is It For? X-BeenThere: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org List-Id: FreeBSD Evangelism List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 20:38:52 -0000 So, we want lots of people to adopt FreeBSD. Who are they? If the primary use of FreeBSD is for servers, then anyone who runs a server is our target. I know most of the talk recently has been about big businesses and people who spend tens of thousands of dollars on hardware. Yes, it includes them. It also includes Joe Family Man or Jane Small Business who wants to set up a website. Sure it does. Why should Joe and Jane pay $35 a month (or even $10) for dippy Windows web hosting when they can use the DSL or cable account they already have, and the "obsolete" computer from two years ago, to run a top-notch web server using FreeBSD? Just think, they get a local network file and print server out of the deal. I know it's probably too hard for them to do that currently, but that is just a detail that can be solved with writing documents and scripts. There is no reason such people should not be attracted to FreeBSD to do those things. In fact, there are lot's of reasons they _should_ be attracted: - Stability - Security - Simplicity (easiest Unix install I've ever done, very well-designed filesystem, etc.) - Speed (well, in 4.11 anyway....) - inexpenSiveness (using hardware they probably already have or can get on the cheap from the dustbin at work). It's easy to underestimate the numbers of such people. In every community, there is a significant percentage of technically "aware" people who would be interested in trying something like the above scenario, especially if they understood the results that they could get. I know a bunch of people who have tried setting up their own (Linux) boxen, with varying success or (more commonly) failure. How do we communicate with those people (1) what they can do and (2) how they can do it (3) and how it will be better in FreeBSD? If servers are primary, perhaps a secondary use of FreeBSD is the desktop. Well, yes it is. We have X in the ports tree, and a couple of different canned installation options right in sysinstall that will give you an X desktop right off the bat. So it's part of the system, whether you agree that it should be emphasized or not. Perhaps Joe Family Man or Jane Small Business, or even Mr. I. M. InfoTech Manager ("That's IM^2 to you!") will install a FreeBSD server for some purpose, only to discover the desktop and try it out. (I have my computer-illiterate wife and nine-year-old daughter using KDE on FreeBSD, and they're both very happy with it -- much more than with Windows 98. My wife can finally build her website simply by saving files, and my daughter can play Mr. Potato-head and draw pictures. So they're both happy. And I'm happy having that same box serving web pages, a database, and mail for my family.) There is no inherent conflict between growth in the desktop and the quality of the server codebase. There are different kinds of programmers as well as different kinds of people in general, and different programming problems are interesting to different people. If FreeBSD doesn't welcome people who are interested in working on desktop issues or device drivers for consumer scanners, those people aren't going to take their efforts to working on the kernel. They really want a device driver for that scanner, or a GUI console for printing. They'll take their efforts to Debian* where they'll get some recognition and support. (* I'm just pulling out the name of a Linux distro that has an open and well-developed community structure. I don't know much about the actual details of the Debian project, _except_ that they have a well-developed governance structure, and they seem to have divided up the responsibility / recognition / authority among various groups according to ability and interest. It seems that the most successful open-source projects are those that do something like this. Perhaps it's time for FreeBSD to go through those growing pains as well.) Shawn Harrison