From owner-freebsd-advocacy Fri Apr 17 02:35:20 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id CAA16060 for freebsd-advocacy-outgoing; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 02:35:20 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gwdu60.gwdg.de (gwdu60.gwdg.de [134.76.10.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA16028 for ; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 09:35:14 GMT (envelope-from kheuer@gwdu60.gwdg.de) Received: from localhost (kheuer@localhost) by gwdu60.gwdg.de (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA21024; Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:34:52 +0200 (CEST) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:34:51 +0200 (CEST) From: Konrad Heuer To: Stefanos Kiakas cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Promoting FreeBSD. In-Reply-To: <9804161814.AA01490@ringworld.uniscape.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Thu, 16 Apr 1998, Stefanos Kiakas wrote: > 1) Create an online magazine dedicated to FreeBSD. This magazine will > a) Feature articles on how FreeBSD is being used in commercial > organizations. > b) Provide a how to section to help beginners and more advanced > users get the most out of FreeBSD. > c) Cover topics of interest to the FreeBSD community. I think that's a good idea. Although my time is also limited I'd try to contribute. > 2) Over the last year we have had opportunities to promote FreeBSD to > our clients, but many of them are scared due to the lack of a GUI to > administer users and the system. We should consider creating GUI tools to > manipulate the underlying text files and allow people to configure the systems > using these tools. Other replies show that the discussion is controverse. To my mind `sysinstall' has the power to become a system administration tool for beginners. Advanced system managers don't need it of course; and the power of a UNIX system compared to NT is actually command line or even batch configuration. On the other hand fellows of mine giving courses about NT administration tell me that today people without much experience want to be or have to be system administrators. To make another point: I am a system administrator in a large computer center and I favorite FreeBSD in the area I'm responsible for (printer and plotter service). Some weeks ago I held a recitation about Linux and FreeBSD and their special advantages and disadvantages (as far as I know them). The outcome for me was: a) People that are interested in UNIX today (may be, only in Germany?) don't know about the large contributions to the system made by the CSRG in Berkeley. Berkeley UNIX doesn't meen much to them. Is there a chance or the necessity (I'm not sure) to pronounce more the quality of the system? b) For many institutions I think - and definitely for us as a computer center open to the internet community - system security is very very important. I believe that FreeBSD is not worse here but if the FreeBSD community could state that FreeBSD is an operating system with high security (knocking out Linux, NT and so on) the number of our FreeBSD boxes would dramatically increase. Once again I'm not sure: How important is system security for the core team? Konrad Heuer // Gesellschaft fuer wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH // Goettingen (GWDG), Am Fassberg, D-37077 Goettingen, Germany // // kheuer@gwdu60.gwdg.de To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message