Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 05:38:05 -0800 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: "Brian J. McGovern" <mcgovern@spoon.beta.com> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org, julian@whistle.com Subject: Re: Commerical applications (was: Development and validation tools...) Message-ID: <26206.853421885@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 16 Jan 1997 07:20:25 EST." <199701161220.HAA03853@spoon.beta.com>
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> I really think what FreeBSD needs right now is a tremendous push in the PR > arena. For a lot of Sun-heads (a generic term I use for anyone who won't Absolutely! Not enough FreeBSD users are willing to write about their experiences with the OS, and Unix Review, Unix World, Dr. Dobbs Journal and ;Login would *love* to have articles of that nature submitted. In the last ;Login issue was, in fact, an editorial bemoaning the fact that the readership just didn't seem to be into providing good articles anymore, and maybe it was time for USENIX to stop publishing the newsletter if its readers weren't going to avail themselves of it. So I guess the point I'm making is this: You walk into any technical bookstore on the planet, it seems, and you've got your Linux books fairly leaping off the shelves, pictures of Linus on the front cover of Time Magazine, 10-foot tall penguins pointing you at stacks of Linux "Internet Starter Kits", you name it. How did this happen? Who wrote all these goddamn books and magazine articles? The users did, that's who. To be sure, one or more of us core team members will eventually have books of our own in those bookstores as well as occasional magazine articles in the UNIX press, and it's definitely necessary that we try to set good examples for constructive evangelism, but still - we can hardly have a PR stampede just by ourselves. :-) We need more user participation, more people out shaking the bushes and organizing user group meetings. It's not hard! Hell, in most cases you can just go speak at some existing local PC users group meeting and get the 4 or 5 UNIX enthusiasts who are there to talk to you after the meeting. Tada! You now have the nucleus for a local UNIX user's group! :) There are also high schools and colleges who'd love to have someone come by and explain FreeBSD to them, and I always make a point of dropping by the local CS department with a stack of CDs if I'm ever in a new town with a good-sized college or university. It wins converts. "Oh sure," you say. "That's easy for you to do when you can play Johnny Appleseed* with free promo CDs!" Not a problem. If you spot a good opportunity to get FreeBSD started at a local campus or research center, just drop me an email with address info, desired quantities and contact information (who the CDs go to) and I'll do the rest - all you need to do is identify the opportunity. Magazine articles are also an excellent way of reaching a large audience and some FreeBSD users have already done some pretty impressive FreeBSD features for national magazines (like Tatsumi Hosokawa, who got what looks to be most of the November 1996 issue of UNIX User/Japan devoted to FreeBSD related material - way to go Tatsumi! :-). This is good! Keep doing a lot more of that, guys, and we won't have a thing to worry about! :-) Jordan
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