Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 21:07:05 -0800 From: Rich Morin <rdm@cfcl.com> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: so where is our press-release about MacOS X ? Message-ID: <p0500194fb6e31ee8ec46@[192.168.168.205]> In-Reply-To: <20010324144211I.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> References: <20010324111332F.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> <20228.985463006@critter> <20010324144211I.jkh@osd.bsdi.com>
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As a part-time journalist, I receive a fair number of press releases. Most get tossed, unopened, in an effort to simplify my life. When I do open a release, it all too frequently contains news of some VP of paper clips who has gotten promoted to Senior VP of office supplies. I have considered writing a form letter to send back to these folks, but it has never seemed to be worth the trouble. In short, I'm not too keen on press releases. I do think some kinds of PR materials are worthwhile, however. For instance, if I am trying to write a column on a topic, it's great to have a clearly-written white paper that tells me more than I can put into the article (but enough that I don't say silly things in trying to boil the topic down for the reader). I tend to find these gems by means of a web search and may follow them up by contacting the author(s) and/or PR contacts that are listed therein. All of which leads me to believe that FreeBSD might benefit from a web-based collection of white papers and other press resources. I don't know who is going to write these, but pulling a few documents (or links to documents) together onto a page might be a good start. Another useful PR technique involves writing articles and getting them published. The press needs a continuous stream of articles to keep the ads from slamming together. If you have the ability to do an authoritative and readable article on a topic of interest, you'll have no problem getting it published! MacTech, for instance, likes to get technical pieces on Macintosh- related topics; what about a critique of the Mac OS X kernel (including sections on the I/O Kit and the Mach subsystem) by someone who actually understands what's different from vanilla FreeBSD? Or, at a slightly higher level, an article could discuss how Apple used pieces of NetBSD and FreeBSD, including their reasons for using which pieces where. Ideally, an engineer from Apple should write this piece, but they're unlikely to have the time. OTOH, getting an Apple engineer to review something should be quite possible. Before anyone asks whether I'm volunteering to write pieces of this sort, I'll state that I fully intend to write some Mac OS X material, but I may not be in a position to write certain pieces, simply because I don't have the necessary background. In any case, we need LOTS of articles and I can only write so much on any topic without starting to repeat myself. Getting back to the press release notion, I do have a suggestion. The "FreeBSD in the Press" page (http://www.freebsd.org/news/press.html) is a great starting point for a "press contacts" list. If someone in the FreeBSD community (and/or BSDi) wants to start feeding material to the press, consider contacting these authors and asking them how the FreeBSD Project can help them write more pieces! -r -- http://www.cfcl.com/rdm - home page, resume, etc. http://www.cfcl.com/Meta/md_fb.html - The FreeBSD Browser email: rdm@cfcl.com; phone: +1 650-873-7841 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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