Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 18:34:27 +1000 (EST) From: David Leonard <d@fnarg.net.au> To: advocacy@openbsd.org Cc: netbsd-advocacy@NetBSD.ORG, FreeBSD-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Merging Net/Free/Open-BSD together against Linux Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.02.9812051713130.6216-100000@syncope.dl.fnarg.net.au> In-Reply-To: <19981201035928.25921.qmail@measles.ecst.csuchico.edu>
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So far this thread has discussed - technical changes - licensing changes and - organisational/leadership changes There have also been implications that we are fighting for recognition against: - Linux - Microsoft Yet I have not seen anything yet that addresses the _immediate visibility_ of the *BSD camps. So, here is my AUS$0.05: It is pretty easy to start naively creating web sites and documentation merges for a '*BSD' site - in order to present the one-stop BSD shop. DaemonNews' success is true inspiration for starting such an activity. It is also straightforward to naively create mailing lists, newsgroups, and icb/irc/icq channels for a *BSD. However these would probably fail because in such fora, user-talk cannot be separated from developer-talk and surfacing distinctions between the three BSDs will again cause natural bifurcation. The only counter for this that I can think of is total mind control stemming from (i) strong leadership (ii) a common enemy/s or (iii) inherently perfect direction/ideology. So we see that user-contribution is perhaps the most important dynamic of any of the BSDs, as it is also the most important catalyst for divergence. So I strongly believe that it would be impossible to recombine the three camps insofar as their dynamic elements are concerned. There is also the great dialectic (trialectic?) currently achieved by the three camps by way of implementation osmosis which I would rather not see hindered. However, returning to the immediate visibility point, we really should concentrate on unified, published, stable artefacts in order to project a consitent and palatable image to the vast unwashed masses. Maybe this means having a www.bsd.org with a unified documentation tree employing apache magic to show the docs for a particular OS based on cookies or whatever!? jkh's multiple PR phone calls are good; more feeding of the press is good - but all in a *BSD-unified fashion. Projecting only a single-camp's image into the media will serve only to confuse the poor (BSD-poor) reader. SUGGESTION: In all future propaganda from all camps, some phrasing to describe the collective *BSD should be foremost. I already contribute to daemonnews and find it very rewarding blending openbsd's perspective into the freebsd+netbsd answerman files. The similarities in the codebases and the ingrained shared isms from traditional BSD are things that we can hang onto. It isn't as distasteful as you may (or may not) imagine. So I say: keep the diversity! Things are going great technology wise! But form a _unified public image_, because things aren't going great on the mindshare front. The word Linux is on people's lips. BSD isn't. Already we've seen people *on this thread* slip up about whether or not it was freebsd or netbsd that had an arm port or something. This is not a good sign. Long live *BSD. d PS: if after s/BSD/Unix/ has anyone mentioned posix yet? What about unix guru universe? what did they achieve? do we actually have critical mass? -- David Leonard David.Leonard@csee.uq.edu.au Dept of Comp. Sci. and Elec. Engg _ Ph:+61 7 3207 5332 (AH) The University of Queensland |+| http://www.csee.uq.edu.au/~leonard/ QLD 4072 AUSTRALIA ~` '~ E2A24DC6446E5779D7AFC41AA04E6401 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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