Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 17:38:03 -0700 From: Murray Stokely <murray@freebsdmall.com> To: GB <gbrooks@BLUE-MOUSE.COM> Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.org, 'Michael Lucas' <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org> Subject: Re: FreeBSD PR (long, rambling -- bear with me) Message-ID: <20020913173803.B92101@freebsdmall.com> In-Reply-To: <006c01c25b71$9adf6940$6e01a8c0@CITYMOUSE>; from gbrooks@BLUE-MOUSE.COM on Fri, Sep 13, 2002 at 05:04:59PM -0500 References: <20020913143941.A2346@blackhelicopters.org> <006c01c25b71$9adf6940$6e01a8c0@CITYMOUSE>
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On Fri, Sep 13, 2002 at 05:04:59PM -0500, GB wrote: > * Professionally formatted white paper comparing FreeBSD-based solutions > to Windows/Linux in various situations. Have you seen the BSDi/WindRiver whitepapers that cover this? Updating those would be a good place to start. We've handed out many many tens of thousands of those documents over the years. > * FAQs or introductory documents directed at specific groups (again, I > keep thinking of utter newbies, those who've dabbled in Linux and the > I.T. professional, but there are likely other groups as well). In a > perfect world, of course, everyone finds Perfect Wisdom by R-ingTFM -- > but we don't live in a perfect world, so every bit we do to make the > learning curve easier helps make inroads. Our FAQ and Handbook are our introductory documents. The Handbook, in particular, has been simplified a great deal lately to make it more accessible to complete beginners (Randy Pratt's wonderful screenshots to walk the user step by step through installation). Did you have something else in mind? In my view, these are already taken care of, so please let me know if you think these need to be changed or if completely different documents need to be written. > * Some standard press materials/backgrounders that the media could > download, such as: > > -- FreeBSD vs. Linux vs. Windows vs. Mac OS (a one-page table) http://www.FreeBSD.org/~murray/OS.pdf (based on an earlier comparison by Bob Bruce, and with input from the folks on hackers@) FreeBSD Mall, Inc. has handed out tens of thousands of these at tradeshows, along with the whitepapers mentioned above. It needs to be updated a bit. Also, it is far too large for 8.5x11 or A4, we used large glossy prints folded in half. > -- Major sites running FreeBSD Our definitive list is maintained in the Handbook, chapter 1. On my travels through Asia I've learned of a few other big customers that should probably be added to that list. > -- Uptime/reliability stats We need to trumpet the Netcraft Uptime surveys better. My membership to the full Netcraft surveys has lapsed, but the PR person should definitely subscribe to get the full reports. I'm not sure what the cost is. The Foundation and FreeBSD Mall, Inc could probably pay the cost. > Again, this is material that's already out there, but the No. 1 rule > with the press is that reporters like to have things handed to them -- > make it easy to do the research and even easier to write, and you'll > have more press than the competition. Yes, I think we need a new area of the FreeBSD web site dedicated to marketing. Another group of people that should be targetted is hardware vendors. I've been approached in the past by hardware vendors that have had some requests for FreeBSD drivers but they just don't have enough information to make the business case for it. We need to make our marketing area answer those questions. I think the way to start is to collect the relevant information on a third party web site for now. Once the project achieves critical mass, we'll import it to freebsd.org and maintain it from there. - Murray To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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