Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 08:42:54 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Scott Mitchell <scott@dcs.qmw.ac.uk>, Licia <licia@o-o.org>, "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@u.washington.edu> Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Let's nail some things down. Message-ID: <19981030084254.Y25247@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <19981029105821.G9354@dcs.qmw.ac.uk>; from Scott Mitchell on Thu, Oct 29, 1998 at 10:58:21AM %2B0000 References: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9810281808020.7221-100000@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu> <Pine.BSF.3.96.981028205707.13136A-100000@o-o> <19981029161049.Q25247@freebie.lemis.com> <19981029100843.F9354@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> <19981029204848.W25247@freebie.lemis.com> <19981029105821.G9354@dcs.qmw.ac.uk>
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On Thursday, 29 October 1998 at 10:58:21 +0000, Scott Mitchell wrote: > On Thu, Oct 29, 1998 at 08:48:48PM +1030, Greg Lehey wrote: >> On Thursday, 29 October 1998 at 10:08:43 +0000, Scott Mitchell wrote: >>> I suspect (although maybe I'm being unfair) that the kind of person >>> who cares about "Works with..." logos isn't the type to spend hours >>> fiddling around just to get a piece of software installed. >> >> There are lots of different people who care about these logos, >> including myself. I don't think you should jump to conclusions about >> their technical expertise or interest. > > Point taken. However, I wouldn't want someone with a lot less technical > expertise than you and me to buy something on the strength of a FreeBSD > certification only to discover that they had to spend hours/days/weeks > downloading and configuring other bits of software before they could get it > to work. For this reason I think the 'works with a lot of effort' category > needs to be very clearly differentiated from the other two, if it exists at > all. Hmm. I suppose this really translates to a question: how much work should we expect purchasers to perform in order to get the product to run. Theoretically any Windoze program will run; we just need to fix Wine or write our own Windoze emulator. In practice, I was thinking of things like "this product doesn't contain FreeBSD specific installation aids, and you're going to have to do it manually". Somewhere between lies the border between "adaptable" and "no go". > The credibility of any certification programme won't be enhanced if we go > slapping logos all over products that require an inordinate amount of > effort to install. If there's a port to automate it all, then great, > otherwise you may be in for a nasty surprise when you get the box home. > > Please understand that I'm entirely in favour of a 'works with FreeBSD' > programme -- just don't dilute its' worth by overdoing it! Agreed. Comments, you others? Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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