Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 08:28:09 -0700 From: John Armstrong <siberian@siberian.org> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Question about the mascot Message-ID: <v0421014fb3d9e91c182f@[216.112.76.84]> In-Reply-To: <199908131516.AA025387378@broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu> References: <199908131516.AA025387378@broccoli.graphics.cornell.edu>
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Hey folks- Any chance of taking this to -advocacy, -chat or to personal email? Its really off topic for -questions. freebsd-advocacy strikes me as particularly relevant and there are a ton of people there who love to work on these sorts of issues. I'd even say that on -advocacy you are talking to a group who is very interested in the subject _and_ in a position to do something about it if need be. -questions doesn't really have the contextual advantage or 'star power'. Thanks John- At 11:16 AM -0400 8/13/99, Mitch Collinsworth wrote: > >> >There just aren't enough people who'll shy away from the little > >> >devil to make the creation of a whole 'nother set of material > >> >worth the effort. > >> > >> Are you stating this as a fact, based on market research you can > >> reference? Or as an assumption based on opinion? > > > >Elementary logic: > > > >1) Though I've been involved in the computer business for nearly > >30 years, I haven't observed anyone who might have bought an > >operating system who'd also have rejected one because of a > >devilish mascot. This doesn't prove that such people don't exist; > >it does put a stringent upper bound on their numbers. > >This "stringent upper bound" suggests that you have observed a >significant fraction of all potential OS buyers. I don't know you >but I find that difficult to believe without any current market >research. The market of buyers is expanding at a fast enough rate to >make 30 years in the industry rather meaningless in terms of measuring >the market _today_. My head is still spinning after observing how >fast M$ took over the desktops in this dept. Two years ago they were >100% unix. Today there are three left[1] and two of those are grad >students overdue to graduate and leave. The 3rd is mine. What I'm >suggesting is that you've grossly underestimated the present size of >the OS marketplace based on historical observation of a market >significantly smaller than exists today. > > > >2) The burden of proof is always on the person who asserts "there > >exists". > >I wasn't asking you to prove your claim, only asking if you were >claiming it as a proven fact or as your personal opinion. It appears >to be the latter. That's fine, but please don't assert opinion as a >proven fact. > >-Mitch > > >[1] Just a FYI to try to add some context to this. The discussion >above was regarding "desktops". We also have a number of backroom >"servers" that do all the things home users now expect from their >ISP: DNS, mail, web, ftp, news, dhcp, etc, plus large amounts of >file storage, tape backups, etc, etc. > >We are currently in the process of upgrading most of these aging unix >systems and replacing them with FreeBSD. This puts me in the position >of being able to promote FreeBSD to a significant number of people >(grad students) who have M$ on their current desktop, but in a year or >two will have the opportunity to influence software decisions in a >number of different schools and businesses. If they observe that >FreeBSD works well in the backroom here and M$ is less than pleasant >where they move to next, they may just speak up about it! But if when >they walk through the machine room (which they happen to do frequently, >as it unfortunately doubles as a short-cut to our video editing lab) >and all they see is a row of non-descript PC hardware with no hint of >what OS they're running, they may never know it's "FreeBSD inside". >Opportunity lost. > >I took the time to explain all this because I've sensed that through >the course of this discussion most of the participants have appeared >to be considering choice of OS as merely a personal, what's-on-my- >desktop issue. I would like everyone to realize that the computing >world doesn't end at the desktop. There are lots of businesses that >do a whole lot more with computers than just desktops, and in my view >FreeBSD can be an excellent choice for many of those back-room systems. >It's certainly my first choice. But because the "cute little devil" >can lead to misunderstandings, I feel the current stickers are best >left out of sight. It's no longer as simple as claiming "freedom of >speech" when you're making decisions with a computer that isn't yours. > > > > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message -------------------------------------------------------------------- Because a great wrong has been committed, ands its time to right it. You see, somewhere, sometime way back in early Web pre-history when the terminology of the Web first got started, someone decided that home pages were cool. -Information Architecture for the World Wide Web To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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