Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 08:10:29 -0500 From: Michael Lucas <mwlucas@FreeBSD.ORG> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [bsd-advocacy] Re: Draft: Proposed FreeBSD PubRelproject Charter Message-ID: <20030131081028.B25507@blackhelicopters.org> In-Reply-To: <3E39C28F.F26DC60E@mindspring.com>; from tlambert2@mindspring.com on Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 04:25:51PM -0800 References: <007501c2c898$b2fbdd30$0502000a@sentinel> <3E39B755.34A8253@mindspring.com> <20030130235537.GB758@gothmog.gr> <3E39C28F.F26DC60E@mindspring.com>
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On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 04:25:51PM -0800, Terry Lambert wrote: > In particular, the core team members and the average committers > do not value PR work sufficiently to give it, say, the moral > equivalent status as "GEOM" or other code-work. Actually, I have to take some (mild) objection to this. My press relations work within the Project has been greatly supported by both core and re@. It has required a certain amount of education on what PR means and how the game is played. These people aren't dumb, and they aren't even ignorant; they just haven't played that game before. We have finally been able to arrange for a PR Newswire membership (thank you, Foundation!), as it's been demonstrated that without that a press release will go nowhere. Will re@ hold to a release date for marketing purposes? Probably not. But that's part of the nature of how open source projects staffed almost entirely by volunteers are run. If we had a highly paid staff of developers, that would be a different matter. "The FreeBSD Project" is not just about code. It's about producing something. For example, we on doc@ are held in high regard. While at times I may feel inferior because I cannot follow the latest discussion on kernel architecture in arch@, I have *never* been treated as a second-class citizen just because I don't code. That's because I produce actual content which other people can use, and I give it away, just like the programmers. Advocacy work is unquestionably work. I happen to know that commit bits have been offered to certain advocates who produce neither code nor committable docs, but their advocacy work has been important and far-reaching enough that we feel they have earned the right to the @freebsd.org address. In the cases I am aware of, the advocates have turned down the offer. (I'm not going to name names here, at least one person involved is on this list and I don't care to either embarrass him or subject him to a flood of email of "why did you turn it down?" It's nobody's business but his.) Internally, the "FreeBSD Project" is highly interested in advocacy work that creates content. Some of this content is useful for inclusion in one of our source repositories. Some of it is not. If it is not suitable for inclusion in our source repo, we don't need to do anything except say "thank you." But we definitely appreciate people who go out and pound the pavement. Since pounding pavement does not produce content, however, there's no need for action from "The FreBSD Project." All we have to do is keep producing content for others to advocate (or not advocate, if they choose). ==ml PS: Why do I keep putting "The FreeBSD Project" in quotes here? Well, that's because in my opinion it's a lot more amorphous than people seem to think. There is no Project; there are just people who work on FreeBSD. There is no person or group that can approve your project to advocate FreeBSD, but there is nobody that can tell you *not* to do it. True, you cannot send out a legal document in the name of FreeBSD, but you can do dang near anything else. -- Michael Lucas mwlucas@FreeBSD.org, mwlucas@BlackHelicopters.org http://www.BlackHelicopters.org/~mwlucas/ Absolute BSD: http://www.AbsoluteBSD.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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