Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 13:25:50 -0800 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: brett@lariat.org, dwilde1@thuntek.net, wes@softweyr.com, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: O'Reilly article: Whence the Source: Untangling the Open Source/Free Software Debate Message-ID: <24351.921273950@zippy.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 12 Mar 1999 19:40:41 GMT." <199903121940.MAA23571@usr01.primenet.com>
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> Jordan, FreeBSD needs Brett, and as many people like Brett as possible. As Brett and I have already discussed in person, there seems to be room to draw very different conclusions from Guy's book than the one you guys are drawing. Where Mr. Kawasaki is referring to being "fanatical", I don't think he's talking about Rottweiler fanaticism where any exposed flesh gets a pair of fangs sunk into it, I think he's talking about hyping the product in a highly enthusiastic way. This is further born out by the kinds of press events I remember him being involved with back in the 80's. He didn't have people marching up and down in front of Microsoft going "Windows sucks! Bill is the anti-christ! Eat the rich! Long live Fidel Castro!" - that might have attracted a lot of press, but I don't think it was as effective as the people he had marching up and down extolling the VIRTUES of the Macintosh platform and how much easier it was to use. That's the point here - we're not Howard Stern and we're not going to make our mark by attack-advertising or telling people they're misguided, wrong and stupid for using the GPL. I guess I have to repeat this like a broken record since people just don't get it, it seems, but you win converts by explaining why you chose the BSD license and BSD technology, not by calling the other side a bunch of morons for making the choices they did. Perhaps Brett has never actually used the world "moron" in his various diatribes, but judging by the "audience reaction" that's certainly what people read between the lines and why I choose to take a much different tack. It's not anywhere near as easy to shoot down someone's arguments or dismiss him as a crank if he's just telling you what's good about his product vs what's bad about yours. - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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