Re: Brett Glass's postings to mailing.freebsd.chat

[Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>]

At 05:53 PM 3/8/99 -0500, Mark Hinds wrote:
 
>Sorry Brett, there's nothing slimy here other than that which
>you seem to have written yourself. 

No, Mark -- what's slimy is the implication that what I said
(and go ahead -- read it!) was in any way inconsistent
with what I've said in this forum. Jamie implied that, and
so now are you.

>You want your credibility back,
>provide the 'missing' context that will help us understand
>the seemingly microsoft-esque thinking process which has been
>revealed to us.

I have, in other messages in this forum. Again, my goal in that 
message was and is to encourage advocacy for a good
product. All of the methods I recommended for doing so have
been employed by the advocates of Linux and the Mac, and 
I advocate their use in a more upfront and truthful manner.

>I'm really appalled here. Linux was created because freebsd wasn't
>free when Linus started (I think it was about $1000). 

This is not correct. FreeBSD has always been free. See

http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/handbook3.html#3

>FreeBSD only
>became free after linux gained a measure of success, correct me
>if I'm wrong (as to the timing). 

This is, again, not accurate. A good account of FreeBSD's origins
can be found at the link above, and a timeline showing the origins
of 386BSD and NetBSD can be found at

http://www.netbsd.org/Misc/history.html

By the way, note how much sharing there is in this diagram! It
shows a very healthy creative process at work.

>It's where it is because the UC Regents blew it. 

Incorrect. It is where it is because the people who write, maintain,
and improve it care less about PR and advocacy than about quality.
I've tried to alert them to the fact that getting the message out
matters, too!

>Worst of all, the average person will not perceive any difference
>between linux and freebsd, 

The "average person" cannot tell Windows and the Mac apart, either.
The point being?

>Freebsd's supposed superiority is certainly not justification
>for the kind of manipulative good cop / bad cop ploy you proposed.

It's not a "good cop/bad cop" ploy; it's a recognition that different
styles of advocacy are effective with different people. Fanatics are
great; if you don't have them, you have nothing worthy of notice
going on. They can have great emotional appeal, for -- yes -- emotions
are important even when it comes to software. But they sometimes cross 
the line and alienate people, and some folks want "just the facts, 
Ma'am." So you also need cooler heads in the mix. This is true in any 
advocacy campaign, whether you're advocating an operating system, 
public policy, or a dishwasher detergent.

--Brett