- Remove an out-of-date reference to the Halloween letter on the website's
advocacy page. - Remove letter.sgml itself. - Remove references to letter.sgml from the advocacy directory's Makefile. Discussed with: gavin Approved by: gabor (mentor)
This commit is contained in:
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en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy
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@ -11,6 +11,5 @@
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DOCS= index.sgml
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DOCS+= myths.sgml
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DOCS+= letter.sgml
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.include "${DOC_PREFIX}/share/mk/web.site.mk"
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@ -29,13 +29,6 @@
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<p>Describes and debunks some of the myths that surround the *BSD
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projects.</p></li>
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<li><p><a href="letter.html">On Advocating FreeBSD and the
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Halloween memo</a></p>
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<p>Jordan Hubbard's response to the infamous Halloween memo, posted to
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the FreeBSD-Advocacy mailing list (and republished with his
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permission).</p>
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</li>
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<li><p><a href="&base;/news/press.html">FreeBSD in the Press</a></p>
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@ -1,247 +0,0 @@
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional-Based Extension//EN" [
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<!ENTITY base CDATA "..">
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<!ENTITY date "$FreeBSD$">
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<!ENTITY title "FreeBSD Advocacy Project">
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<!ENTITY % navinclude.about "INCLUDE">
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]>
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<html>
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&header;
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<p>On October 31st 1998 (Halloween) Eric Raymond posted a leaked memo from
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Microsoft.</p>
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<p>This prompted Jordan Hubbard to write the following response. This text
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is unchanged, except for the HTML formatting.</p>
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<table class="tblbasic">
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<tbody>
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<tr>
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<td align="right"><b><small>To</small>:</b></td>
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<td>advocacy@FreeBSD.org<br></td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td align="right"><b><small>Subject</small>:</b></td>
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<td>On advocating FreeBSD and the Halloween
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memo...<br></td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td align="right"><b><small>Date</small>:</b></td>
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<td>Tue, 03 Nov 1998 08:21:56 -0800<br></td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td align="right"><b><small>Message-Id</small>:</b></td>
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<td><709.910110116@time.cdrom.com><br></td>
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</tr>
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</tbody>
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</table>
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<blockquote><p>[ caution - this is a bit long. Lots of points here I've been
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wanting to cover for awhile and now seems as good a time as any.. ]</p>
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<p>OK, so we've all seen this latest bit of Linux leaping about and
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shouting from the rooftops and some of us have even gone "agh!" and
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run around a bit ourselves, but now that we've all hopefully calmed
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down again I'd like to say a few words about this and the state of
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FreeBSD advocacy in general.</p>
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<p>First off, just to cover the Halloween memo in brief, yes it appears
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to be genuinely from Microsoft and yes, it appears to be genuinely
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full of statements culled from various Linux evangelists who feel no
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pangs at making blatantly false pronouncements like "Linux is the only
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OS experiencing growth" or "Linux is the only contender for the x86
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platform." These types of statements are pure hooey, of course, and
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FreeBSD is currently doing better than it has at any previous point in
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its history. Our releases are starting to finally hit their stride,
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it seems (and try to remember back to the days when it was more like:
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"My god! We did it! A release!"), and our rate of innovation and
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self- improvement hasn't been higher since the 2.0 days - it's very
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encouraging to see that we can spur ourselves to such heights of
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productivity *without* legal injunctions staring us in the face! :-)</p>
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<p>Second, we have to keep sight of the fact that none of this is
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particularly new or even interesting. We know that Linux is the
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current poster child of the press and we also know about the press's
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irritating predilection for focusing on one and only one champion
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rather than looking more in depth at the situation. We can yell and
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scream all we like, but we're not going to change the fact that for
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many journalists investigating "Open Source", Linux is the first and
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possibly only thing they're going to look at. It simply has the right
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sized hype-bubble surrounding it where we do not.
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We also have to accept the fact that ISVs are going to target their
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products at the much more obvious Linux market and try to strike deals
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with it, going "FreeBSD? What's that?" when asked about a native
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port. The same goes for investment, selling shares in Red Hat, Inc.,
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etc. Money always goes after the visible markets first.</p>
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<p>What you have to ask yourselves, looking at the dynamics of this
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situation as dispassionately as possible, is whether all of this is
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necessarily as bad a thing as some of the gloom-n-doomers would have
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us believe. Looking at only the superficial indicators, it's easy to
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say that "Linux is winning and we're losing", pointing to the stacks
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of Linux books and magazines in the bookstores, the Clinton
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transcripts where he mentions Linux, the Goodyear blimp circling
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overhead with Linus's smiling face shining from it, etc etc. It's
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especially easy to say that when you hold Linux and FreeBSD in your
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mind as equivalent products, started at the same time and with the
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same overall development mentality.</p>
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<p>The fact of the matter is that Linux and FreeBSD are NOT equivalent
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products with identical user and developer communities surrounding
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them, however. We've *always* been lower key about things, preferring
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to quietly focus on the business of steadily turning out quality
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products to only moderate fanfare. It's no use screaming for teams of
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FreeBSD fan dancers to come out and start singing the praises of
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FreeBSD in full 4-part hyperbole with some grinning, cigar-chomping
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promoter standing in the background - that's just not us. The
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nay-sayers will also say that "this not being us" will surely be our
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downfall since you gotta sing and dance now if you want to be noticed,
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but I'm really not so sure about that. To my way of thinking, we have
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our style and we have our niche and they're both respectable in their
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own way. Not everyone buys toilet paper because a team of singing
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rabbits (to paraphrase the great Rod Serling) suggested it on
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television, and some people DO react positively to the somewhat less
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superficial attributes of quality, consistency and a focus on the
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technology rather than on standing in front of the cameras and saying
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things like "open source validates the concept of a basic human
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sociological tropism towards cooperation and the free and open
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exchange of .." to some vapid blond on Technology Week.</p>
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<p>That kind of approach might also get all the sound bites this week,
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but remember the old "15 minutes of fame" effect and the fact that the
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press is going to get bored with Linux eventually and go off in search
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of other things they don't understand to dissect. When that
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inevitably happens, it's going to be back to quality and those groups
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who remained true to their basic operating principles and didn't get
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sucked in and destroyed by excessive growth or hype. The
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opportunities for wandering off and getting lost in the woods in
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pursuit of some bright and shiny object have never been higher than
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they are now, and somebody's bound to panic and go off and do
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something stupid in an effort to differentiate themselves. I don't
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think we have any need to panic at all and should simply keep doing
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what we're doing and try to do it as best we can.</p>
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<p>I'm not saying that there's no room for improvement, and some
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alliances *are* being made with various artist/marketing types whom we
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think can help us get the attention we deserve, but it's not the same
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as saying that we're going to drop everything and go play Linux's game
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now. That would be the wrong move and I can only point to the history
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of BSD itself when searching for good examples of technologies which
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have remained viable long after "losing" a war to a competitor. BSD
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"lost" to SYSV over a decade ago, but did that kill it? Quite
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apparently not and it appears to be doing better today than it ever
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did even back in its heyday, when it ran on a large collection of
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VAXes but hardly any of the commodity (68K) hardware at all (you had
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to buy an obscure 32016 based machine if you wanted to run BSD at home :-).
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The situation today is vastly improved by comparison and most people
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don't even stop to think about that.</p>
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<p>In any case, I didn't mean this posting as a fluffy "we're fine!"
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sorta thing, though I do think that people sometimes lose sight of our
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own growth rate and notable successes when furrowing their brows over
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the latest Linux PR victory, I do have a summary of points I think we
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can and should improve:</p>
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<ol>
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<li><p>Keep pushing the magazine articles out. These seem to be easier for
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people than books and I've largely given up on trying to incite a
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FreeBSD book to happen - I guess that will just occur in its own
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good time. Walnut Creek CDROM is still paying a bounty for magazine
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articles (matching funds for your fee) and has enabled more than one
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person to buy a new machine for the price of one weekend's writing
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for a good cause. Pick a target publication and go for it, folks!
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I've done about 3 of these so far (maybe more, I forget :) and can
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say that it's not that hard. You generate a simple article outline and
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you submit it to the editor along with your proposal for what
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you're trying to accomplish with the article (just a paragraph or
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two of text, not a thesis). If they're interested, they'll send you
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back details on how long they want the article to be (generally
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500-1000 words) and how much they're willing to pay. When they
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pay, send us a photocopy/FAX of your royalty check and we'll pay
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too. It's that simple, and it good for FreeBSD to appear in print
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like this since it reaches outside the somewhat closed audience of
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the mailing lists.</p></li>
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<li><p>Look at Linux as a door opener, not a threat. I mean this,
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folks, even you rabid Linux haters out there. Consider very
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carefully the fact that if customer A needs a PC to do server job B,
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customer A is going to do one of four things:</p>
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<ol>
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<li>Buy NT</li>
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<li>Buy a commercial Unix</li>
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<li>Buy Linux</li>
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<li>Buy *BSD</li>
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</ol>
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<p>Those really are about the only 4 options for building a
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department fileserver or gateway box with cheap, commodity hardware
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(we'll assume the people who don't want cheap buy Cisco gear, Suns
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and NetApp filers anyway) and let's look at them in turn:</p>
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<ol>
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<li><p>If they buy NT, you can pretty much write them off. By the
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time they realize what they've gotten themselves into, the
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investment (or embarrassment) is generally too great to back out
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of anyway and it's actually very few IS shops that seem to claw
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their way back from NT and install a free OS instead. Sure, you
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hear widely trumpeted stories whenever some large ISP does make
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it back from NT, but its very rareness is what makes it
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something to trumpet about. NT is Darth Vader here and we must
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fear his control of the dark side (marketing) and the fact that
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"everybody knows NT" when the issue of personnel comes up with
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most pointy-haired managers.</p></li>
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<li><p>Is a much better option since at least the customer has
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accepted Unix as their savior and can potentially be won over at
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some point by OSS, but the fact that they chose a commercial
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Unix probably also means that they have deep-seated needs for
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tech support or inter-operability with other parts of the IS
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shop and you'll probably have to work on them for awhile to win
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them over.</p></li>
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<li><p>Here now we've at least accomplished two things: We've got
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the customer admitting that they want Unix and that they want a
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free Unix. Furthermore, they've chosen a solution which we think
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we can beat in all the taste tests if we can just get the CD in
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front of their faces. All in all, this has got to be the
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easiest conversion of the three and a definite win if their only
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other options were A or B.</p></li>
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<li><p>Yay! Of course we like this one, but if it's not FreeBSD
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then we still have a bit of a conversion job to do and it might
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even require something like a SPARC port to be able to offer the
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same cross-platform inter-operability that the user has chosen
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the other *BSD for. It's something to think about, and
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certainly no better than the Linux scenario in some ways (again,
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if you're just thinking about this from the pure, mercenary "how
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do we get more FreeBSD users" perspective).</p></li>
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</ol>
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</li>
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<li><p>Hold your advocacy to a higher standard, and by this I mean that
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if we're to weather this whole PR blitz period with our reputation
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for being "the calm and level-headed ones" intact, we can't stoop
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to the level of some Linux advocates when trying to make short-term
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gains against their PR blitzes. Sometimes you just have to be
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Gandi.</p>
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<p>When the press have gone away, believe me, people will remember
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which groups stuck to their guns and didn't compromise their
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identities or ideals and which went sort of nuts and participated
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in a few raping and pillaging sessions. I'd far rather be the
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group still standing there when the smoke clears going "Yup, we're
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still here and still doing good software without the fanfare or
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fancy costumes. Have a look!"</p>
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<p>To put it another way: If FreeBSD were a respected musical
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entertainer, I would want her to be the one who stuck to doing
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the kind of music she liked and always did it well rather than
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horrifying us during the disco years by suddenly putting on spandex
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pants and lip-syncing to formulaic, song-factory material or
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shrieking out heavy-metal lyrics in heavy makeup with Axel Rose 10
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years later. :-) Sometimes the price of "success" is too
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high.</p></li>
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</ol>
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<p>- Jordan</p>
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</blockquote>
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&footer;
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</body>
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</html>
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