RE: Leaving the Desktop Market

> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-freebsd-advocacy_at_freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy_at_freebsd.org] On
>> Behalf Of Randi Harper
>>
>>You know you opened a can of worms with that one. Because all the nerds are going to step
>> up and say "Well, I run FreeBSD on my  >desktop! It's totally viable!"
>>
>>Dear nerds, get some perspective. You aren't an end user, and you're masochistic. It's
>> okay, we accept you here. But your individual >use case doesn't indicate a place in the
>> market. Your basement isn't a market. It's a basement. Your small company isn't a market.
>> It's a >small company. Many companies combined create a market.
>
> Why aren't all the nerds and small businesses out there a market?  I'm no marketing expert
> or anything, but it would seem that there is some kind of market out there that isn't being
> catered to.  I may be a masochist, but I refuse to have to pay Apples prices for their
> hardware.  They just seem insane to me.  If they ever decided to sell OS X for non-Apple
> hardware I might use it.

OK. Now that I opened my big fat mouth, and made the mistake of involving
myself earlier in this post before finishing my first of coffee. I'm already
committed, so here goes...
Can we take a look at advocacy for a moment? What defines it exactly? Is
there better advocacy than another? What's the best advocacy? Is it
contributing more $$ to the foundation? Is it contributing lines of code
to the project? Is it putting a textual, or graphical link
"the Power to Serve" on your web page? Is it telling everyone you know
about how great FreeBSD is?
I don't know. But just the other day, as I struggled with the [apparent]
direction(s) FreeBSD was taking in the past few months. I began to reflect
on the ~25yrs. of working with the code, and then (*)BSD itself. I realized
that I spent no less than 75% of my waking hours in front of the tty. Almost
all of which, was in some way related to FreeBSD. Much of it, was dedicated
to installs. I calculate to this day, I have performed some 36,000 installs.
At least 28,000 still running. Then it occurred to me; if that isn't the
BEST form of advocacy, I don't know what is. Really. Think about it.
So say what you will. Condemn, or patronize the misfits of society, the geeks,
or geeky people. But know this; if it weren't for them, FreeBSD wouldn't be
but some pie-in-the-sky ideal/dream. In some far away thought, or dream.
For the record; I /don't/ live in my basement. I /do/ take showers. I own
my home outright (2nd one, for the record). What's more, my current one
was a complete renovation, which I performed myself. Masochistic? Maybe,
but somebody has to pay the price, so others can reap the luxury. No?

--Chris out...

>
> And just for the record I've been using FreeBSD as an exclusive home desktop since 1999.
>
> At work now so however Outlook mangles this is my fault :)
>
>
>
>
>
> Rod Person
> Programmer
> (412)454-2616
>
> Just because it can been done, does not mean it should be done.
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