cvs commit: www/en/news press.xml

[Robert Watson]

On Fri, 7 Jul 2006, Joseph Koshy wrote:

>> Is this really FreeBSD news?  The article you committed a link to doesn't 
>> mention FreeBSD at all.  PC-BSD may be running FreeBSD under the hood, but 
>> I'm not sure that this belongs in the news section on the front page @ 
>> FreeBSD.org.
>
> The mention is in the 'In the Press' page though, not in the 'news' section.
>
>> I'm not saying that it's wrong to add it, but can we please have some sort 
>> of discussion about this?  Where do we draw the line?  Is news about 
>> DesktopBSD, FreeSBIE, FreeNAS, DragonFlyBSD etc allowed if we allow news 
>> about PC-BSD?
>
> DesktopBSD, FreeSBIE, Frenzy & PC-BSD are still FreeBSD and mention of them 
> in the press would be IMHO ok for inclusion in our 'FreeBSD in the Media' 
> link collection.
>
> I've also linked to good 'generic BSD' press articles in the past from our 
> 'Press' page.  Advocacy has fuzzy boundaries...
>
> I wish we had a better way of sharing advocacy & marketing efforts with our 
> derivative projects.

Ditto.  I think we should be as supportive as we can for these projects, both 
in terms of interacting with them for PR purposes, but also on technical 
grounds to try and preemptively help identify and address problems they have 
with FreeBSD as it stands, and finding ways to support their future FreeBSD 
use.  We've benefitted a lot from FreeSBIE's involvement in FreeBSD 
especially.

"Scalability" has always been one of the more interesting issues in how the 
FreeBSD Project is structured.  By having a strong and centralized core 
development team and repository, we've built a really nice and tightly 
integrated system.  However, it's also had the effect of reducing the number 
of spin-off and derivative projects.  This has had many benefits, but there 
are benefits to having those projects with their own specific focuses and 
identity exist as well, and making sure that they fit into a more broad 
FreeBSD ecosystem.  Most of us may be focused on FreeBSD in the server, but 
more power to people who want to make it work well on the desktop, in live 
CDs, etc.  And especially if they do a good job on advocacy, finding ways to 
bring FreeBSD to places it's not been before.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge