Less messages to FreeBSD.org lists

[Matthew Seaman]

On Sun, Jan 25, 2004 at 01:42:43PM -0500, Jason Slagle wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Jan 2004, Andrew Boothman wrote:
> 
> > Now - I'm not trying to start a "BSD is dying!" thread, there's no
> > question that there's more than enough development going on in all the
> > BSDs to counter that - but I would expect the total number of mailing
> > list posts to vary approximately to the OSs installed base. Or is that
> > too simplistic a view and I'm just worrying unnecessarily?
> >
> > I've been thinking for a while that -questions "feels" quieter. Or
> > perhaps I'm just getting used to the message flow...
> 
> Perhaps the "New installing base" is shrinking as most of the people
> willing to do it have done it already, which means there are less novice
> questions asked?

Yeah, things have slacked off a bit.  I don't think there's anything
sinister about that.  I think it's mostly just natural variation --
these things go in waves: suddenly some particular subject is flavour
of the moment, and you get a run of questions about it.  For instance,
there seems to have been quite a few questions recently about people
having trouble installing 5.2, but fewer about other perennial
favourites like sendmail config or how to cope with an ABI version
bump in a shared library.

Possibly some of those essay-length answers (and I'm as guilty as
anyone at going on at great length...) have helped because people can
solve their problems by Googling, and don't actually have to ask on
the list.

I think too there was quite a lot of interest from the MacOS X crowd
as well, right around the time Panther was released.  There was some
confusion about just how much FreeBSD stuff there was in MacOS X and
how much FreeBSD lore could be carried over.

Then there's the Slashdot effect.  I've noticed that there seem to be
fewer *BSD stories recently, but that those stories are attracting a
lot more discussion.  Much of it is quite reasonable and not just the
Linux frat-boys beating their chests and repeating the same old
trolls.  And there does often seem to be a bit of a surge on
questions at ... for a few days after a big FreeBSD story.

Of course, this is all just my impression and probably wouldn't stand
up for a minute to any sort of real hard look at the numbers.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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