Where is FreeBSD going? (fwd)

[Narvi]

Opinion was expressed on chat@ that there may be interested people on this
list...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 21:09:34 +0200 (EET)
From: Narvi <narvi at haldjas.folklore.ee>
To: Robert Watson <rwatson at freebsd.org>

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, Robert Watson wrote:

>
> On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, Narvi wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, Robert Watson wrote:
> >
> Agreed.  It's just a starting point, but one particular benefit of it as a
> starting point is that it would bring to people's attention the people
> who's contributions to advocacy are most effective, as well as build a
> base of marketing materials and volunteers.
>
> High on my wish list of marketing materials are some 2-page "white papers"
> on deploying FreeBSD.  Particular, short 2-pagers on FreeBSD as a network
> appliance or storage appliance base, as a firewall, and as a database
> server.  Nicely laid out, business-like, and appropriate for distribution
> as PDF or on paper at conferences.

I think a starting point should probably be "generic" 2- and 4-pagers that
give information about freebsd. The 4-pager could go into more depth as to
what exactly 5.x has technology and benefits wise. It will also need to be
targeted at an audience - what you want to tell ISV / white box maker /
PHB / embedded developer / sysadmin / wannabe hacker / etc (not saying all
should be covered or covered from start) would be necessarily different,
possibly quite a lot. The non-generic, application specific 2-pagers would
then be sort of companions to the 4-pager I guess to showcase a specific
application.

Or something like that - this is not meant as gospel, just thinking out
loud. I do probably have time to spend on this, provided there are others,
as there is no way I can spend so much on it to go alone.

>
> Another thing I'd like to see is a retrofit on the "Power to server"
> brand, which I think was one of our more effective slogans.  A nice logo
> and slogan can go a long way, because people stick them on everything. One
> of the ideas I've been poking at is moving to a logo that slightly
> deemphasizes the Daemon, and instead connotes "power and reliability" --
> perhaps some sort of train-based logo.  Something like:
>
>       F  r   e  e   B  S   D
>       [train in motion logo]
>       The  Power  to   Serve

Looks ok.

Traditionaly, the "lets have a contest" thing around such has given quite
bad results (rather, usualy none) - going back all the way to 96/97.
Having an art crew is probably a very tough.

Or maybe i'm mistaken - the FreeBSD/gnome splash screen is quite nice.I
can't personaly draw at all.

>
> Robert N M Watson             FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects
> robert at fledge.watson.org      Senior Research Scientist, McAfee Research
>