FreeBSD Articles for new LINUX ANSWERS magazine

Mark Ovens mark
Fri Sep 3 00:49:43 BST 1999


On Thu, Sep 02, 1999 at 12:20:43PM +0100, Culf wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> It was largely the sentiments expressed here by David and others that
> mrompted me to forward the details to Roger; it seems this is a good
> opportunity to get in early and contribute, but having it called "Linux
> Answers" from the start immediately takes some of the wind out of the 
> sails of the BSD community as a whole.  Not that we want to be seen to be
> in direct competition with Linux of course, but it's the whole PR thing that
> Jordan's mentioned from time to time.
> 

It would be nice to see the mag's title changed to "Unix Answers"
but, from the commercial perspective of the publisher, "Linux" is
a word on everybody's tongue and therefore will sell more magazines
than "Unix".

The notion of competition in the free software world is something
of an oxymoron to my mind. Competition exists in the commercial
arena, M$ Windows vs. IBM's OS/2 for example, but makes no sense
between {Free,Net,Open}BSD and Linux (maybe between WC, RedHat,
Caldera etc). We should aim to promote FreeBSD as an alternative,
not a competitior.

> I especially think that this should be an opportunity for us to educate
> people about the whole of the BSD range, confusing though it may be to
> an "outsider" at first.  I use FreeBSD day to day, and that's my choice, but
> I've installed NetBSD as well and use it on other systems.  I also run
> Linux, (that wasn't my choice :), however, I don't religiously advocate
> one over any of the others, such that I'll refuse to use them: I have a
> preference but I'm not blind to the other options.  Religiously
> zealotry in the Unix world (and even more generally in the computing world)
> has caused a lot of harm over the years (and still does), and I'm keen to
> encourage a forum where we can educate and inform, rather than be seen to be
> sniping away at each other, as seems to happen so often in places like
> Slashdot.
> 

Couldn't put it better myself. I agree 100%.

> Culf.
> 
> > Once a magazine is launched it will be incredibly difficult to rename it:
> > is there any chance that we (the Usergroup) can get in now and
> > suggest/recommend a name to Unix Answers, or Unix User, or (heh) Unix Format
> > or something? ;-)
> 
> > If they are about to launch a new "Linux" magazine it would be really good
> > if they could 'diversify' slightly to give equal (or at least some)
> > coverage to all the main "home" Unixes..?  And for this, I think they do
> > need the 'right' name that reflects that! (That Linux isn't strictly Unix,
> > notwithstanding ;-)
> 
> > And as for the icing on the cake, we could maybe get the whole xBSD crowd
> > (ie, NetBSD and OpenBSD as well) involved - the excellent DaemonNews has
> > shown that things can work really well together. And then we could have Net
> > and OpenBSD install files on the CD too...?
> 
> 
> ------ FreeBSD UK User's Group  -  Mailing List ------
> http://listserver.uk.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-users

-- 
STATE-OF-THE-ART: Any computer you can't afford.
OBSOLETE: Any computer you own.
________________________________________________________________
      FreeBSD - The Power To Serve http://www.freebsd.org
      My Webpage http://ukug.uk.freebsd.org/~mark/
mailto:mark at ukug.uk.freebsd.org              http://www.radan.com







More information about the Ukfreebsd mailing list