> > I find this embarrassing for the project.  It's something that has
> > given great marketing mileage to (for example).  To the point where
> > those who _consider_ alternatives to Linux think FreeBSD is all there
> > is.
> 
> *smirk*  last i heard, 'core' didn't consider 'marketing' worth pursuing.

I think that's an incorrect statement.  As far as I know, `core' has
never made such a claim.  I realize that members of `core' have made
similar comments in the past, but that has never been the official 
policy.

In my opinion, marketing in of itself is not a reasonable goal for the
Project to set for itself.  "Do more marketing" may sound like a goal,
but it is difficult if not impossible to measure progress against that
goal --- it's too nebulous. 

If instead, we set goals like "firmly establish ourselves as the free
operating system of choice for operating system research"; Or "be the
dominant multi-platform operating system"; etc. then we can have real
concrete standards to which we can measure ourselves.  Ask anyone who
went to USENIX last month that we have a long way to go if we hope to
accomplish the first goal.  And if we're not careful, the Linux crowd
will manage to get things working "well enough" on enough interesting
platforms to take away our traditional advantage.

What does the above have to do with marketing?  Well marketing is one
method which we can use to accomplish the above goals.  Marketing can
take many forms.  Many of the NetBSD users help out with this is with
there enthusiasm and evangelism.  NetBSD users have convinced friends
and employers to take a chance on NetBSD.  I believe this is the most
convincing form of marketing that exists.

Other forms of marketing comes in the papers and articles that have
been written about NetBSD or about projects that run on NetBSD
systems.  I haven't seen any examples of this yet, but "Success
stories", descriptions of how NetBSD made some project/business/
whatever succeed are also very effective.  There are many other
things we could do in the marketing space to help accomplish our
goals.

However, I think it's clear that those goals can not be accomplished
by marketing and promotion alone.  In the past, it's been said "the
code is the Project".  Not entirely true, but had we focused all our
resources on marketing, the product would not be the same one we all
know and love (or hate, depending on your mood right now... :-).

This comes down to allocation of resources.  NetBSD is a volunteer
project.  We've been successful at attracting talented programmer
types that maintain the code; architect types that try to keep all the
developers heading in the right direction; some management/admin types
that try to keep the Project's infrastructure working; and above all
enthusiastic user types.  But we haven't been able to find marketing
director types to design a marketing plan or secretarial types to help
us handle the 500+ pieces of email we get each day.

So bring this back to where we started: core does not think marketing
unimportant; it is a means not an end; and I think we do the best with
what we got. However, if anyone has ideas and wants to volunteer to
carry through with them, just dial:

	c o r e @ n e t b s d . o r g.

--
J.T. Conklin
NetBSD Core Team