Subject: Re: Community Issues ** LONG **
To: Michael Graff <explorer@flame.org>
From: Mason Loring Bliss <mason@acheron.middleboro.ma.us>
List: current-users
Date: 02/22/1999 09:05:48
On Sun, Feb 21, 1999 at 10:49:02PM -0800, Michael Graff wrote:

> What FreeBSD and OpenBSD and linux all have is a visible single
> leader who:
> 
> 	(1) gets the project out in visible ways,
> 	(2) gets projects for pay for people to do,
> 	(3) has a personality.

Hm... Leadership is important, but a sense of community is what will draw
in users. (I think I've typed "community" several hundred times in the past
day or two... Heh!)

Right now the FreeBSD people are looking around for a full-time marketing
and advocacy person. This sort of thing would help, but it doesn't matter
how many people we draw in if they go away, turned off by the lack of unity
we exhibit.

Things I think will help:

1) netbsd-chat mailing list
2) "goals for release 1.4" (etc.) web page
3) real-life regional social gatherings

-- 
Mason Loring Bliss             ((  "In the drowsy dark cave of the mind dreams
mason@acheron.middleboro.ma.us  ))  build  their nest  with fragments  dropped
http://acheron.ne.mediaone.net ((   from day's caravan." - Rabindranath Tagore