On Wed, 24 Nov 1999, Ethan Bakshy wrote:

> I think if we are to attract new people (not just people who are
> already Sr. Computer Geeks,) we should try to make some more
> asthetically pleasing propoganda.

Perhaps--when I chose to install NetBSD first, rather than one of the
other two BSD's, I did not choose it just because it runs on beautiful and
legendary machines like the sun3.  I also noticed that the web site more
quickly and simply lead me to useful information than the others I looked
at. It was not complicated or fashionable.  There were no Images that
contained Text (i think this should remain a religiously-followed rule).  
It did not condescend to me by starting off with rabid advocacy or a list
of features and testemonials, but rather a well-organized presentation of
useful _information_ designed to tell me what I want to know quickly, and
to present the information in an order/format/style that I was able to
retain it inside my frazzled brain.

The new page is a lot more complicated in appearance than the old one, but
it still has all these good points, and it still looks good and works
great in lynx.  And, it does an amazing job of keeping commonly-used stuff 

 o in the Visual Focus for graphical browsers
 o at the top of the page in Lynx

so that I don't even need to read the whole thing to get what I want.

I think we should abandon the idea of web pages evaluating on a linear
scale of appealingness, professionalness, effectiveness, quality. Rather,
the page exists to communicate, and needs to reflect its community's
intentions, both factually and aesthetically.


In a more general sense, I am not sure why everyone these days is
interested in getting people to switch off America's Funniest Home Videos
and set down Oprah's Dieting Book and download NetBSD.  I don't think we
need to do this.  In fact, I don't think we should try to convince people
who don't consciously make decisions about their computer to use a
different operating system--we can't afford the prime-time NFL advertising
that this would require.

We do not have the resources, talent, or motivation to influence people
who are not capable of making well-considered decisions based on facts.  
In fact, I'm not even sure we can reach people who can't read between the
lines--it's proven extremely difficult so far.  Consider the surprising
and mysteriously-varied response to Charles M. Hannum's recent Peanut
Gallery Post, which I take as a frustration reaction:  what do we need to
do, and how are we supposed to do it?  I have no idea, either.

This all makes glitzy web sites a lot less useful to us. I think the same
applies to the Linux, FreeBSD, and GNU folk as well.  Their glitz, to the
extent that they use it, doesn't seem to do much more than raise Linux to
its present awesome pinnacle of Power and Achievement as the preferred
Porn Viewing and Serving Platform for Under-18 Users.


Has anyone noticed how many IRC and FTP clients there are for GNOME?  You
know what these clients are _used for,_ don't you?  Yes.  It's disgusting.
It's humiliating.  But, it's damn well time we faced up to it.

So, here's the question--_HOW_ can we manage to get these
fifteen-year-old's to view porn through NetBSD instead of Linux, and thus
satisfy the bleeding-edge speed and mission-critical reliability demands
that viewing porn obviously entails? I think the answer is obvious: The
Playstation.

A PS2 port would be key.  I've been looking into it.  The hardware itself
is most interesting.

  $200 - $400
  300MHz MIPS-derivative, 32MB phys mem
  PC Card, FireWire, USB
  boots off DVD or CD

I'm having trouble getting information, as my web research skills are
apparently not so great.  I'm turning up nothing but plAystat1on
roolez gam3rz sites telling me what the control stick is going to look
like and how many gigapolygons it does.  it's a pain.

The development platform for game authors is a PS2-on-a-PCI-card that goes
into a Linux PeeCee.  The point of this nonsense is that the beast can
boot over the PCI bus instead of the DVD drive, so you don't have to burn
a CD every time you want to test your code.

The problem:  I don't see anything that suggests they are going to port
Linux itself to the PS2.  Even though they're using gcc to crosscompile,
the hardware architecture of the thing may well remain protected by NDA.

The benefit:  the PS2 comes out in Japan in March, giving us a headstart
before the US release in October.  so, extrememly optimistically, NetBSD
could parasitically attach to the predictable lunatic Sonyhype in October
2000 by releasing a bootable CD or DVD for the Playstation that ran
Abiword, Amaya, SETI@home--all the usual glitzy stuff--plus support for
Type III PC Card disks and USB homestuff like modems, printers and CD
copy^Wwriters.  Sony isn't planning to release comparable capability, _for
their own product_, until the next year.  The USB, FireWire, and PC Card
ports are apparently going to just sit there for a year, perhaps with the
exception of some kind of fancy joystick.

These PS2's are basically guaranteed to sell like hotcakes when they come
out--all the gAmerZ with numbers in their names say so.  For NetBSD, this
means:

  o Publicity (obviously).  
    We will have turned a cheapass game console into an encrypting IPv6
    router, NFS/Samba/netatalk/web/server, network print unspooler,
    whatever.  This is the type of relevant-and-yet-amusing news that 
    the media eats up faster than our Norweigan Crack Whore eats..chocolate.

  o Users  -- what NetBSD could do on these boxes is 
    o useful to a gigantic audience--we can obviously handle the 
      Internet Appliance thing.  All people want now is Games (Sony) 
      and Ability to View Ads on the Web (NetBSD).  Internet Appliance
      competitors are selling Part 2 only, for more money, with less
      upgradability, without riding the open source hype wave, and with
      modems only--no choice of service provider, no Ethernet/cable
      modem/DSL.  NetBSD/PS2 will have PC Card and USB.  And it can 
      ``dual-boot'' into Blood Kombatt 3:  Revenge of The Tribbles!
    o difficult for any other OS to do.  
      o We have the best VM, which is going to be critical with the PS2's
        fast CPU and small 32MB physmem.
      o We have the best USB, which is going to make or break
        PS2-as-a-computer.  People will want to print their web ads in 
        color.  By then they'll have USB junk up to the eyeballs, and 
        the more stuff they can unplug from their PeeCee and plug into 
        NetBSD/PS2, the more they will scratch their heads and ask, 
        ``why did we buy that Wintel junk again?''
      o We have the best chance of finishing the port on time and 
        taking advantage of Sony's release-date-marketing-hype

  o gameish features.  If we run well on a PS2, some game developers will
    probably want to simply burn a NetBSD kernel onto their game DVD.
    getting attention from the game people is good, because it can mean
    better open source 3D stuff on notPeeCee platforms, and maybe even
    some real-time work.  So far, no OS off the mainstream has attracted
    game developers.  I find this odd.  I think NetBSD could change it, 
    especially on a game console, where there is no install step.

  o Money  -- most importantly, you can sell off these CD's for
    RedHat-like prices.  It's a game console.  It needs a CD to boot 
    from.  People will have to either (1) be big-time sysadmin studs, 
    (2) download-and-burn .iso images, or likely worse still, .bin/.cue
    images, or (3) buy CD's.  The amount of ``compilation'' work here is 
    quite significant, since the system should boot and run from the CD 
    absolutely as much as possible.  This compilation work should be 
    compensated generously, and used to fund other devious NetBSD
    projects. Duplicating a working bootable CD will probably be 
    more difficult than usual, as it is with RedHat's El Torrito nonsense
    and that paperback manual they sell you.  Sell people a little sticker
    or something with the CD, and you're set--what hardcore gamer kid 
    could live without a sticker:

  NetBSD/PS2.  
   This game console contains software Copyright (c) 1980 The Regents of
   the University of California.

    No smiling daemons though.  We need an angry daemon for this one.
    like that penguin-raping daemon on the Comdex t-shirt.

  o Future funded work contract opportunities.  This is a lot harder to
    ignore than the Shark or a netbooting iMac.  Pulling off something 
    like this takes a big chunk out of a lot of rich companys' pies, and
    they're going to want to beg, buy, or steal it back from us.

One example of such a company is Sony, who is planning to sell the
Internet Ad Browser Upgrade for the PS2 a year after they release the
console.  They will no doubt be somewhat bewildered if we beat them to the
punch, and provide undesireable support non-Sony peripherals besides.

[appologies for the old reply]