Advocacy?

[draconian]

Is there an official PC-BSD advocacy group that concentrates on advocacy/recruitment and that operates similarly to the way the Fedora Project has their Fedora Ambassador sub-project and Artwork design sub-project? (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors) & (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork) For them and for other more successful Linux projects I've noticed this was a big part of creating attention, hype, and getting new users/developers for them to try out their particular distributions.

I re-worded the 3 simple questions that they ask to see if someone wants to be a part of the Fedora Project Ambassador team.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do you like PC-BSD?
2. Do you want to introduce others to the PC-BSD Project?
3. Are you willing to work to spread the word about the PC-BSD Project?

If you've answered yes to these questions, then you're probably already acting as a PC-BSD Advocate, even if you aren't an official part of the PC-BSD team. You're spreading the word about PC-BSD to friends and family, helping people resolve their PC-BSD problems, and talking to folks who are interested in learning more about open source.

This is obviously not the only distribution that does this type of advocacy but it was one of the better explained so that is why I am using it as an example. I have noticed that there were some attempts such as the PC-BSD Team on YouTube and the Ning page, but neither has had much activity in some time. Is it because there was lack of organization or lack of a planned strategy implemented to support cohesion amongst the different efforts? Both seemed to be excellent ideas but needed something to cement them together so that they could move forward and be successful. I am in no way putting either one of those efforts down for trying.

None of the Linux distributions nor Apple would have the level of success that they are currently experiencing if it wasn't for their die-hard fans, advocates and fan boys/fan girls. I am not saying that I have the answer by no means, but would like to see if there are some people willing to be dedicated to spreading the word about PC-BSD through artwork or traditional / non-traditional advocacy and if there is such a group of people, what are the plans and how can others be involved?

[bebuxe]

Is there an official PC-BSD advocacy group that concentrates on advocacy/recruitment and that operates similarly to the way the Fedora Project has their Fedora Ambassador sub-project and Artwork design sub-project? (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors) & (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork) For them and for other more successful Linux projects I've noticed this was a big part of creating attention, hype, and getting new users/developers for them to try out their particular distributions.

The answer was: yes. The answer now is: no.
hahaha.
Is it there now?: spreadbsd.org


[I]Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do you like PC-BSD?
2. Do you want to introduce others to the PC-BSD Project?
3. Are you willing to work to spread the word about the PC-BSD Project?

yes, yes, YES!


This is obviously not the only distribution that does this type of advocacy but it was one of the better explained so that is why I am using it as an example. I have noticed that there were some attempts such as the PC-BSD Team on YouTube and the Ning page, but neither has had much activity in some time. Is it because there was lack of organization or lack of a planned strategy implemented to support cohesion amongst the different efforts? Both seemed to be excellent ideas but needed something to cement them together so that they could move forward and be successful. I am in no way putting either one of those efforts down for trying.

The answer is both. Blame Matt Olander for that. It is his job as the marketing department of iXsystems. ;) But I guess now he is busy on some other work. I hope we can build from what he started.


None of the Linux distributions nor Apple would have the level of success that they are currently experiencing if it wasn't for their die-hard fans, advocates and fan boys/fan girls. I am not saying that I have the answer by no means, but would like to see if there are some people willing to be dedicated to spreading the word about PC-BSD through artwork or traditional / non-traditional advocacy and if there is such a group of people, what are the plans and how can others be involved?

Well, the answer to that, is that we have not really begun a forum/blog to discuss those ideas of making campaigns. But I guess, until the time being, we can do it here. Also, We have no archiving system set up, just yet, to upload your files to use by other users to advocate (like in spreadfirefox, the apple stickers). But you know who is to blame for that. Can it be done here? YEAH! Here is a previous page that we used for artwork. And now it is hard to find in the main page of the website: http://www.pcbsd.org/content/view/38/26/

I want to contact Anton Gural, to ask his permission to use his designs and labels, to make it all in vector format and publish it on different media (like key chains!). But I have not found him. If you are here, please tell me your resolve!

[draconian]

Bebuxe, I just created the Social Group: PC-BSD Advocacy on the forums. Please feel free to join so that we can brainstorm some ideas on this issue

[bebuxe]

I already did. But I feel we need Matt or Jnixon should be here listening and/or helping, 'cause the have admin privilages to edit and make the web sites.

[thnewguy]

This is great. I don't do a lot of to advocate PC-BSD, but I hand out to the occasional DVD or stickers or t-shirt. Just to get the brand name out there. I've been hoping for a while now that the BSD card (bsdfund.org) will spread to countries outside the USA so I can get one. I think that would be a great way to show off Beastie.

[jkxx74]

Only my 2c on why Linux is more "popular", I'll check out the advocacy group to see what's been cooked up there. Btw there is again the excellent read at http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4linux/bsd4linux9.php with things elaborated better than I could possibly do.

So why does Linux get more attention? From what I've seen, the Linux crowd is more vocal about things they disagree on and on arguing about, say, which sound system is better. The flame wars and whatnot tend to attract attention and now Linux has Canonical to talk to OEMs and promote Ubuntu a bit like Firefox and Mozilla.

In the meantime it seems the BSD devs just pick out the most reasonable sound system choice, get cracking on it, and get it to work without much fuss. In the end it works better in BSD but Linux has gotten much more press in the process.

The other disturbing trend is "unusual" metrics and features that people seem to go for. Examples of this include upstart in ubuntu - yes it's nice that the system boots up in 20 sec instead of a minute, but are we going to be rebooting the system all day? Or that it has a nice splash screen that happens to prevent the OS from booting up on certain hardware. And so on and so forth as there are many more examples. The fact these features are seen as important worries me though, as do users who put great importance on an OS that boots up quickly yet has serious problems with audio/video playback (for example) after it's all loaded.

And that's the point where I'm not sure about what else to add. Time to visit the official advocacy threads :D

[P2O2]

Dear Moderator,

Please, move the thread to Advocacy Department, would you?

Thanks

[Fatmice]

Moved to Advocacy