Help contribute and make FreeBSD even better!
First of all I would like to open this post by making it clear that I have no connection with the FreeBSD team nor any other FreeBSD related group or foundation. I'm just an ordinary FreeBSD user like anyone else in here, running FreeBSD on my server, Soekris, and on my laptop.
I would appreciate if everyone, even if they disagree with some of my views, could read the entire article since I believe it contains some really important points.
Feel free to disagree with me on parts of the article, or the article as a whole. What I describe here are my views only, and you should make up your own mind.
1. Popularity counts
I love FreeBSD as much as I love my girlfriend. That means I have never wanted to share FreeBSD with anyone. I let people use Windows, Linux or other operating systems, while I keep FreeBSD to myself. A rather bad strategy I would say.
How many FreeBSD users are there out there? It can't be that many, because I have hardly met anyone who has heard of FreeBSD, even though they use both Mac OS X and many variants of Linux. Without enough users, we won't get enough developers since the users often turn into developers at some point. Without enough developers we won't be able to follow the rapid development in the computer world, and FreeBSD will no longer be a modern operating system. This could be the end of the operating system we all like so much.
Having a big user base usually means more respect, and with more respect comes more power. That power can for instance be used "pressure" Adobe into making a native flash player for FreeBSD. I know that many of you dislikes flash, and so do I, but the truth is that flash has taken over the web and we just have to live with that. Even though you will never use the flash player, you will still benefit from it, that is if we ever get a native flash player from Adobe (rumours say it's right around the corner).
One of the main reasons Linux users don't want to switch over to FreeBSD is because we lack proper flash support. We do have a few solutions to the problem, but none of them are "the right one". If we had proper flash support it would be possible that more and more Linux users would migrate over to FreeBSD. One day those ex-Linux users could become FreeBSD developers, and that flash player you didn't care anything about, could one day be the reason for a new device driver or a nice feature in FreeBSD. As you see, this flash player is about so much more than the flash player itself, it's about attracting users and developers.
When we first talk about flash support, we should mention PC-BSD and the work of Matt Olander. This guy can be the reason why we soon will see a native flash player for FreeBSD (if everything goes as planned). Both FreeBSD and PC-BSD could benefit from each other, and PC-BSD could be a nice entrypoint for users who aren't ready for FreeBSD yet. Although some people dislikes PC-BSD and the PBI-format, there is no secret that PC-BSD has attracted an impressive amount of users.
To make FreeBSD more popular we need to have "everything", and a bit more. I know many Linux users are envious of our portaudit utility, that's one step in the right direction (why isn't this in the base system?). Minor things that at first doesn't seem important can be exactly that. One example is the new FreeBSD forum that will now attract new users, users that before didn't bother to become active in the community because they didn't like using the old mailing lists. Curious people visiting http://www.freebsd.org might now take their first step into the BSD world because they see there is a forum, and because forums often means that help is close. Of course, we probably have the best documentation in the world already, but some people prefer help from a human being, someone who can answer their questions. I would like to encourage everyone to spend some time on the forum/mailing lists and help newcomers. Those newcomers could be the tomorrows developers.
Personally I have no problem with our sysinstaller, although it looks a bit 80's and lacks some features. But with that said we should keep in mind that sysinstall is one of the first things new users will see when the installation starts. First impression is everything, at least so they say. Finstall is a graphical installer, and seems like a nice addition to sysinstall. There is no reason to remove sysinstall, and users should have the ability to choose whatever fits them best, graphical or non-graphical.
We have a huge and wonderful ports collection in FreeBSD. The only drawback must be the lack of a pkg_update command. There is no way to update installed ports and packages without having to install additional software from the ports collection (or uninstalling and reinstalling each port/package manually). A new FreeBSD user will have to choose between portupgrade, portmaster and portmanager, just to be able to update his ports/packages. I believe we should have a pkg_update command in the base system, and the ports collection would be perfect. A project named "rewrite portupgrade in C" can be found at http://www.freebsd.org/projects/ideas/
I would love to see someone start on this, or a similar project that would find its way into the base.
Hardware support is another problem that Linux people are aware of. Of course FreeBSD supports hardware that Linux doesn't, but as a whole Linux has better support. I know people who have tried FreeBSD that had to switch back to Linux because some piece of hardware was not supported. This doesn't have to be cheap and poor hardware, but can just as well be expensive RAID-controllers. It is true that you can avoid this problem by doing some research and buying only supported hardware... but what about those who already have expensive hardware that won't work with FreeBSD. Those will most likely never become FreeBSD users, and again we might have lost yet another developer. Better hardware support will always be a positive thing as long as it's done properly.
Apple's MacBook/Pro/Air have become awfully popular the last few years, these are laptops I think we should fully support since they are this popular. As far as I know we're lacking fully support for the touchpad, and some of the wireless network cards (Atheros AR50xx?). Here you can really see the problem with buying supported hardware, because the alternative to buying a MacBook is buying another fat and less attractive laptop. Have you ever tried the keyboard on a MacBook? That's heaven. Better hardware support will let the users choose to buy whatever they like, and not having to step down the ladder and pick something they really don't want, just to be able to run FreeBSD on it.
These are just a few examples on what can be done, and what kind of effect a minor change or feature can actually have. We should try to see the big picture before doing anything. Some of the small things we consider doing can have a huge impact on the amount of users we attract, bigger than we could ever have dreamt of.
2. How to contribute
a) One way to contribute is by donating money to the FreeBSD Foundation - http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/. Some is better than nothing. What I like so much about the FreeBSD Foundation is that I've never seen them ask for anything. It's easier said than done to keep a low profile will still trying to show people that you exist, and that donating money is possible. Whatever amount you donate, you can choose what project to put the money on. You can donate using "paypal" or "donate now", and the latter one is really easy to use because you don't have to create an account to donate. The money are used to fund and manage projects, sponsor FreeBSD events, developer summits, and provide travel grants to developers. The foundation also represents the FreeBSD project in executing contracts, license agreements, copyrights, trademarks, and other legal arrangements which require a recognized legal entity. It seems like the FreeBSD Foundation helps speeding up the development of FreeBSD, which of course is good.
b) Contribute by supplying patches, write documentation, anticipate in Bughatons (next one is Jan 30th, 31st, and Feb 1st), help in any of the listed projects at the FreeBSD site. Become a ports committer. There are always things to do, so what are you waiting for
c) Donate hardware
http://www.freebsd.org/donations/wantlist.html
http://www.freebsd.org/donations/
d) Buy merchandise at http://www.freebsdmall.org
They do a good job helping FreeBSD - http://www.freebsdmall.com/cgi-bin/fm/community.html?id=a8KYoGBU&mv_arg=mv_arg&mv_pc=109
Wear your FreeBSD shirt at work, at the mall, use it everywhere. This is free advertising. Spread the word about FreeBSD and how great it is instead wasting your energy on bashing Linux and other operating systems.
3. Some final words
It's not easy to find words that can express my gratitude towards the FreeBSD team, the FreeBSD Foundation, and everyone else that have contributed to make FreeBSD what it is today. I, and many other people really do appreciate all the work you guys have put into FreeBSD.
Thank you so much!
First of all I would like to open this post by making it clear that I have no connection with the FreeBSD team nor any other FreeBSD related group or foundation. I'm just an ordinary FreeBSD user like anyone else in here, running FreeBSD on my server, Soekris, and on my laptop.
I would appreciate if everyone, even if they disagree with some of my views, could read the entire article since I believe it contains some really important points.
Feel free to disagree with me on parts of the article, or the article as a whole. What I describe here are my views only, and you should make up your own mind.
1. Popularity counts
I love FreeBSD as much as I love my girlfriend. That means I have never wanted to share FreeBSD with anyone. I let people use Windows, Linux or other operating systems, while I keep FreeBSD to myself. A rather bad strategy I would say.
How many FreeBSD users are there out there? It can't be that many, because I have hardly met anyone who has heard of FreeBSD, even though they use both Mac OS X and many variants of Linux. Without enough users, we won't get enough developers since the users often turn into developers at some point. Without enough developers we won't be able to follow the rapid development in the computer world, and FreeBSD will no longer be a modern operating system. This could be the end of the operating system we all like so much.
Having a big user base usually means more respect, and with more respect comes more power. That power can for instance be used "pressure" Adobe into making a native flash player for FreeBSD. I know that many of you dislikes flash, and so do I, but the truth is that flash has taken over the web and we just have to live with that. Even though you will never use the flash player, you will still benefit from it, that is if we ever get a native flash player from Adobe (rumours say it's right around the corner).
One of the main reasons Linux users don't want to switch over to FreeBSD is because we lack proper flash support. We do have a few solutions to the problem, but none of them are "the right one". If we had proper flash support it would be possible that more and more Linux users would migrate over to FreeBSD. One day those ex-Linux users could become FreeBSD developers, and that flash player you didn't care anything about, could one day be the reason for a new device driver or a nice feature in FreeBSD. As you see, this flash player is about so much more than the flash player itself, it's about attracting users and developers.
When we first talk about flash support, we should mention PC-BSD and the work of Matt Olander. This guy can be the reason why we soon will see a native flash player for FreeBSD (if everything goes as planned). Both FreeBSD and PC-BSD could benefit from each other, and PC-BSD could be a nice entrypoint for users who aren't ready for FreeBSD yet. Although some people dislikes PC-BSD and the PBI-format, there is no secret that PC-BSD has attracted an impressive amount of users.
To make FreeBSD more popular we need to have "everything", and a bit more. I know many Linux users are envious of our portaudit utility, that's one step in the right direction (why isn't this in the base system?). Minor things that at first doesn't seem important can be exactly that. One example is the new FreeBSD forum that will now attract new users, users that before didn't bother to become active in the community because they didn't like using the old mailing lists. Curious people visiting http://www.freebsd.org might now take their first step into the BSD world because they see there is a forum, and because forums often means that help is close. Of course, we probably have the best documentation in the world already, but some people prefer help from a human being, someone who can answer their questions. I would like to encourage everyone to spend some time on the forum/mailing lists and help newcomers. Those newcomers could be the tomorrows developers.
Personally I have no problem with our sysinstaller, although it looks a bit 80's and lacks some features. But with that said we should keep in mind that sysinstall is one of the first things new users will see when the installation starts. First impression is everything, at least so they say. Finstall is a graphical installer, and seems like a nice addition to sysinstall. There is no reason to remove sysinstall, and users should have the ability to choose whatever fits them best, graphical or non-graphical.
We have a huge and wonderful ports collection in FreeBSD. The only drawback must be the lack of a pkg_update command. There is no way to update installed ports and packages without having to install additional software from the ports collection (or uninstalling and reinstalling each port/package manually). A new FreeBSD user will have to choose between portupgrade, portmaster and portmanager, just to be able to update his ports/packages. I believe we should have a pkg_update command in the base system, and the ports collection would be perfect. A project named "rewrite portupgrade in C" can be found at http://www.freebsd.org/projects/ideas/
I would love to see someone start on this, or a similar project that would find its way into the base.
Hardware support is another problem that Linux people are aware of. Of course FreeBSD supports hardware that Linux doesn't, but as a whole Linux has better support. I know people who have tried FreeBSD that had to switch back to Linux because some piece of hardware was not supported. This doesn't have to be cheap and poor hardware, but can just as well be expensive RAID-controllers. It is true that you can avoid this problem by doing some research and buying only supported hardware... but what about those who already have expensive hardware that won't work with FreeBSD. Those will most likely never become FreeBSD users, and again we might have lost yet another developer. Better hardware support will always be a positive thing as long as it's done properly.
Apple's MacBook/Pro/Air have become awfully popular the last few years, these are laptops I think we should fully support since they are this popular. As far as I know we're lacking fully support for the touchpad, and some of the wireless network cards (Atheros AR50xx?). Here you can really see the problem with buying supported hardware, because the alternative to buying a MacBook is buying another fat and less attractive laptop. Have you ever tried the keyboard on a MacBook? That's heaven. Better hardware support will let the users choose to buy whatever they like, and not having to step down the ladder and pick something they really don't want, just to be able to run FreeBSD on it.
These are just a few examples on what can be done, and what kind of effect a minor change or feature can actually have. We should try to see the big picture before doing anything. Some of the small things we consider doing can have a huge impact on the amount of users we attract, bigger than we could ever have dreamt of.
2. How to contribute
a) One way to contribute is by donating money to the FreeBSD Foundation - http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/. Some is better than nothing. What I like so much about the FreeBSD Foundation is that I've never seen them ask for anything. It's easier said than done to keep a low profile will still trying to show people that you exist, and that donating money is possible. Whatever amount you donate, you can choose what project to put the money on. You can donate using "paypal" or "donate now", and the latter one is really easy to use because you don't have to create an account to donate. The money are used to fund and manage projects, sponsor FreeBSD events, developer summits, and provide travel grants to developers. The foundation also represents the FreeBSD project in executing contracts, license agreements, copyrights, trademarks, and other legal arrangements which require a recognized legal entity. It seems like the FreeBSD Foundation helps speeding up the development of FreeBSD, which of course is good.
b) Contribute by supplying patches, write documentation, anticipate in Bughatons (next one is Jan 30th, 31st, and Feb 1st), help in any of the listed projects at the FreeBSD site. Become a ports committer. There are always things to do, so what are you waiting for
c) Donate hardware
http://www.freebsd.org/donations/wantlist.html
http://www.freebsd.org/donations/
d) Buy merchandise at http://www.freebsdmall.org
They do a good job helping FreeBSD - http://www.freebsdmall.com/cgi-bin/fm/community.html?id=a8KYoGBU&mv_arg=mv_arg&mv_pc=109
Wear your FreeBSD shirt at work, at the mall, use it everywhere. This is free advertising. Spread the word about FreeBSD and how great it is instead wasting your energy on bashing Linux and other operating systems.
3. Some final words
It's not easy to find words that can express my gratitude towards the FreeBSD team, the FreeBSD Foundation, and everyone else that have contributed to make FreeBSD what it is today. I, and many other people really do appreciate all the work you guys have put into FreeBSD.
Thank you so much!
