Re: Suggested press release in reaction to RHAT dropping sparc andalpha
On Sat, 4 Jan 2003 22:04, Jaldhar H. Vyas wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Noah L. Meyerhans wrote:
> > So after nearly 2 weeks of discussion, I don't think I've seen any sign
> > of an actual press release (certainly not on www.debian.org, anyway).
>
> Joey to his credit did put a couple of lines in the last DWN.
>
> > I like the idea of some official Debian evangelism, and am disappointed
> > that this press release doesn't seem to have happened.
>
> I'm disappointed too. I'm sure everyone here agrees we have many virtues.
> Let's not be shy about touting them!
FWIW... Inspired by your (Jaldhar) sentiments I ended up (at Joey's
suggestion) contacting the author of the original "Red Hat drops support"
article[1] personally. That particular journalist writes a lot of good
articles and a number are about Linux, but never Debian. I figured it'd be
good to see a postive Debian article and I urged him to publish one. Here's
part of what I wrote to him:
--------------------
I was going to simply respond to the Red Hat article, but now I'm going to
annoy you even more: I wonder if you might consider writing a general
article about Debian?
There are a number of reasons why this might make for interesting material.
Commercial vendors have received a fair bit of press coverage (eg Red Hat,
Lindows). A view of Debian as a non-profit, community based project would
provide a counterpoint to this commercial presence.
Shifts in vendor policy (eg Red Hat dropping Alpha/Sparc support) and the
demise of various Linux distributions (Corel etc) highlight the issue of
continuity and stabilty of open source operating systems. Debian, with its
relatively long and stable history, provides an example of a successful
non-commercial operating system.
Debian also provides an interesting example of a large scale self-managed
project. Authority is decentralised which leads to a variety of positive and
negative characteristics, but the Project still manages to function and
deliver its product.
Debian is created entirely by volunteers with very little financial
assistance and yet continues to be high quality and popular: Debian has
recently overtaken Mandrake as the most popular distribution in a survey by
DesktopLinux.com.
...
Disclaimer/clarification: I am associated with and unreasonably biased
towards Debian. This is a personal email, not an official Debian
communication.
--------------------
He responded promptly and informed me that he had tried to write an article
about Debian a few months ago but had trouble contacting certain Debian
officials. After reading my email, he agreed to have another go and I'm
informed that he has made contact with press@debian.org.
Anyway, the point is that your efforts and enthusiasm may not go totally
unrewarded.
Matt
1. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/20/1040174386902.html
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