There were some talks about "marketing" in NetBSD before and at the
EuroBSDCon in Amsterdam, and this is in reply to a enquiry I got, so
I'll try to sum things up here about my thoughts.

Note that there isn't any actual marketing in/of the NetBSD Project and
it's operating system (as far as I know). What I've done recently (and
what others have done before) is mostly due to personal activity, not
something coming from the project itself. For me, I do this so that
something happens _at all_.

For the NetBSD Project, I see a few long term and a few short term
goals to go for.

Long term goals:

 - Organize some official CDs, t-shirts and posters, and try to
   sell them via some entities. Daemonnews-Mall, BSDmall, bookshops
   or even Wasabi come to mind. In Germany, some foundation-like thing
   called "NetBSD Deutschland e.V." might eventually be done (Bernd
   Sieker's looking into that), and that might be used to distribute
   CDs etc. to members. (Say you get all the CDs NetBSD makes for free
   after you pay the annual member-fee).

   For a start, we do not need to actually manufacture things, but
   having them available for distribution helps, i.e. do ISO images on
   the FTP server, have PDF/PS files for flyers, posters, etc. so
   interested people can easily do the merchandizing for us.

 - Rework our logo. The Daemon is nice and I'd say it should stick,
   but the logo we use right now is both a bit old and a bit too
   complex from a design view. Some new arrangement WRT the daemon
   might be nice. I'd not say to go away from the daemon for now.

   The logo should be flexible enough to serve for our front web page,
   t-shirts and CDs, but also to allow some variations for using it on
   themes of the same thing, like our website navigation. Our current
   logo isn't really good there (see e.g. the flag at the bottom of
   http://www.de.netbsd.org/Documentation/).

 - Actually get the NetBSD project to change to the new logo -
   starting with the web page, and wherever else we use the logo as a
   whole or in parts. Some kind of agreement from a majority of the
   project management and developers would be needed for this, and I
   expect some hot discussion there. (The actual change should
   probably happen with the next major OS version release).

 - Make the world aware of NetBSD. The only way to do this is to go
   out to conferences and talk about NetBSD, write articles in papers
   and magazines, organize booths etc. Special note should be taken
   that Linux is _not_ our enemy - people there often don't know about
   us and are grateful and curious about us _if they only get to know
   us_. I've made some very positive experiences going to various
   Linux(only) events!

 - Decide if we do marketing for revenue (money) or promotion (getting
   better known).


Short term goals:

 - Get a t-shirt (design) done

 - Find some people/companies to print & distribute the t-shirt

 - Get list of possible (linux and other) events that people _could_
   go to, and talk about NetBSD, setup booths, etc.

 - Find people to actually go there (yeah, that's a seperate problem :)

 - Write articles for websites and (paper) journals. There are some
   "embedded" mags that I would love to see some article about NetBSD
   in. Ideas for topics should be obvious, but I'll be happy to work
   with authors, give ideas etc.

 - Move my flyers (http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/flyer/) into
   htdocs, and maybe a few other things to start some "marketing
   stuff" repository. (I have a generic "What is BSD" flyer here too,
   in both german and english language).

 - For talking to some designers, we (I) need to have a printout of
   a number of daemon images. I'd be grateful if someone could give me
   some script that I throw a bunch of GIFs & JPEGs to and that
   produces some printable file (PS/PDF) that I could show to a
   designer so they get an idea about what that daemon thing is all
   about. More than one image per page would be preferred, and both
   the image and a filename should be in there.

   I have all these images (http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/iamges/), but
   I need some way to print it. Any takers? Shouldn't be too hard for
   a hacking job.

 - Find someone who has a CD copier at his hands that can do bulk CD
   copying _and labeling_. I've used some local contacts before but
   that might not be used forever, and it might be good to have CD
   production happen somewhere else too. (So far I did get the copies
   done by someone, ordered cases somewhere else, printed the inlays
   myself and then assembled everything myself - that's a lot of work,
   but it's cheap). Of course we could find some company to acutlly
   produce our "official" CD, but that means throwing in some money,
   and needing some way to distribute things. (Shipping is expensive!)

 - Ask your local book dealer about a NetBSD CD. (e.g.) Wasabi sells
   them today, if they don't know where to get one.

There are many things that can be done. The key is, something must be
done, and we need is volunteers to do the actual work. One doesn't
need to be a skilled programmer or network guru to help in getting
NetBSD better known, everyone (and their wife and kids :-) can help us
out here!


 - Hubert

-- 
Hubert Feyrer <hubert@feyrer.de>