BSD Needs Spiced up Atmosphere-bsdtalk

I’m not sure why I can’t post comments to bsdtalk. Maybe it’s because I’m not signed up with the hosting service or because it doesn’t support Firefox. I can’t remember as I quit trying sometime ago. Anyways … seeing that I can’t post, I thought I’d post a comment on my own blog.

Note to Will Backman, bsdtalk Host
I like your podcasts but it’s starting to seem to me that the shows always have the same general theme, people sitting around talking about why BSD (and sometimes OSS in general) is so great –amounting to “feel good” interviews.

In episode number 139 you ask what “we” can do to improve BSD bookshelf visibility. I think generating interest might attract public attention and translate in hard book visibility. So, why not diversify and talk about threats to BSD development (whether they be internal/external, from proprietary competing OSS sources, and conflict (such as political/power struggles, or personality conflicts). Each postcast need not be entirely controversial as potential solutions to problems could also be pondered.

Here’s an idea I’ve thrown your way before. When are you ever going to cover comments by C. Hannum stating that”NetBSD is Dead”. See: <http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2006/08/30/0016.html>.

Jack White Sells Out with Alicia Keys?

I never really liked Run DMC’s remake, if that’s what you can call it, of Aerosmith’s hit “Walk this Way”. Depending on how you look at it, it may not have been a remake as much as a legitimate new creative product. I doubt the latter, as the guitar riff is unmistakably Aerosmith, and for it to be a legit new product, entire and easily recognizable portions of a “song” –if you can refer to rap as “song”– can’t be mirrored in other songs. It can be reminiscent, but not a copy paste scenario.

Setting aside issues of legitimate authorship and musical taste, the remake did have some good effects. It salvaged Aerosmith’s butts, whose career was on its way to being relegated as a “goodies oldies bar band” –whose prospects were probably only seedy truck stops and corresponding bars.

Also in the process, Run DMC introduced good ol’ rock and roll to kids that probably had never seen, heard, and probably hadn’t conceptualized an electric guitar. They also introduced rap to rhythmicly challenged white folks. This might be called a market cross-over ploy.

On the part of Run DMC, I’m not sure if this was a thought out market plan. This might be giving them too much credit. If anything, they got people that would have never bothered to listen to rap to do so –if only to satisfy (morbid?) curiosity.

Having said that, as I’m sit here listening to the White Stripes singer Jack White perform a duet with a R&B female singer named Alicia Keys, I wonder about this obvious marketing ploy. I usually hate these marketing tactics, finding them cheap, predicable, even morally decadent.