This month has been quite significant in the world of FreeBSD. We've seen the release of version 4.1 of our rock solid OS, there have been some significant movements on the Java front, and various other things which I could mention if I could include an entire copy of Daily Daemon News (which, of course, you read on a regular basis, don't you?). Sometimes it's hard to keep up!

First of all, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who contacted me regarding last month's editorial. I haven't had the opportunity to respond to everyone yet, so if you're one of those people, I haven't forgotten about you. Please be patient.

I'm sorry to say that a number of those responses have only echoed my thoughts about the state of FreeBSD at the moment. Not only is it a problem here in Melbourne, Australia, it seems to be a problem in other parts of the world.

Now that we've identified the problem, it's time to find a solution.

First there is the problem of commercial support. It seems that some organizations just can't deal with FreeBSD because they don't have the warm and fuzzy feeling that they can get support at a moment's notice. What need need is more organizations who can:

• Provide serious commercial support contracts.

• Provide telephone support for system administrators.

• Provide support for open source packages, such as PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Sendmail, Qmail, Postifx, Apache, Samba, and so on.

• Advertize themselves commercially and in the open source community.

• Work closely with independent consultants (the little fish) to provide affordable FreeBSD services for all.

Secondly, we need more support from our fellow users out there. When I say support, I mean moral support, such as:

• Get a group of friends together and form a user group.

• Organize a pizza night.

• Help a friend install FreeBSD.

• Mention FreeBSD to the writers of the IT column in your local paper.

• Approach your local public radio station.

Remember, it's better to explain the benefits of FreeBSD instead of rubbishing another OS. For example, "Linux is great, but FreeBSD is better for X because of Y".

Changing the subject, I also received a number of article contributions during the last month. This has been a big help, so I'd like to especially thank those people for their hard work.

A number of you have written to me expressing the desire to write up articles. It has recently occurred to me that we simply don't have enough info up on the site to cover this. I'll be working on this as time permits, but if you would like assistance now, please feel free to email me.

I hope you enjoy this month's issue,

- Joel

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