Most BSD users I encounter are developers, sysadmins or people in other computing fields; I guess that most people on this list would have the same experience. Occasionally I meet a person of some other vocation who is a Linux user. Rarely do I encounter a BSD user "in the wild", but it happened today so I thought I would share.
Two tradesmen arrived to remove the asbestos cladding from my shed. They asked me to move my car. After doing this one of them asked, "So, are you some sort of open source developer?" "Uhh... well, yes I am. How did you guess?" "Your number plate." I was astonished. My wife has been teasing me for years that noone understands my BSD-flavoured personalised plates. Well, take that! Anyhow, I asked him whether he uses free software and he explained that he had been using BSD for 15 years (he did not specify which BSD; perhaps FreeBSD, perhaps not). So there you have it. It is easy to be blinkered and imagine that BSD is only used by computer-ing people with computer-y jobs, but it is nice to be reminded that BSD (and free software in general) does reach into the everyday lives of all kinds of people. Cheers, Fraser
pgpDMXCAwRMZP.pgp
Description: PGP signature
