Selling Open Source on the Campaign Trail

Waldo Jaquith writes: "I'm a long-time advocate and user of open source and free software and, as of this morning, I am a candidate for the Charlottesville, VA (USA) City Council. Naturally, I see lots of areas in Charlottesville's IT infrastructure (as well as potential areas of expansion) where Linux and various free software projects would be ideal. But can I make that a talking point while campaigning? How do I make that concept accessible and interesting to 40,000 citizens?"

Comments

Easy

[Scrameustache]

Tell 'em its cheap.
Say the words "hard earn tax dollars"

and be prepared to be called a dirty red commie.

Forget It

[RazzleFrog]

a) A large percentage of consistent voters are the elderly who would be totally lost when you started talking about this. "Open Source? I'll show you some open sores."

b) Most people who would be knowledgable (primarily young men) would be too busy playing {Enter Latest Game Here} to remember to vote.

c) If you already have systems up and running and existing licenses then the savings would be more long term than short term. This is always bad since people have a short - what the hell was I saying?

Quite simple, really

[AugstWest]

How do I make that concept accessible and interesting to 40,000 citizens?

Use puppets. MAke one of them act mean, make the other one act kind, and make sure that the kind one explains the moral at the end.

Barring that, most voters won't pay attention.

Re:Simple: "Show me the money?"

[3-State Bit]

The voters will automatically imply that your action of reducing costs will lead to lowered taxes and BAM!! you're elected.

I'm no grammar NAZI or anything, but occasionally I come across usage guides in my dictionary, and one that I've come across all the time is that you should never mix up "imply" and "infer". This seemed strange to me, since I'd never heard anyone use them 'wrong'. It seemed as weird to have that in a usage guide than, say, "Don't confuse "fly" with "throw" or something. You're the first one I've actually heard use the "alternate" (nonstandard) forms. Cognrats!

Steve Irwin vs. Linux

[Bonker]

Give me a map and compass, drop me into the Amazon Rainforest, and I will be lost immediately too. But that Crocodile Hunter guy on TV would figure out where he is, and start walking. Might take him a week, but he would find his way out, while I would still be trying to reboot the compass.

Crikey! If you look ovah here, you can see a primo example of the dread Linux Hacker. 'e's a dangerous brute, but ain't 'e bayutiful?!

I can get this close to 'im because I respect 'is terrortree. You're a notty hacker! Yes you are! He's a dangerous wonk, alright, but I'm okay because I'm a trained profeshun'al.

Let's all remember the the Linux Hacker is an endangud species. Paoching and biggah predatas like the fanged Microsoft encroach on 'is terrortree more and more each yeah. If we want to keep these bayutiful creatuhs around, we gotta protect 'em!

My recommendation...

[Misch]

Make your campaign slogan "Free as in Beer"

Then make posters like this:
FREE
as in
BEER

Make the "FREE" and "BEER" in a really big size, and the "as in" in a really small size.

Oh, don't forget to put your name on the poster somewhere too. In big letters. Probably as big as the letters you make "FREE BEER".

Seriously though, I would check with the town clerk or historian and see how much they have been spending on software over the past few years. Draw up a budget plan and present it to the people showing the disparate prices between the software, and the re-training/OSS costs.