The Age of Aggressive Linux Advocacy Is Upon Us?

GonzoJohn writes "Jamie Harrison, founder of GBLUG in Glen Burnie, Maryland, has written an exclusive editorial for Linux Orbit about how he sees the state of Linux advocacy. "Whether we want to admit it or not, Linux has entered a critical period in its development - a period that may, in fact, determine in fate forever. Now that Linux is no longer a strange little niche Operating System, and has developed to the point where Microsoft actually feels threatened by its proliferation, the folks in Redmond are doing everything they can in the way of software design, legislation, regulation and control of the internet to snuff Linux out. The main reason that they have failed up to this point is that Linux has matured and grown in popularity, gaining public and private defenders in the consumer market and especially the corporate boardroom." Read the editorial here" I don't think that I agree with all the points here - but it's an informative read if nothing else.

Comments

we all need to get our hands dirty

[Ubi_UK]

Be active in the Linux community!

Sure. I'd like to contribute to linux by answering newbie questions (even though 90% of these can be found by a google search or the first 5 lines of the man page)

However what annoys me most is some GUI features of linux. I'd really like to help improving that. Now the problem is that I doen't speak C++, and I don't want to spend years learning it.
I would be able to make a drawing about possible improvements, but I do have the feeling that peaople that are not 31337 just won't be taken seriously by true coders.
So: Would there be a way for non-coders to make a contribution to GNU software?

The Sky is Not Falling

[HappyPhunBall]

I for one do not use Linux so I can be an advocate of an OS and fuel the hype machine. Once you stop reacting to MS and start ignoring them you will understand. People are going to be just that, people. They will buy / use whatever they are told repeatedly is the best, what their friends use, what they are forced to use at work, etc. Let's not forget that most people do not care about an operating system!

So what do I do for the "cause"? I wear Linux t-shirts, I help friends who are interested in learning Linux (or any 'nix for that matter), and I go about my business with my OS of choice. Those who are interested enough to explore the world of Linux will, and many of them will stay. The ones you have to evangelize are a lost cause. You will never compete with the likes of MS for mindshare.

Well that's nice..

[Enry]

..given that some of us have been doing this exact thing for 10 years. I went and bought Caldera because it had WordPerfect for Linux. I bought Civ III for Linux from Loki. A LOT has changed since 1992, when vendors would stare blankly at you and say "Linux?". Anyone remember the fights with Diamond and ATI over releasing specs? How about the vendors that were distributing binary-only drivers until we reverse-engineered the hardware and made it work anyway? Here we are now at the point of vendors going out of their way to tell us it works with Linux, or runs Linux.

Is Linux ready for the commercial desktop? You bet. The apps are there, the OS is solid, and net admins can easily manage large installations.

Is it ready for the home desktop? No way. The home apps aren't there (read: games). Not everyone is or wants to be a system administrator. Look at the zillion unpatched windows boxes out there and think what would happen if they all had a [Apache|OpenSSH|ftp] vulnerability? What if the vulnerability was in something more obscure, like snmp? RedHat and Ximian (and others) have made great strides in getting there, but there's a lot of work remaining to be done.

So go out, do the things you do, and spread the word. Write documentation, submit bug reports, fix bugs, buy software, register hardware and tell them you use Linux.

What to do?

[eyepeepackets]

(Note: This is a repost of a post made in reply to another post under the "Is Linux Dead?" thread from a couple of weeks ago. The original post advocated more commercial-type advertising for Linux and was titled, "Advertising would help")

Wrong. Let me explain please.

First, please do know I'm one of the three (a rough guess) people on the planet who are deep geeks with a marketing background. Okay, that said, here's some info to graze upon.

In the marketing world all research for the past 100 years shows that the very best -- bar none -- type of advertising is, surprise, word of mouth. Nothing has every beat it, nothing ever will beat it. People will trust the opinions of people they know first hand over any advertisement. Why do you think there are so many ads which try to establish that type of trust relationship in the minds of the ad viewer? These types of testimonial ads are among the most successful types of ads, but pale in comparison with "word of mouth" in terms of pure clout with the target audience.

Linux is doing as good as it is (which is very good indeed) because of a number of factors: quality, cost, and -- ta da -- the number of in-the-know technical people (computer geeks) who say it's as good or better than the commercial stuff available. Word of mouth advertising by people who have the confidence of the people with whom they're talking.

Who do you think mom or grandma or little brother/sister is going to believe, Microsoft ads or you? If they have any experience with MS product over the past ten years then they're not going to be inclined to believe anything in a MS ad -- their personal experience tells them MS marketing is geared toward getting the money out of their pocket and MS product is not very good.

You, the techincal person in-the-know, are in a great position compared with MS. You have a product with outstanding quality, an impossible-to-beat value-to-cost ratio and an entire, world-class army of other techies who are saying the same thing you are.

In my opinion, Gnu/Linux/OSS/Freeware advocates would do best to just keep doing what they've been doing. Don't focus on bashing MS, just make honest comparisons, be up front with newbies about the learning curve (harder to learn, easier to use) and focus on the benefits of the product when compared with the competition. You'll continue to win big!

Frankly, if I were leading a marketing push for Linux right now, I'd say that it's time for the little guy to be "on." Not the uber hackers (who do their own stuff so well) but all Linux users: Time for them to really focus on truely helping others understand the choices available and then helping them get going down the learning curve (which has become much shallower in the past year -- Gnome/KDE/OpenOffice.org -- hero-level work folks, congrats and thanks!)

So, if you want to help the world avoid continuus and expanding MS hell:

1. Join your local LUG or start one.

2. Learn how to make a simple press release and learn where to send copies for your area.

3. Offer some free evening classes to individuals and small businesses via the press releases (donate some time -- see next item.)

4. Make sure there are resources in your area for individuals/businesses (consultants, tutors, etc. -- if you're not seeing $$$ by now you're blind.)

5. Always remember that you serve yourself best when you do your best to help those you are targeting. This is the essense of quality! I know it sounds odd, but it works: The more helpful you are for your audience, the more rewards you'll see for yourself.

I coulda/shoulda/woulda been a preacher but that whole god thing really got it the way.

Re:What to do?

[DecoDragon]

Eyepeepackets makes some good points. Having read this far down in the conversation, and reading Slashdot in general, it seems there is another underlying issue. It would appear that your average vocal Slashdot reader wants 1) to topple Microsoft and supplant it with... well, one would assume Linux, and 2) wants to retain an uberGeek sort of status via his/her affiliation with all things Linux and OpenSource. So, there's a conflict. Do people want Linux to take over for Windows or do they want it to remain an elite.

It appears that a number of people need to figure out what it is they want to see happen with Linux in the future, before they can really figure out how to respond to the original editorial.

Re:What to do?

[wirefarm]

Who do you think mom or grandma or little brother/sister is going to believe, Microsoft ads or you? If they have any experience with MS product over the past ten years then they're not going to be inclined to believe anything in a MS ad -- their personal experience tells them MS marketing is geared toward getting the money out of their pocket and MS product is not very good.

I agreee with your spirit and admire your goals, but I have to disagree a bit on that point. Microsoft knows that when the software fails, the user tends to take the blame. When programmers fail, they tend to take the blame. Bad software tends to make people feel stupid - among the programmers reading this, who *hasn't* had the feeling that they are behind the curve because they haven't learned Java yet and aren't quite clear as to what dot-net exactly is or why one should care what it is?
Microsoft knows this and has known it for a long time. (Read "Dynamics of Software Development. By Jim McCarthy. Microsoft Press, 1995. ISBN 1556158238.") McCarthy makes numerous references to this dynamic and how it plays upon one's psyche.

By empowering developers and holding their hands through the baby steps (setting up a basic app in VC++ using wizards) MS let developers feel a bit less stupid. Probably that alone secured the future of VC++ for what, the next ten years?

I do a bit of help desk at my job. I get people calling me and telling me that they 'broke' the network or that they 'screwed up' MS Word. They say it with the same shame that they would feel if they got their elbow stuck while putting on their sweater. They take the blame. They feel stupud. They muck around and make things worse before calling me.

Yet I have one user who I've set up with a linux account. She's not technical by nature, yet she's competent. She answers customer email that comes in from the web site, so she tends to get 80% of the viral attachments that come to the whole company. Rather than fight the viruses for this one account, I have her log in to a server using Putty/SSH and start a VNC session and use sylpheed to check that account. Once she got the hang of that, she really likes it - I call her 'hacker chick' since she's the only other one who uses Linux in the company. She likes it. It doesn't crash, it doesn't screw up, it doesn't make her feel stupid. She doesn't have to worry, since I told her that there is no way she can screw up the server with hwr level of permissions.

If the company mandates a Windows-only environment, (impending possibility...) I am sure she would miss it - not because it's free in any sense, but because Linux empowered her and made her more productive. (Didn't make her feel stupid.)

That has got to be the focus - letting people *do stuff*, not issuing LARTs and RTFMs and the usual elitist things that *nix gurus tend to do. If you want to get Linux into the hands of the people, build Linux systems that work. Build systems that work better.

Educate people on a 'want to know' basis only. Now that may sound counter-productive, but if you are like most advocates, you will drown people in philosophy and jargon. Avoid that at all costs if you want to be a true advocate - nothing will turn people off quicker. (If they want to know more, they will ask you or fire up Google, or join a LUG...)
I have a couple of friends who are both Windows programmers. Nice guys, but they really didn't care about Linux. They share an apartment and a DSL connection and had gotten quite sick of using Winproxy, so they finally caved in and grabbed an old box to let me set up an IPCop firewall. Actually, one of them did it while I talked him through it on the phone. It works beautifully. They love it. They installed it themselves. They are both now considering dual-boot setups on their machines, since this little router distro setup worked so well. ("What else can you do with this Linux stuff?")
Linux has made the transition in their minds from something that is "complicated" to something that "just works".

I just got done writing a proposal for another friend's office to set up a small network - basically a apache/samba/webmin/backup server and another ipcop router. It's a very simple, reasonable setup that will require very little maintenance, yet give them the functionality of $10,000 worth of MS software and state-of-the-art hardware for $400 in used hardware and a couple of ISO downloads.
All they will see is how easy it is to use. After a year, I doubt they would be able to find the /etc directory with both hands and a flashlight, yet I believe it will do everything they need it to do and also make them feel pretty smart about their decision.
For me right now, *that's* advocacy.

As you said: "I coulda/shoulda/woulda been a preacher but that whole God thing really got it the way."
Good point. We should probably take a look at their methods - maybe rent a big tent and travel around the south having all night Linux revivals...

Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo

(Go ahead, mod me 'overrated' - I no longer care...)

Re:Now we've got to be careful...

[onion2k]

I rather wish anyone who 'advocates Linux' never makes much of an impact in a corporate boardroom. Likewise, any MSFT 'advocate' who does the same should be equally ignored.

Whatever your view of each operating system, the end marker is that they are tools. And when you're selecting the right one you need to be independent, you need to consider all the alternatives, and most of all you need to be unbiased.

Its one thing to like Linux, its quite another to expect everyone else to. If Linux is the best OS for the job, go with it. If its not, don't. Choosing Linux just because you're been told its the best by some RMS wannabe might well be a very bad business decision.

elitist attitude?

[Ender Ryan]

Am I detecting a very elitist attitude? I certainly think so.

That aside, there are many reasons Linux would benefit by having larger marketshare. Briefly...

1. Device drivers - hw makers can't ignore large segments of the market

2. Apps, games, etc. same as 1

3. Choice, currently, Linux is only an option for a small segment of the market, due to 1 and 2. OS develoeprs often tout choice as a reason for OS

4. Promotion of standards, ie. prevent MS from "embracing and extending" everything under the sun. Don't we want the web to be more standards compliant?

5. Legislation. If large segments of the market are using Linux, OS can't be easily legislated out of the market like some are attempting to do.

I think that's enough.

I'll be blunt, Linux does not need elitist attitudes like I suspect yours is. If I'm wrong, I apologize.

Also, I don't think anyone is suggesting that Linux completely blow Windows off the desktop, just that it acheives enough marketshare to ensure my 5 points listed above.

The Relevance of Philosophy.

[The Monster]

Is it just me who believes that philosophy is completely irrelevant to Linux?

Probably not just you, but anyone who believes that doesn't get it.

The philosophies of Linux are not only relevant, but essential:

1. Open Source. Whether you're a purist like RMS or not, the ability to [have someone working for you] see and occasionally modify source code is central to the value that Linux offers. It makes it possible to optimize the OS and core applications for specific hardware and purpose of the machine, customize the system to completely remove unused components for security reasons, etc.
2. Open Protocols. Even when we don't have access to source code, we have well-established open standards for how programs providing certain services should communicate with other programs. This philosophy grew out of, and simultaneously made possible a corollary *nix tenet...
3. Open Data Formats - Text Files. The configuration info for a program is held in an .rc or .conf file that can be accessed just like any other file, not buried under layers of misdirection of GUIDs like {02468ACE-3F57-11AF-B579-08002D30DEFD} within a database stored in a proprietary format. This in turn makes possible another facet of the philosophy...
4. Interchangeable Parts. Don't like EMACS? Fine. Use vi, or a thousand other editors. They all manipulate text files, and once the file is created, your compiler, interpreter, or whatever really doesn't care. And this fits into another *nix philosophy...
5. Small, Sharp Tools, or Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination. Most of the work to be done on a *nix system can be accomplished by combining specific tools in a shell script. Metaphors such as piping and command substitution make it unecessary to compile a custom application to do what can be accomplished via

   fubar `snafu -z` | sort +3 | less

Without these philosophies, there would be no reason to prefer Linux to any other OS