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How To 'Sell' Open Source Software
An anonymous reader writes "Have we missed the boat in terms of selling Linux to the average Joe? The writer of this article at NewsForge certainly thinks so. He points out that most people don't yet get the idea of a free operating system, and that the best way to start winning them over is to provide free software for Windows, such as OpenOffice.org." This sentiment isn't new, but unlike a lot of commentators, the writer in this case is in a good place (as a retailer who's tried selling Linux-equipped systems) to observe the man-on-the-street reaction to Free operating systems as of 2003.
How about to support the developers that work to make your 'free software' in their spare time.
:P
They need money too.
Then again, I'm just a hypocritical bastard, as I've never bought any free software, ever.
The average user buys a DELL or HP computer and, surprise, it comes with Windows included and they didn't get explicitly charged for it so it's free (in their mind). How do you really expect Joe Average to consider Linux if the current stuff is free and works fine for doing Excel stuff.
Microsoft has numerous on campus events where they give out copies of their software, in particular their Visual Studio development package.
In order to increase market share, these are the people who need to be sold on open-source. Currently there are not very many college students in CS or CompE that use open-source development products. In order to stay competitive, open-source must go out of its way to recruit these youngsters and give them the opportunity to try out open-source. This should happen at both the college and high school level.
This can be a real advantage to open-source as there are so many projects that these students can contribute on. It's a win-win situation. They get real-world hands on experience and open-source gets more coders and people dedicated to open-source philosophies.
MMORPG fan-boy? Prove your worth
after hearing about mozilla for a while and how great it was. I decided to dl it, and it really is 100 times better than IE. Now I have a machine running a dual boot...and once I learn alittle more the windows 2000 partition will probably go away. Most people don't understand the concept of free software. Honestly most people don't care. they don't know enough and would rather be able to call up microsoft when something goes wrong, but if we show them a superior product, that is likely to get a response from them.
probably not to make one of its key selling points "the fact that it's free". People usually look at free or cheap things as unreliable. (This is exactly why most people don't buy GM/Ford/Hyundai/[insert your favorite Korean automobile manufacturer here] passenger cars. (Exception is to the GM/Ford trucks, those are good vehicles) It is almost universally known that those cars are unreliable.
What may work is the inclusion of OOo, samba, ximian connector, and gaim to point out to users that it "works exactly like and can interoperate with" windows files and servers. Also point out its widespread distribution in the server/enterprise arena. Some apple-esque switch ads may work too for the extra-dumb people out there.
This comment was randomly generated by a school of piranhas chewing on the PCB of a Microsoft Natural Keyboard.
Parts of the market seem to be missing the point that software such as a consumer level OS and office software have little value these days. You really can't sell them by and of themselves. Photoshop has value, maybe Access does too, but Powerpoint, Excel, and Word are just expected - kinda like a webbrowser.
Most non-geeks think of Office as Windows, and of IE as The Internet, for example. You sell Joe Punter a Computer, not Hardware + OS + Applications. The sooner little stores like this "get it" the better. If they set a demo machine up with a slick looking Gnome2 interface (no RedHat doesn't count as slick :P), OpenOffice, Moz, and Gaim, then put it beside WinXP + Office for $300(?) more, then people would buy it. Maybe it takes a certain amount of customisation that isn't in the current distros, but 30 minutes on art.gnome.org should provide a nice looking UI - and to most folks, the UI is the Computer.
Selling it to people with the "It's Free and Therefore Good" argument is pointless. Sell it with "It Works and Costs Less" and you might get somewhere.
Also, try selling SOHO networks to leverage that into places Windows Server won't go - eg, Linux Server + 3 Linxu Workstations (diskless/netbooting is even better from a TCO and upgrade viewpoint).
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Yeah but they don't pay for it. Nobody (for personal use) pays for the retail version of Windows. The corporate users are the ones spending 200-300$ per license. The average user gets it for free with the computer then upgrades with a friend's copy. It's that simple. Just count how many ppl you know that are getting their retail version in the store? not much I'm sure.
Comming from retail myself, i can assure you it's a real pain trying to explain to someone why every new fangled gadget they buy won't install with the CD thats provided.
Sure, Linux is a great OS, and there is a strong developer community for drivers, but unless you are using it in a single purpose machine, ala Lindows Webstation, where you KNOW the user isn't going to try installing anything, you as the reseller in trying to save the customer money are going to have to pay more each time he calls and asks " why won't my camera install?" or "why won't my Bluetooth adaptor work with my phone?"
Unless manufacturers start supporting Linux like the way they do windows, we arn't going anywhere.
Other then that, porting traditionally Linux tools to Windows is a good idea. You get peopel used to it first then transition them to linux. so then when the switch is made, they are still comfortable with the tools they have been always using.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
I agree with the sentiment. I think the largest obstacle to widespead use of linux by Mr and Mrs Average is they don't know anything different.
I used to work in a college as the sysadmin. The people that hung around me (yes some did!) eventually got around to trying linux. No-one else, including many CS students for which I ran tutorials (though anyone could come to these tutorials of course) didn't care, loved their 40G monolithic WinXP partition and so on.
Another obstacle is that Mr and Mrs Average aren't hackers. They may be able to get used to apt-get or rpm rather than clicking on an icon to install a program but they probably have hassles as to why supermount is often a bad idea (what is write-ahead caching anyway?).
People realise that they don't have to buy expensive office suites and other applications - that is what cd burners are for. What they don't realise is that they don't have to pirate them either.
I think that providing GPL software for the windows platform (as much as we may shudder) is a good first step. Mr and Mrs Average get to keep their current OS but get to explore and add functionality for free. They may or may not then make the jump to linux.
This guy is right on the money. A co-worker of mine recently had a conversation with someone on the topic of E-Mail clients. I recently introduced her to ThunderBird, and she loved it (She's an active Linux advocate). She showed it to who she was talking to. Of course, the topic of price came into play. "It's free", she said. You know what? I don't think I've ever seen a more confused look on a 50 year-old man's face. "What's the gimmick?" He asked. She proceeded to explain to him about OSS, and he just got more confused.
If we want Open Source Software to make an impact on Joe user, we need to ease them into it. Humans don't like change. We need to feed it to them with a baby spoon a little bit at a time, and if they have questions, try to explain it to them in the simplest of terms. "Thousands of programmers around the world work in their free time to provide everyone with superior software" will lead to "Why would they do that?" because when Joe user thinks of a programmer, he thinks of a glasses wearing computer nerd in a cubicle, getting paid to write programs. He doesn't understand the fact that programmers might program for fun.
I think we need to start some kind of a campaign. The masses must join together to provide something to Joe user that won't scare him. Don't try to explain everything to them, just give them a CD and say "Here, install this, it's better than Microsoft Office", or "Here, check this new E-Mail program out, it's got a really good thing for Junk Mail". If they ask "How much does it cost?", say "It's my copy, you can have it."
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Yeah, I agree that this will help build mindshare. Once my wife began using Mozilla and OpenOffice on her Win98SE box, she was a bit more comfortable on my SuSE Linux 8.1 laptop. So there is something to this.
However, there is also something to having a killer app for your platform. Apple has desktop publishing locked up, and video editing a bit too (at least at the consumer level). Sure, anything the Mac can do, other systems can reproduce. Likewise, anything Linux can do, others could copy. But taking the lead in an area means people default to your system. You can see Linux doing this for high-end 3D animation, and high-end video work seems to be coming along for Linux too. And of course, the Linux server-based apps seem to really trounce Windows in a few areas. That's our "lock" and we need to do it more. Mozilla is the next thing I see -- more features than the competition, more standards, more stability, more up-to-date.
Finally, as a developer who has released a few Perl, PHP, and AppleScript apps, I find that the best way to win someone over is ease of installation. Wizards, wizards, wizards. Once past that, it's all user interface from what I can see. Is your app more intuitive? Does it expose more options in a sensible way? I have found that most things that are difficult on Linux are justified by users/developers with comments such as "this IS hard, this isn't for idiots, this is how it has to be." And then a month or a year later, another app comes out that does exactly the same thing with no feature loss or configurability loss, and it does it better. And it "outsells" the old product well. I am experiencing this right now with one of my products -- a free photo album tool called PHPortfolio. PHPix is more powerful, easier to install, and simpler to use. My app is getting trounced. But it should -- it's crufty. Happily, everything is free, so no loss other than ego. :)
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That is a stupid remark and kind of insulting. Some people have jobs and work for open source companies like Ximian or Redhat or others. I happen to own a consulting firm and can spare some time for a fun project. To assume that all free software/open source software developers are kids working in their parents basement is simply ignorant. You've been modded up at this point by a flock of fools. Later, Erick
I spend a lot of time convincing customers that free is really ok.. That they DO have a choice.. many think they have to use Windows.. 'its what came on my pc'...
And then explain WHY its free.. Its a hard concept to grasp for the general public. "Why are they doing that for nothing... if its so good they could make money"
The laptop I carry with FBSD helps, as does the knoppix CD I leave behind... ( used to drop off 'demolinux' CDs, but knoppix is much more advanced as a useable *safe* demo at this point )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Maybe this is relevant, maybe it's not, but I've got to get something off my chest.
I'm getting very tired of listening to open source cheerleaders (particularly Slashdotters) talk about how much they hate Sun in one breath, and then including OpenOffice among the free software that's going to supersede Sun in the next.
Without Sun, the OpenOffice project would undoubtedly continue, but it wouldn't continue nearly as fast. Sun is confused, but I think they'll eventually come around and realize that mainstream computing will eventually come down to just Windows and Linux. (Perhaps they'll lose their schizophrenia about Linux when they fire Scott McNealy, who knows.) But we need to remember that free software doesn't just materialize out of nowhere; it has to be created and maintained by actual people. Some of the best software out there is created by hobbyists, but with something as complex as a complete office suite, it does help to have a big staff of full-time developers working on it.
I challenge you all to stop mentioning Sun in the same breath as Microsoft, and instead try to figure out better ways to achieve Sun/Linux synergy.
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He very happy with my software, Mozilla, and the server. He is also happy with the overall performance and the fact that the server has not crashed. Of course I also gave him an estimate of how much everything would cost without open source. Needless to say he likes open source now. Not only does he like it, but his employees see the benefit and they learn that free doesn't mean worthless.
Even getting a small business to use open source helps a lot to promote it because every employee that uses it gets comfortable with it and has some exposure to generate marketing buzz.
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DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
"Yes."
More seriously... not even my boyfriend will touch Linux, because he can't play his Windoze-only (and/or Win-and-MacOS-only) games on it. He's not willing to touch an emulator. He doesn't want to use a piece of software that makes finding user-friendly software difficult. (Sorry, to you and I, 'bash' or 'grep' is user-friendly. Not so to him.) He doesn't want to use a piece of software that is so incredibly inconsistent that there is NO ONE WAY TO SET UP A NETWORK INTERFACE. (If you're using a shell, do it this way; if you're using Red Hat 8.x or higher, do it that way; if you're running Mandrake, do it this way; if you're running Debian, hack it your damned self cuz you're "supposed" to know how, etc. etc. etc.). And so on and so on. I love Linux as much as the next geek, but we REALLY have missed the boat. Mac OS X has already done more for open-source software in the real world of Joe Sixpack than Linux (and even *BSD) will ever do, in my opinion. I could be wrong, but that's how I feel on the issue.
Joe Sixpack couldn't give a good god damn about ideology. To him, ideology is something you learn in Church or in Ethics classes, and has nothing at all to do with software (or computers in general). To him, the notion that software can be "free as in speech" sounds like a ridiculous, out-of-context anthropomorphization, like saying "My car likes it when I pet the dashboard. See? It's purring!".
And as for "free as in beer", which most OSS/FS also is? To Joe, Windows, Office, etc. are all free as a flock of birds, since you either (A) get them free with new computer, (B) can download them off of KaZaa, or (C) mooch a copy from a friend or family member.
The ONLY way that OSS/FS will ever make headways into Joe Sixpack's life is if (A) it plays all of their games (or as many equivalently good AND POPULAR games), (B) it supports ANY piece of hardware you can buy, including WinModems, WinPrinters, WinWebcams, WinDildos and WinKitchenSinks, (C) things are consistent (which probably won't happen so long as there is more than one distribution) and (D) it STILL manages to be more stable and secure than Windows.
Oh, and it has to look and act just like Windows, too, or he'll say it's "too hard". I'm serious. I've had people tell me that Mac OS (or Mac OS X) is "hard", simply because they grew up in a Windows household, and familiarity breeds a false sense of intuition.
Not to be depressive, but... well, this is your wake-up call...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Average joe will use what their PC comes with preinstalled. They aren't going to know how to or want to change their OS. Unless of course a more knowlegeable friend or relative does it for them.
I have a quick observation that comes from demonstrating Linux to such disparate folks as a VMS database admin, an intelligent, 68-year-old man who remembers when he first saw an electric lightbulb, and an 18-year-old who grasps anything having to do with computers in seconds.
And the observation is this: Linux on the desktop does not give current users of Microsoft products anything that makes them want to leave the Microsoft world. Even the price argument fails, because people of even moderate means will tell you that the cost of a "loaded" PC isn't prohibitive. The 68-year-old said it was too much trouble to learn a new way of doing things, particularly if it meant not having Office and IE. The DB admin said it looked interesting, but she wasn't impressed with the availability of front ends for MySQL and Postgres. And the 18-year-old asked what games were available.
Friends, we should not be looking for mass adoption. Linux on the desktop is for inquiring minds, people who want change. Most users out there just want it to be easier or faster than it presently is - - scary, considering a blindfolded monkey could operate the Windows GUI. Can we fill a need for these people? Can we make it easier, and faster?
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
I personally don't care if everyone uses it, but I think there are certain people who should, and they don't.
The local school district, for example, spends millions on software licenses, most of it to do office work. Sure, I know MS stuff is great, but why can't they use Linux and/or OpenOffice to do their e-mail, web browsing, and office app stuff? They could take those millions and hire more teachers, or re-institute music and art programs.
It's not that everyone should use Linux, but everyone should consider if proprietary and costly software is the best place to be spending their money, especially when other options are very workable and available.
"Why would I want to buy something that I can get for free? "
Here's a list of typical reasons:
- Convenience: If you pay $100 for an OS and the company makes sure it's available in stores and/or on a website with really good bandwidth, then you get more faster. Example? Go to Microsoft.com and download something. When my company had a 7 mbit connection, MS's site was the only one that maxed it out. That's an extreme case, though.
- Support: You can pay a support team to keep you up and running. That's been mentioned, though.
- Development: They want you to keep spending money on them, so they keep doing new things to keep you interesrted.
- Media/Packaging/Manual: Well, you don't want to download again, right? Packaging's not such a big deal, but at least you can keep track of where you can buy it should the need arise. And, face facts, Linux needs a manual. A big one.
Did I miss anything?
"Derp de derp."
"The average user gets it for free with the computer then upgrades with a friend's copy."
The "average users" that I know think that WinXX is part of their computer. The concept of an operating system upgrade is beyond them. They think they buy a new computer if they want an upgraded copy of WinXX.
I'm not kidding.
Furthermore, they think MS Word and Excel and IE is part of that same "package."
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
Maybe I've just grown tired of hearing people ask when linux will become mainstream. I no longer care if it does.
I used to sell customers systems with an OS that cost way too much for what they got(no not an MS product) We developed using tools that cost a hell of a lot and didn't offer much more functionality then syntax highlighting. The systems just up and crashed at times and noone could explain it.
The customers eventually got mad about the stability of the system. So we're replacing it. Linux, Mysql, php, apache and a whole lot of custom modules.
So far in testing the users are much happier, the developers are happier and the over all systems cost far less which we directly pocket as profit. The customers could care less that the system is built on free software, they just need it to work.
Does it really matter if grandma doesn't use linux at home? In the early days it didn't matter that noone used linux for anything. People still made it and now it's useful, that will never change.
How about they get something called a job? A lot of people have one, they work for someone who pays them to do so. Of course, the person that pays them to work must have a business model that doesn't involve giving away what their employees produce. If they're stupid enough to give their work away for free, I'm greedy enough to take it.
The biggest confusion is of course the meaning of free. We've all probably heard the "free as in ..." statements, but we've got to admit we mostly like the "free as in beer" part. It's hard for people to shell out the clams for "closed" source software (I wanted Mathematica until i learned it was $1600), that's why "piracy" is a big thing. The question really is can we sell the "free as in speech" part to the average Joe?
dear jerk,
one thing is certain, you (and people like you) do exist. i have to deal with people like you everyday at work, and I'm really sick of it. I work at an ISP tech support center. All my coworkers call these people idiots because they don't know what a mail server is or how to activate their webspace and ftp to it. Besides the admins and maybe one other person at my job, I am the only one who knows anythign more about Linux than how to use KDE. Does that mean my coworkers and friends are idiots? Answer = no.
does a air conditioner repair (wo)man look down on you because you don't know how it works, or know anything about it, besides the very simple UI. When you want a more powerful unit, do you buy a whole new one or learn how the thing works and upgrade it yourself.
why do you look down on people because they don't know everything you know about computers. why should they, it's not essential, or even enjoyable to most. people only use them because they are convienent and ideally, more efficient.
yes there are stupid people. but people aren't stupid because they don't know anything about computers.
In conclusion, stfu.
Sincerely,
a dissatisified customer.
I post proudly, my opinion.
"when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
Selling software isn't an obsolete business model by any means. We just happen to be at a point where a monopoly has managed to continue to charge an obscene amount of money for what should basically be a commodity item.
You sound like the people who thought that the Internet presented a "whole new paradigm" and that the old business models were obsolete. Turns out they were wrong, and that eventually the dotcom boom turned into a speculative bubble.
The core of what's happening with Open Source is a response to classic market pressures. Office suite software should be dirt cheap by now, not priced at an obscene $300. Heck, it's not just Microsoft - I saw WordPerfect Office at my local Fry's for $300. What are those people smoking?
The response from the market has been to say Screw that - I'd rather write something that people can use for free than keep paying these obscene prices. (In the case of OpenOffice, Sun was also obsessed with finding a way to do some damage to Microsoft.)
The fact that you use software shows that it has some value. Money represents a convenient way of measuring that value. Many of use are willing to pay full price for a new Linux distro. Some are not, and purchase a cheap CD from a second hand retailer. Others are really really cheap and download it for free on their DSL connection. (The fact that they paid $50 a month for a DSL connection shows that the software has value, even though they are too cheap to pay directly).
If the market were running correctly, much of this commercial software would be far cheaper than it is. It wouldn't be worth the time it takes to write an Office suite. Heck, much of this software should probably already be commodity items, sold at no charge.
Open Source software won't eliminate commercial software. But it will make it painful for software companies that try to screw consumers by overpricing their products.
That's a Very Good Thing (tm).
Amen brother. Anyone who wants the "man on the street" opinion - read the following: If you REEEEEAlly want to win over the average joe and penetrate into the MS monopoly on the desktop, you HAVE to address (1) hardware compatability, and (2) ease of software setup, use, troubleshooting, problem resolution. 1st, backgrounders and qualifiers: I am a smart guy. I make almost 3 figures, I have a 4 year degree and am just shy of a masters. I work for one of the big computer companies. Our department's system admin reports to me. I hate microsoft's abuse of their monopoly. I aboslutely love the concept of Linux and open source. I use open office at home as well as MozillaFirebird. I have tried and tried again to use Linux as my primary OS both at home and work, but quite frankly its a big pain in the A$$. Sure the hardware detection is getting better all the time, and the software tools are improving as well, but 3 huge mountains still remain: (1) compatibility with MS networks, (2) support for cutting edge hardware, and (3) cutting edge software titles available to Linux (ProE, Autocad, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator). In spite of everything you will try to flame me with please listen to this: I don't want to fsck with a command line to configure my PC - I want to click the dam menu and *bam* be done. I don't want to fsck with my hardware trying to get Linux to like it - I just want to plug the dam thin in and tell it where the drivers are (assuming it doesn't already recognize it). I want to be able to open the help center, type "setup samba" and have it provide step by step instructions not say things like "go to 1234.org and read the manual pages for more info" or "you may have to recompile your kernel". Quite frankly I don't give a rat's butt about kernels or .orgs. I want to use a tool and have it work. I want to buy a piece of hardware, plug it in, load the drivers from CD and use the dam thing. I will pay someone for that privilege. MS understands that, however evil their little hearts are.
THIS is why Linux can't break the "average joe" barrier.
I LOVE what you guys do, I DO want you do succeed. Please understand that the market you are trying to penetrate REQUIRES that you jump the above mentioned hurdles.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
So you're advocating that open source authors get paid from either locally-collected (as in the case of libraries) or nationally-collected (as is the case of NPR and PBS) taxes?
Or that they should have their software, for a two-week period every six months, interrupt what your doing every few hours with modal dialog boxes that block your work until you pledge more money (as PBS and most public radio do)?