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TheOpenCD 2.0 Released
HenrikOxUK pastes "We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of TheOpenCD v2.0. The disc contains old favorites like Mozilla, OpenOffice, AbiWord, Gimp in updated versions, but also has some noteable additions like Firefox, Thunderbird, Blender and Gaim. The CD browser technology is also new this time, and is based on Gecko (see screenshots). This approach should make it simpler to make derivatives, including localized versions, some of which will be out shortly. We have timed the release to be out just before the holidays so you can fill the stockings of friends and family with Free and useful software. Read more or get a copy from one of our FTP mirrors or on Bittorrent."
While this is great for open source advocates... there still resides a contingent of resistant people that see open source as nothing more that 'a fad' or 'over-hyped'. A cd is great for trying to package all of these apps together but what open source really needs is a marketing plan.
If i'm an average joe, my first question is 'why should i use open-source?" not where do i get it from?
Never try and talk anyone into anything. Instead, show them. Give them some software.
Once they convince themselves, mention that it is open source and that there's more where that came from. You will find that they begin to look for OSS instead of asking what it is...and they might even ask what makes something OSS vs. freeware or addware.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
"what open source really needs is a marketing plan"
I hear this often, but why? Nobody is making money off open source, many are doing it as a hobby. Do I need a marketing plan to go build paper airplanes? Or even to share my paper airplane designs?
OpenSource is great (IMHO) because you can use if you want, and ignore it if you don't want it.
Leave it to those that are trying to make money (RedHat, IBM, Sun, Novell, etc) to do the marketing.
10b||~10b -- aah, what a question!
That's the point of the OpenCD. The conversation is sopposed to go like this:
Average Joe Why should i use open-source? OS Advocate Here, I'll show you.the programs on your CD maybe free as in beer, but not free as in speech. so it's different thing than the OpenCD.
IAAL
Precisely because Gaim is cross-platform. The aim is to eventually draw people over to Linux, and a good way to do that is to get them using the same apps on the Windows platform first.
PDFCreator is a printer driver. Expecting it to work on a remote terminal session is like rearranging your keytops and wondering why the letters didn't change.