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Open Source Advocacy The Right Way
[vmlinuz] writes "With a rapid succession of people moving towards Open Source, advocacy and evangelism is increasingly important in helping organizations to move over. The O'Reilly Network has begun publishing a series of articles about Open Source by Jono Bacon that teaches how to approach advocacy sensibly and more productively." From the article: "Although Aristotle developed his message many, many years ago, the concept of optimizing how we talk to people has developed further throughout history. From Aristotle to Heraclitus to Friedrich Nietzsche to Helen Keller to George Bernard Shaw, many people have advocated new thinking in times of rabid opposition."
LinuxAppeal.net is a good site to appeal to companies to release linux products. It is not a site where users bitch about companies, but rather people can find well written petitions, write their own (and add them to the site) and submit them to companies.
I figure the more people who petition companies the better so I've written a few petitions of my own on the site in hope that others will find them via google when searching for linux support for a product and petition the company as well.
You might find this site useful: Linux Switcher
I disagree. If it all were about the need, we would still be using WordPerfect for DOS. It's all about the desire. I do not need a fancy dual Mac G5 with a 30" cinema screen, but I desire it. And that's what's keeping a company up. If you have products that are desirable, you'll always have customers. If you were merely fulfilling needs, then well, good luck. You are going to need it.
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Actually, Linux's problem in the marketplace is simply marketing.
I have alot of non-technical friends that I hang out with. If I ask any of them what Linux is, 4 out of 5 go "Huh, what?", and the other only knows about it because of me.
Ask them the same question, but only about Windows this time, and they go "Oh yeah, I know that P.O.S.!".(*)
Simply put, people just do not know about alternatives. They have heard of Macs, but their opinions on them are still in the pre-G4 beige box era (When Macs SUCKED. -- They don't now.) and that they are expensive (They still are, even Minis are more spendy than some cheap-ass PCs I've seen).
The thing is, people will give a "flying fuck" about a certain technology, if they are able to at least SEE it. My friends that I have shown Linux to, all want me to install it on their computers. My own mother prefers Linux, and she is the least computer-minded person I've met. Give people a medium to view a technology, and they'll make up their own opinions on it.
Linux isn't going to sell until it gets mindshare. I think this is what the whole "advocacy thing" is about.
(*) I have yet to meet someone that loves Windows. Its always a "necessary evil" to them ('cuz they don't know any better. Nothing wrong with that.)
So, I guess things like the wheel, the lever, the inclined plane, writing, agriculture, wine, bread, these inventions came into use principally by being sold by one party to another?
How about sailing vessels, windmills, the crossbow, the printing press, the steam engine, aircraft? These exist only through a process of being manufactured and then sold to a waiting market? What about radio, vacuum tubes, the computer, the Internet? Interest in these inventions spread only because of artifacts being sold?
History gives me a different understanding of how inventions come into use. All of these inventions spread because they were interesting. People began by sharing their principles of operation, learned methods of construction, and then applied the results directly to their own needs. Sometimes the application was private, sometimes collective. Sometimes, but not inevitably, the application is suitable for commercialization and sale. Seldom does it prove exclusively a commercial product.
In this world everything is sold, not bought.
Evidently not. I've given several examples, and I'm sure you can imagine others. Open source is one of them.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.