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Fun and Informative Way to Introduce Open Source?

Posted by Cliff on from the indoctrinations-made-easy dept.

jwg asks: "I work in an office environment where I provide technical services and solutions to my co-workers (as I am sure most Slashdot readers do at their respective places of employment). Once a month, we have a round-table meeting to discuss pressing issues in our office. At the beginning of these meetings, it is one person's job to provide some form of 'professional development', usually an activity or game to teach some skill, idea, or trend directly related to their job. My turn is coming up soon, and I would like to introduce my co-workers to the idea (and to some, the way of life) of Open Source. There are many examples of Open Source software and communities out there to reference (Mozilla, Wikipedia, MySQL and... oh yeah, Linux), but has anyone come up with or come across a method to introduce it in a quick, fun, and informative way to a wide variety of people each of which possess a even wider range of technical skill? Did I mention it has to be fun?"

2 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Don't even bother... by crimethinker · · Score: 5, Informative
    What they care about are applications that install and work as close to flawlessly as possible (or at least allow them to accomplish their tasks with a minimum of problems).

    I agree that most people don't care about the freedom aspect, but if you start pointing out the forced upgrade cycles, the inevitable breakage of some app or another with the next security patch or service pack, the fact that F/OSS puts as much guarantee on their software as Microsoft does for theirs (NONE), and if something bugs you about a F/OSS app, you can change it.

    People want a minimum of hassle. So point out things like the Word 95/97/2000/XP incompatibilities. My previous employer sent out a company-wide e-mail stating that we were not to install Office XP on any systems, either from our own CD's (as this amounted to piracy) or from MS Developer Network CD's, and we especially weren't to spend company money to buy a copy. The reason was that they didn't want to upgrade the entire organization to Office XP, and yet once you saved a doc with XP, you had a decent chance of being able to open it only with XP.

    -paul

    --
    Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
  2. Re:Open Source Computer on a Stick by UnderScan · · Score: 5, Informative

    Computer-on-a-stick uses the Gnome desktop, includes remote access via SSH, VNC, RDP, and runs on Linux kernel 2.6.x so it is impervious to 99% of all spyware, adware, viruses & exploits since they target Windows OS & applications.

    If you already have a USB memory device or if you PC can not boot from a USB device, then there are alternatives.

    Two Linux distros designed for small size & boot on CDR or USB devices
    Damn Small Linux 50MB http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/linuxuser/2005/06 /13/puppy-linux-live-reviewed/
    Puppy Linux 40-90MB http://flaviostechnotalk.com/wordpress/index.php/2 005/06/11/damn-small-linux-12-review/

    Two Linux distros designed to boot from CDR & used as the base for many derivatives
    Knoppix http://www.linuxforums.org/news/article-24309.html
    Slax http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/1193