Promoting FOSS to People Who Don't Care

MarcoF brings us his take on how to cultivate interest in open-source software to casual users who aren't interested in or necessarily aware of its existence. Many people simply have trouble leaving their comfort zone of older proprietary software; what's the best way to get them to look at an open-source alternative? "Since most people would rather die than write or study software source code, it is actually counterproductive to promote software 'because you can modify it yourself and be part of its community'. Look for really practical advantages which can be enjoyed every day by the person you want to convince. Start from the actual deep passions, beliefs, interests and practical needs of the people in front of you and go backwards from there, delaying the apparition of terms like 'source code', 'the four software freedoms', GPL, Gnu, Linux, etc."

Comments

Those posts appear on every article.

[Macthorpe]

No, you're letting your own bias get in the way. There's plenty of those posts on every article.

Why do people feel the need to find a conspiracy in what is really run-of-the-mill trolling?

this is it...

[Bizzeh]

this is the problem with open source, the fake "we care about freedom" crap. when infact, its all hidden communism, trying to force people to switch in new creative ways, just because you think they should.

there is another way to go about this, leave people alone, and allow them to live their lives. and stop forcing open source on them. just because you can see the source, doesnt make it good, and nobody apart from developers care. and being able to see the source doesnt make it open or free (GPL isnt a free licence if you actualy read it, and contradicts its self, thus invalidating its self).