New Contest Will Seek the Best "I'm Linux" Video

LinuxScribe writes "From Apple's ubiquitous 'I'm a Mac,' to Jerry Seinfeld, to Microsoft's 'I'm a PC' retort, operating system commercials have been flooding the airways. Except that Linux is the one OS that has been notably absent. Now the Linux Foundation is launching a video contest on their new video site to fill this void. The winner gets a trip to Tokyo next year to participate in the Linux Foundation Japan Linux Symposium, and some serious geek cred." The contest doesn't officially open until late January; the blog post has an email address to contact if you want to get a head start.

Comments

I vote for Rodney McKay

[Joe The Dragon]

I vote for Rodney McKay

Re:I vote for Rodney McKay

[PolarBearFire]

You mean you want an arrogant obnoxious know-it-all fictional character to play the part of Linux?

Why can't we just pick a hot nekkid chick?

Re:I vote for Rodney McKay

[timeOday]

Sorry dude the casting is done.

Re:I vote for Rodney McKay

[tacarat]

Can we nominate just Kaylee instead?

Re:I vote for Rodney McKay

[Bootarn]

Indeed, the casting is done.

No trolling, just have a laugh.

Re:I vote for Rodney McKay

[McFadden]

You mean you want an arrogant obnoxious know-it-all fictional character to play the part of Linux?

Sounds spot on to me

(except for the fictional part - but I can see how you could have confused the average Linux user with their girlfriend)

Re:I vote for Rodney McKay

[EvilIdler]

I guess it means "lumpy", like grits.

Novell already did this

[Anthony_Cargile]

Novell has already done this in several viral videos, just do a youtube search. The Linux foundation no doubt has less funding than Novell, so they should partner up on this and get a commercial out together, since Novell not only has experience/material on this, but a viable pitch as well what with the woman being Linux and more creative/better than the PC/Mac representatives.

And honestly, why are they still beating this whole "I'm a $PLATFORM" bit death rather than creating a new pitch, as Apple will undoubtably do once everyone has parodied their commercial to death.

Re:Novell already did this

[plantman-the-womb-st]

I know this meme with the I'm a *insert* has gotten out of hand, but this whole concept reminds me of the fact that no one ever seems to remember that linux isn't an OS. Red Hat is, Debian is, Ubuntu is... nevertheless my idea was this:

(wannabe hipster walks up): I'm a Mac.

(up steps the old middle management guy): I'm a PC.

(scene FILLS with people, 200-300, all dressed in various profession/regional/ethnic attire): *in unison* We, are Ubuntu.

Novel may have info, but people don't pay attention to info. Get their attention with the bagel, then hit them with the book, it's the only way to keep them from eating the pages.

Re:Novell already did this

[gzipped_tar]

--
Brian: You are individuals!

The mass: (in unison) Yes! we are individuals!

Brain: You are all different!

The mass: (in unison) Yes! We are different!

Man in the mass: I'm not.

Men around him: Shhhhh!
--

Sorry. Can't help.

Re:Novell already did this

[Anonymous Coward]

...and you have my sword!

Re:Novell already did this

[Abreu]

...and my axe!

Re:Novell already did this

[GaryOlson]

(scene FILLS with people, 200-300, all dressed in various profession/regional/ethnic attire): *in unison* We, are Ubuntu.

With a minor change. Rather than statically standing there announcing who they are, the crowd should be active: riding a unicycle, one guy in chains doing a Houdini act, another person building a hot rod, a person painting an abstract portrait, etc. Rather than speaking in unison, they should all say something different but crescendo with the final word Linux in unison.

Re:Novell already did this

[spisska]

I'm thinking something a little different. I would abandon the whole concept of trying to parody (or parrot) the Mac concept, and instead try to show what Linux is and what it's really good at.

Here's what I was thinking:

Open with a spectacular image from space, which pulls back to reveal an obervatory. Go through the telescope to the computers recording the readings:

System Name
Location
Base Distro, version (e.g. Debian 3.1)
Kernel version

Path continues through series of routers and hops, each flashes the above system stats. Continues through university network to research lab. Students in lab coats studying data, manipulating images from the observatory. Same stats:

System Name; Location; Base Distro, version (e.g. Debian 3.1); Kernel version

Path continues through routers/hops same as before, through a television news studio (stats as appropriate) and out to an LCD set in your average living room -- could be pretty well anywhere in the western world. It's showing the news we flew through before, which has the same backing image of space that keeps recurring. The anchor talks of 'astronomical discovery'. Show stats of TV:

System Name: Sony XXX LCD TV
Location: All over
Base system: custom kernel
Kernel version: 2.4.1, e.g.

Camera swings around living room to reveal a girl at a table (4th-6th grade). She's got various books and papers around her -- she's working on a project about space. She's also got an eee (or similar), which is open to the same image of the cosmos.

System Name: Asus eee PC 701
Location: The world
Base system: Ubuntu eee
Kernel version 2.6.24-generic

She's chatting with someone about the image -- 'wow, that's amazing' or some such. Camera goes back through the tubes, appropriately showing router stats, to a modern classroom in an unexpected place -- e.g. Africa or Central Asia, where a child is also looking at the image and chatting.

Continue through the tubes to other places around the world where the image pops up on a Linux system. Same system stats as appropriate.

Finish in Peru. It's night and there's a child looking at the same image on an OLPC, chat window open. He's sitting on a stunning cliffside with the ocean below.

System Name: OLPC XO-1
Location: SomeVillage, Peru
Base system: Red-Hat, Sugar
Kernel version: 2.6.?

He looks slowly from the screen up into the night sky. The camera zooms out and follows his gaze back out into space.

Fade to black.

Linux. There are no limits.
   

Re:Novell already did this

[im_thatoneguy]

Wow! This is TOTALLY different from Microsoft's "I'm a PC". Campaign!

This is a great idea if you want to further reinforce the idea that Linux is just a low cost community funded Microsoft. (OpenOffice vs. Office XP, Windows vs Linux, Firefox vs IE, Android vs Windows Mobile etc etc). When Open Source and linux goes hunting for ideas they usually shamelessly clone Microsoft products... for better or worse. SO yeah.. let's reinforce that stereotype by cloning Microsoft's ad campaign for Vista.

Re:Novell already did this

[DiegoBravo]

And in the credits a fat bearded guy yelling "I'm GNU/Linux".

Re:Novell already did this

[ozphx]

So basically copying the MS ad?

Script

[symbolset]

(big)Hi, I'm a PC.

(med mac)Hi, I'm a mac.

(flea linux)I'm Linux!

(big pc)Let's talk about servers.

PC shrinks, mac grows, but Linux takes over 90% of the scale

(linux)Hey! Where did you guys go?

Re:Script

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, that was just terrible.

Re:Script

[symbolset]

You're welcome. Maybe you would prefer the alternate version where PC has leprosy, and server share drops off.

Re:Script

[steveha]

I admit that unlike with these guys I don't easily work with the hardware you already have...

Oh come on, that's needlessly harsh, and not funny. It's not even correct. Does OS X work with the hardware I already own? Does Windows Vista?

Take an Ubuntu 8.04 install CD, and try booting it on "the hardware you already have". In my experience, it will Just Work on just about any computer from the past few years. (An Ubuntu 8.10 install CD will probably work also, but I have seen that fail to work on a laptop... some drivers issue. 8.04 is the "Long Term Support" version, and extra care was taken to make it stable, so that's slightly better for Just Working.)

Ubuntu will do a better job of Just Working on "the hardware you already have" than Windows Vista! 1 GB of RAM is plenty for Ubuntu, and while it might be enough for Vista, I have heard that it's not "plenty". (Supposedly you really want to have at least 2 GB.) Semi-lame graphics cards are fine for Ubuntu, including the desktop bling, where Vista will run in some kind of fallback mode unless your card supports programmable shaders.

If a user can be happy with just a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, email program, web browser (with Flash support), instant messenger, photo viewer, photo editor, music player, and a few light games such as a minesweeper game, then that user can be happy with Ubuntu, nearly out of the box. (For the music player, you will probably want to install the extra codecs such as MP3 that are not installed by default.)

An average user might not be able to install Ubuntu, but will be able to use it if an expert sets it up correctly. An average user might not be able to install Windows, either.

steveha

Re:Script

[Americano]

99% of computer users in the world don't care whether they can use program X. They just care that they can use SOME program to do Y.

Actually, no. The vast majority of computer users that do not read /. on a regular basis equate "doing Y" with "program X." If you suddenly drop them in front of a completely unfamiliar interface and say, "But you can still do Y, you just have to adapt to a new interface & way of doing some/many/all things you used to do," you will meet with resistance, irritation, and frustration.

Reasonably sophisticated, computer-savvy users can adapt to new programs pretty quickly, and will even go out in search of a program that does things the way they want. The vast majority of users do not fall in this category. They have their status quo that they've learned to use, and they don't want it to change.

It's this fundamental misunderstanding of the willingness of an "average" computer user to change that fuels so much of Linux's struggle on the desktop.

Stupid idea

[syousef]

If it had been done right about the time the Microsoft Ads came out, it would have been okay. Doing it now sends the message that Linux is behind the times and unoriginal. Much like using Jerry Seinfeld years after his TV show was a hit.

Re:Stupid idea

[Hooya]

I've always pictured it as:

Starts off as a regular Mac ad. The camera then zooms back to reveal the two dudes standing in front of a white sheet.. zooms further out to reveal the sound guy (you know, the guy working the mic boom - i think it's called 'grip' or something), the director, the stage hands... all wearing "I'm linux" shirts.

Re:Stupid idea

[Tony Hoyle]

I don't know.. "Life without walls"?

If there are no walls, who needs Windows?

Great catchphrase...

Re:Stupid idea

[Yetihehe]

Actually it's more like a wigwam. No gates, no windows, only apache inside.

Distros Cause Spartacus Syndrome

[Sean0michael]

With all the distros out there vying for this, I'm sure this will end up being like Spartacus.

User: Which one of you is Linux?

Ubuntu: I am Linux!
Gentoo: No, I am Linux!
Red Hat: No, I am Linux!
SuSE: Don't listen to them - I am Linux!
Shouts from Slackware, YellowDog, DamnSmallLinux and thousands of others fill the air.

The contest is over.

[pushing-robot]

IBM Won.

Re:The contest is over.

[hairyfeet]

Bah! If you want mass market appeal you have to go for the evil genius market!

Wish someone would do this

[ancientt]

A man walks to a corner and is solicited by two ladies of the evening.

(Windows) [dressed in fishnet and miniskirt] - "Wanna have a good time baby? I'm very popular, I do _all_ the fun things. [pause] I'm cheap."

(Mac) [catholic schoolgirl look with heavy makeup] - "Take me sweetie! I'm fun too and I'm cuter! [giggle, then dead serious] Not cheap."

[Mac and Windows get into a hair pulling fight while Marketing, old leering suited man, pulls up a jello filled wading pool.]

(Linux) [A girl next door type walks up] "Hi again, wanna grab dinner, [pause] I'm buying."

(Man) "Sure. Wait, you're buying? Do you expect to get paid?"

(Linux) "No, it might be nice if you buy some time, but that's up to you.

(Man) Dutch?

Re:Wish someone would do this

[Kenshin]

(Linux) [A girl next door type walks up] "Hi again, wanna grab dinner, [pause] I'm buying."

And then, she added: "Oh, but you have to cook it yourself, and if you dare ask how to do it my friends and I will laugh at you."

Don't advertise "Linux", advertise a BRAND

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linux" per se is not an OS, it is a set of common libraries and standards that is shared by many OSs. Heck, binaries compiled for one Linux distro won't even work on half the others (reason I mentioned this is because binary incompatibility is a good way to distinguish between customizations of a single OS, as opposed to different OSs, which, while belonging to the same family, are just that - DIFFERENT OSs.

Advertising Linux is like advertising x86 architecture or the Unix Standard. It may be useful for engineers, programmers, or adiministrators, but not to end users. The fact that all Linux distros share the same kernel is about as useful to end users as telling them that their particular Chevy model uses the same engine block as a dozen other cars from GM. The service technician will need to know this, not the end user. The end users need to know WHAT a distro does, not HOW it does it. And every distro does things differently, and for a good reason - it is optimized for a particular audience and a particular way of doing things. By definition, that means that a single distro can't please eveyone - and shouldn't try to.

Advertise Ubuntu. Advertise Red Hat. Advertise Gentoo. Pick a market and promote the Linux brand that suits that market best. And if someone else isn't happy about your choice, they can go and advertise their own distro to their own target audience.

Linux distros need to start adopting a good old capitalist trick known as USING A BRAND.

The best...

[Enderandrew]

The best contribution won't be a single person, but this huge contribution of several people. Linux isn't one OS for one person. It is embedded. It is desktop. It is server. It runs the cloud. It runs your phone. It runs your coffee maker. Ir runs the web. It runs super-computers. It is the unspoken hero. It is a rock-star.

The only video representation of one character that fits Linux is a representation of all these characters.

Re:Not OSs

[centuren]

The answer, then, should be a Mac / PC ad spinoff where the "Mac" and "PC" start their banter, then "Linux" comes out as a Borg, injects itself into both, and we end up with all three as part of the Linux "community".

I can see it

[lord_sarpedon]

Picture an I'm a Mac/I'm a PC commercial as they typically start!

Richard Stallman shouts from offstage, "I'm linux, and I'm freee free FREEEE"

He the proceeds to prance naked around stage throwing rose petals to the ground as the other two are stricken with a deep terror.

Freeeee! Free freeeeee!

Positioning Linux

[Forkenhoppen]

The key to the Mac and PC commercials has been their positioning.

Apple's Macs are all-in-one machines, that come with both hardware and software. So it's easy for them to position their avatar and straw man appropriately to showcase the advantages of their platform versus Microsoft's. "I'm a has-it-all-together Mac, you're a slightly confused yet assertive PC. Gee, why am I simpler to set up and use?"

Microsoft sells just the software, so they aimed to take the focus off of the 'whole package' aspect and instead focus on the users. Hence their "I'm a PC" campaign. (Incidentally, someone needs to tell Microsoft that PC stands for 'Personal Computer,' and not 'Person using a Computer'..)

The proper Linux positioning should be about Open Source, and how everyone contributes. So instead of an "I'm Linux" response, I'd suggest "We're Linux." Unlike how Microsoft's approach bends the meaning of words 'til they break, "We're Linux" would actually ring true on a lot of levels, from all of the different people whose pieces are put together to make one distribution, to the number of distributions available, to the sheer number of platforms that Linux has been ported to.

unlikely script

[Trepidity]

Stallman would never say "I'm Linux". ;-)

Script suggestion: Have someone saying "I'm Linux", yelling starts off-camera, camera pans over sort of haphazardly, and Stallman launches into a rant about how it's GNU/Linux.

Bill Hicks

[ciderVisor]

I'll tell you the commercial they'd like to do, if they could, and I guarantee you, if they could, they'd do this, right here:

Here's the woman's face, beautiful.

Camera pulls back, naked breast.

Camera pulls back, she's totally naked. Legs apart.
Two fingers, right here, and it just says, "I'm Linux".

Now I don't know the connection here, but goddamn if Ubuntu isn't on my download list that week. -- Bill Hicks