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Linux Foundation Asks Who Says "I'm Linux" Best

Posted by timothy on from the creepy's-definitely-the-way-to-go dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Everyone has seen Apple's clever 'I'm a Mac' ads, and Microsoft's attempted responses, first with Jerry Seinfeld, and next with 'I'm a PC.' The Linux Foundation tries to fire back with its community-generated 'We're Linux' video contest: all of the eligible videos have now been submitted and are ready to be voted on. Thankfully, the quality of Linux is much higher than the quality of some of these entries: entries range from the hilarious but inappropriate, to the well-made but creepy, to the 'I'm sure it sounded good in your head.' Thankfully, there are one or two that could actually be real commercials."

38 of 459 comments (clear)

  1. Evil Geniuses Use Linux by biryokumaru · · Score: 4, Funny

    What ever happened to:
    ahttp://ubergeek.tv/article.php?pid=54

    --
    When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
  2. And that so sums up Linux... by jonnyj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Great product, shame about the marketing. That's why Canonical / Ubuntu is so important.

    1. Re:And that so sums up Linux... by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 5, Interesting
      The Linux.com contest is cute, but not much is accomplished for Microsoft or Linux as long as they are aping Apple's ad campaign. Such ads would only give the impression that Microsoft and Linux are late to the "cool party".

      It'd be nice if Canonical (or any other serious player, or especially a consortium) released ads which played on Linux' strengths and dispelled the myths of modern Linux. They could show a stylish but smart person being the Linux user and his curious but skeptical friend asking the questions:
      • "Dosen't an expert need to set up Linux?" "No, it's quick and easy!" (show a YAST or GRUB GUI installation)
      • "Can I change the way it looks?" "Sure, much more than Vista or OSX!" (quickly show a wide variety of theme shots)
      • "How do I install software?" "Look, it's easy. Everything is at your fingertips." (show the GUI apt-get)
      • "Does Linux work with different hardware?" "Of course." (show rapid-fire shots of CUPS recognition, multiple monitors, etc.)
      • "Can I run my Windows programs on Linux?" "Yes you can." (show WINE in action)

      But more importantly, Linux must go on the offensive. They must stress that they are capable of doing fancy stuff(show the oblig compiz-fusion screenshot), and they should mention the freedom that users will have to do whatever they want with their computer while reminding the users how annoying iTunes is for trying to install other crap under your nose. Maybe have a cheap shot at the "Vista capable" fiasco and the fact that Vista and 7 are the same thing are both prime targets for malware. Stress that users do have a choice!

    2. Re:And that so sums up Linux... by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You ever notice how nobody really talks about features the way you're describing? It's because that's basically nerd porn. Everyone else would just go "jesus, that's boring" and tune out.

      This is something most of the Linux community doesn't get: People don't give a fuck about computers. It's like a car: the only time they care is when it isn't doing what they want it to.

      And, right now, it's a lot easier to get a Linux machine to the isn't-doing-what-they-want-it-to point than a Windows machine. (If you have to mention WINE, you pretty much already failed. WINE is an admirable effort that requires a level of technical proficiency or at least willingness to Google to get a lot of stuff running well--neither of which are things end users will do.)

      --
      "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
    3. Re:And that so sums up Linux... by Americano · · Score: 4, Informative

      People don't give a fuck about computers. It's like a car: the only time they care is when it isn't doing what they want it to.

      Well said. Put slightly differently by Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt:

      People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.

      There's a reason why most Mac ads talk about how the Mac makes "real stuff" (photos, video, music, email, setting up a new printer...) easy: it's the holes they're talking about, not the drill.

    4. Re:And that so sums up Linux... by droopycom · · Score: 4, Funny
      • "Can I run iTunes and use my iPhone with Linux?" "Err... well, almost, with wine, iTunes version 7.3 works... kind of, but its okay... you can just use one of the numerous other free media player... But you better backup your iphone on a mac or windows machine before you start playing with it on linux, because it might just eat all your songs and apps... But anyway you just just get a Google android phone that is open source and run Linux on the phone itself! ... hey, no dont run away... come back! You'll see, linux its so much fun..."
    5. Re:And that so sums up Linux... by JWSmythe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I was going to reply to him, but you seem to actually understand.

          He has no clue about advertising. It has absolutely NOTHING (none, nada, nil, zip, zero, nuthin') to do with the product. It has everything to do with getting the viewer's attention, and keeping it for the 15 to 30 seconds that the ad runs, *AND* mixed in somewhere show the product.

          Like, this would make a killer ad..

          Show a jet fighter buzzing the surface of the ocean. It fires a missile. WOOSH! People like jet fighters. They like big explosions. The flash and the noise will get (or keep) them looking.

          The camera follows the missile. You see the girls on the beach. It flys down a road with flashy cars. it buzzes some other flashy thing. Then you see it going straight into a building with a big Linux sign on it.

          Big explosion. Dust settles (quickly, we're at like 20 seconds already), and the sign is still standing.

          No words. No dialogue. Just music (optionally, but suggested), jet engine noise, rocket noise, and explosion noise.

          People who want to sell their product always want to include all kinds of crap about their product. Consumers don't care. 99% of the people driving cars (like in your example) don't know anything about them. They can't tell you what engine it has. Half of them can't even tell you the model without going outside to look. Everyone can say if it's pretty or ugly. There are some people who are really into their cars (like me) who can run down every part in it accurately. Ads for my car had nothing to do with the features of the car.

          Here was the short version (30 sec). It doesn't even say the name until the end. Lots of noise and effects.

          This was the long promo video. Only the first 45 seconds showed up on TV, as I recall. Again, lots of noise and effects. Even I, a TransAm owner, didn't care to watch it past 1 minute, when they started babbling about the features.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    6. Re:And that so sums up Linux... by yoshi_mon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Another great way of putting the same idea. And while I agree I think that there is a bit more to the idea than even the previous poster says.

      Small % of people - Those in the know about a product and want all the 'nerd pron'. (Or to put it another way they know all about their needs.) To such people ads that show all the flash over substance are meh at best. However...that's kind of the whole point. The mass scale marketing can't be tailored for this very small set of people.

      Slightly larger % of people - These people are not the techs who are in the above category but rather the managers of those techs. Or the 'enthusiast' part of the market. The kind of people, for example, who do dual-phase cooling on chips that were designed for simple HSF setups. Still however this is not the target that mass scale marketing has to aim for.

      Nearly every other bit of the % of people - The masses who want that hole not the bit. This is the target audience that when thinking about mass marketing your looking at. For example when I think about a fan belt for my car I sure as hell don't fall into either of the above two categories. I'm just looking for a part that will get the job done and not cost me an arm and a leg.

      And mind you there are those to whom fan belts are important things that they want to know all sorts of details about when they think about them. But much like when I think about my OSs don't fall into that 3rd category.

      And therein lies the rub. Most of us who have been involved in FOSS fall directly into the 1st or 2nd category in my list. And as such we make very poor advocates for it at times. Because the majority of people don't really care about FEATURE X that to us is really really cool and important.

      This is getting way too long winded so I'll just close in saying whenever any of the great FOSS conversion stores are shared, most of the best ones include users who just want something that works. Not the other 99% of the nerd pron that we like to go on about.

      --

      Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
    7. Re:And that so sums up Linux... by lennier · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, exactly!

      I use Ubuntu, I went cold turkey from Windows eleven years ago with Red Hat 5... and I'm *still* just deeply frustrated at how many silly little things aren't on anyone's priority list to get fixed.

      Not only that, most of the big projects (KDE, GNOME, OpenOffice) seem to have a definite philosophy of 'that's NOT broken and we WON'T fix it!' for things which quite patently ARE broken.

      Let's pass over with all decent haste the absolutely insane affair of 'spatial windows' in Nautilus (wtf? Windows 95 Explorer had a 'spatial' mode, it was just smart enough to *also* offer a tree browsing view for people who wanted to do serious file management) and give thanks that the Ubuntu people at least had the insight to override the GNOME people and turn *that* craziness off.

      Let's ignore for now the equally insane rush to *remove* copy-pastable file path text fields from dialog boxes and replace them with un-automatable candy-bar strips of buttons. Because, um, nobody uses keyboards anymore? I guess that's a step 'forward'. (Oh, yes, there's a magic hidden alt-key to bring up the real text field... but you'll never know what it is, because we don't talk about that.)

      Let's also be thankful that *finally* some 'fully packaged' applications *now* start putting in menu entries.

      No, let's talk about the more serious issues: how there are about five separate, incompatible 'official' object systems (GObject, CORBA/Bonobo, D-BUS, KParts, Firefox's XPCom, OpenOffice's UNO) before we even think about .NET/Mono or Java integration.

      How there's still no sensible shared configuration system - after a zillion false starts, we still have gconf (two versions of) for GNOME, and the horde of weird formats in /etc for everyone else. Different /etc layout for each distribution, of course, despite what FHS tried to do.

      How although we have X, which is fully networkable, if your X Server crashes - by definition a component which could be *on another machine entirely* - then ALL YOUR RUNNING X APPLICATIONS have to be restarted! The best feature of X, completely subverted just by bad 'standard' configuration.

      And yes, how every 'desktop environment' insists on reinventing the API wheel and building 'virtual filesystems' ON TOP OF its own API rather than making them available to the Posix level with something like FUSE.

      And then there's the pain of device management, like webcams. If it autodetects at startup, it'll probably work. If not.... good luck.

      I love Linux, but... we seem to be settling for far less than we had in the 80s, even. At least then we had dreams of what a desktop *could* be.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
  3. Didn't Novell already do this? by argent · · Score: 4, Informative

    Two years ago?

    1. Re:Didn't Novell already do this? by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Funny

      Shhhh!! It's just a talent contest for the geeks who didn't get to be in one in high school. Don't spoil their chance to wear a nice gown and walk down the aisle just once.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  4. I am Linux by sunking2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    And apparently I don't serve out web pages any better than IIS.

  5. Oops by castorvx · · Score: 5, Funny

    We're Linux, and our site is down.

    Linux marketing = epic win.

  6. Very fitting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I find this situation to be a very fitting analogy to the computing world as a whole. Apple does something that gets attention. Microsoft makes their cheap knockoff of it. Then the OSS/Linux guys come along and say "Hey, we can do that, too!"

    1. Re:Very fitting by Duradin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually it be more along the lines of someone suggesting to the Linux guys that they should do something and the Linux guys telling the person "go make the commercial yourself".

    2. Re:Very fitting by Galois2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well as usual with Linux, they show up late to the game

      Not quite -- the "he's linux" commercial preceeded either the Mac or PC ad series. Perhaps the only usual thing is that Apple and MS take undeserved credit.

      and produce a half ass working team that people find unbearable to watch while the hardcore crowd yells at them for being peons.

      I found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwL0G9wK8j4 to be a fully working team, coached by Wooden no less.

      But hey we can criticize MS/Apple all day, but when it comes to Linux we have to treat them with special care because they 'do it for free'.

      No, we can criticize MS because we've proven in court they illegally use their monopoly to extinguish competition in other areas, and Apple because they lock down both their hardware and software. Linux is the best open source OS there is, and anyone who cares about software freedom ought to care about it.

  7. Re:Link to youtube videos by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's one (the one the submitter called one of the better ones):

    Challenges at the Office

    Some of the other ones are under the related videos.

  8. Since the server already melted.... by Skylinux · · Score: 4, Informative

    Unfortunately the server already melted so here are a few videos Novell produced to market Linux.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3AXo5i_XYI

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjJePMwEMWg

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8WNPvjtjQg

    --
    Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
  9. Samuel L Jackson.... by Em+Emalb · · Score: 5, Funny

    Reprising his role as Jules from Pulp Fiction:

    Jules: [Jules shoots the man on the couch, who turns out to be Steve Jobs, turns to talk to Bill Gates] I'm sorry, did I break your concentration? I didn't mean to do that. Please, continue, you were saying something about best intentions. What's the matter? Oh, you were finished! Well, allow me to retort. What does Linus Torvalds look like?

    Bill: What?
    Jules: What OS do you run?
    Bill: What? What? Wh - ?
    Jules: "What" ain't no OS I've ever heard of. They have a usable command line in What?
    Bill: What?
    Jules: Usable command line, mother fucker, do you have one?
    Bill: Yes! Yes!
    Jules: Then you know what I'm sayin'!
    Bill: Yes!
    Jules: Describe what Linus Torvalds looks like!
    Bill: What?
    Jules: Say 'what' again. Say 'what' again, I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker, say what one more Goddamn time!

    [end scene, fade out with Linux, Operating System of Bad Mother Fuckers everywhere]

    --
    Sent from your iPad.
  10. What a second... by Antony-Kyre · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Aren't linux machines still Personal Computers?

    1. Re:What a second... by roggg · · Score: 5, Funny

      Mac: "I'm a Mac."

      Linux: "I'm a PC. Because you see Linux actually runs on PC hardware, so it's a fallacy to refer to only Windoze machines a PCs.

      Mac: "ummm..."

      Linux (standing up, and brushing cheeto dust from beard): "In fact, to be pedantic, Mac's are PCs too in the more general sense of the term since PC stands for personal computer, and Mac's are certainly computers designed for personal use. Really we are all PCs. I really hate how M$ has appropriated that term for it's own platforms when the term is equally applicable to linux machines as well..."

      Mac: "please...kill me now."

    2. Re:What a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Linux: "And that's another thing. 'kill' is a UNIX command, and as we all know, Macs are UNIX machines underneath (technically BSD UNIX), so, yeah, you could invoke 'kill' once you know your PID. Really, you're not a Mac, you're a UNIX machine, derived via a NextStep machine and tweaked to look like a Mac. You're a prettied-up UNIX-like machine just like me! We're practically brothers!" [Big, kind of scary-looking, cheetoes-laden smile at the end as he tries to hug Mac]

      Mac: [Slowly starts stepping sideways out of the picture]

    3. Re:What a second... by mad_clown · · Score: 4, Funny

      God, I can just see RMS doing that commercial. Only the commercial would be about 15 minutes long, and would contain multiple instances when he exclaimed "GNU stands for GNU's not UNIX! It's a HACK!!!"

      --
      "Cut word lines. Cut music lines. Smash the control images. Smash the control machine." - William S. Burroughs
  11. facepalm by blhack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't part of the point of linux that there isn't a face to it?

    Linux is my mailserver
    Linux runs my mythtv
    Linux runs on my access point
    Linux runs on my sister's laptop.
    Linux runs on our company's DVR.

    Linux is not an operating system for the desktop or for the server, or for the embedded device. Linux is an operating system for EVERYTHING.

    Its like a ball of clay, endless potential and totally at the hands of the artist.

    --
    NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
  12. mac vs pc: stallman vs. torvalds by je+ne+sais+quoi · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can't watch the commercials because the site is slashdotted, but here's what I think: Instead of doing the I'm a mac, I'm a PC exchange commercials, they should get Stallman and Torvalds to do the commercial, each one playing "linux". I think it would emphasize the tension the linux community has regarding the priority of freedom:

    Torvalds: "Hello, I'm linux."
    Stallman: "You should really refer to him as GNU/linux, and me too."
    Torvalds: "We reliably operate huge numbers of servers, embedded devices and personal computers and have support for a a huge array of hardware devices."
    Stallman: "But most importantly, we allow you to have the freedom share your ideas with others and be able to use other's ideas enriching all of us simultaneously."
    Torvalds: "...and making big bank."
    Stallman: "uhh, what?"

    --
    Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
  13. Re:I'm Debian by Jabbrwokk · · Score: 5, Funny

    They're all in OGG format so no one will be able to watch them anyway ;)

  14. Re:Already Slashdotted by mdm-adph · · Score: 4, Funny

    1237394160000

    I know it was a joke, but I really couldn't help myself.

    --
    It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
  15. Re:Slackware by Weaselmancer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Like the God Amen, Slackware created himself.

    I thought that was Gentoo.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  16. Hi, I'm Linux by Bastard+of+Subhumani · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hi, I'm linux and the load on my server is getting very h

    404 file not found

    --
    Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
  17. Re:Slackware by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 4, Funny

    No, Linux from Scratch created himself...from scratch.

  18. Re:Slackware by CarpetShark · · Score: 4, Funny

    I thought that was Gentoo.

    No, Gentoo is the future incarnation, which is yet to finish creating itself.

  19. Re:I'm Debian by myshkinstudios · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's odd how both of those comments are absolutely true.

  20. Re:I'm Debian by VagaStorm · · Score: 4, Informative

    Akording to wikipedia you are correct, yggdrasil linux releaced first alpha on 8 December 1992, before both slakware and debian who came out in 1993 but Softlanding Linux System (SLS) precceded them all. (I knew nothing of this b4 I looked it up :p)

    --
    www.aleo.no
  21. Re:Slackware by Daravon · · Score: 5, Funny

    "And Lo! The Lord did sayeth 'emerge earth' and he did wait five days and five nights. Verily he did then adjust his holy USE flags, and then did emerge again!"

    Spoiler alert, he eventually created the world after spending a lot of time compiling from source. Later, on the forums, he bragged he did it in seven days and that everybody who couldn't do it that was either a noob or needed a faster computer.

    --
    I traded all my mod points for these magic beans.
  22. Script by Brandybuck · · Score: 4, Funny

    [Cut to suburban home basement. Room contains boxspring mattress, cinderblock and plank bookshelf, and cable spool table. On the floor is indoor/outdoor kitchen-print carpet. On the walls are a selection of tattered scifi movie posters, including Natalie Portman in torn jumpsuit poster from Episode II. Glow in the dark stars dot the ceiling, from which dangle several hand painted styrofoam "planets". There is a stack of obsolete game consoles in the corner. Computer in aluminum and plexiglass supertower case with purple lighting is next to table, on which are two unmatched LCD monitors. Pale overweight adolescent enters from stage left. He is wearing black jeans, and black tee-shirt with penguin and wildebeest motif. The hair is short spiked dyed pink, but black roots are prominent.]

    Adolescent: "I am Linux! Ph3&r me!"

    [Cue jingle. Wipe to series logo.]

    --
    Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  23. Tux is the perfect face by Cruciform · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't know if it's been done (links are dead to me), but why not make Tux the face of Linux in an ad?
    Get a bunch of Tuxes made in various sizes (or digitally modelled) and show people doing things in their daily routine, with the penguins replacing phones, laptops, servers, embedded devices, etc.
    And at the end of the ad, the simple text:
    Linux, you're already using it.

  24. Re:Slackware by pbhj · · Score: 5, Funny

    "And Lo! The Lord did sayeth 'emerge earth' and he did wait five days and five nights. Verily he did then adjust his holy USE flags, and then did emerge again!"

    Spoiler alert, he eventually created the world after spending a lot of time compiling from source. Later, on the forums, he bragged he did it in seven days and that everybody who couldn't do it that was either a noob or needed a faster computer.

    That came back to bite him when he had to do a zero write flood and clean install from a huge arkive (sounds like Ubu' to me).

  25. Re:Slackware by David+Gould · · Score: 4, Funny

    Imagine His surprise upon learning that one of His angels had the evil bit set...

    And thus was the first daemon spawned.

    --
    David Gould
    main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}