I can see why Apple and M$ want an ad campaign where the users equate themselves with the product, but I fail to see why the Linux community would want to blindly follow that dubious example.
I am not Linux. I am a Linux user. My reaction to the "I'm a PC" ad campaign is to reply, "You might as well call yourself a toaster. Moron."
Take note of my signature, it explains exactly why I use GNU/Linux. Now that I bought Ubuntu swag, I can both be free thinking and a tool at the same time. Apple can't give you that even if it forced it in an update.
There's hundreds of alternative conclusions that can be drawn from the study. As much as I do appreciate your insight, you should be careful when you discount another point of view based on the "snarky attitude".
Popular knowledge is inherently biased and often inaccurate, but there's always a reason why some 'fact' becomes popular.
I find that to be a much more satisfying explanation than the plethora of smug, snarky posts like yours on this article.
"Yeah, it runs just about everything that comes with Windows perfectly, including the amazing word processing power of wordpad, the mad calculating skizzles of calc, the years of entertainment that sol provides. It'll even do minesweeper and paint!
Did I mention that Ubuntu already comes with OpenOffice, Firefox, GIMP, and a calculator that can do everything short of graphing, all for free, without having to register, without having to install cracks, without having to worry if an update will break the crack, or programmers constantly trying to find ways to make it harder for you to steal their software?"
That usually gets people to try a LiveCD at least.
The marketing should be getting rid of the reputation that Linux acquired in the 90's and should be about showing people how exciting and advanced the progress has become in the last 10 years.
Something along the lines that GNU/Linux is in exponential growth while Microsoft doesn't have the curve to surf on anymore?
I was about to argue but now that I think about it, trying to listen to music on a remote share in Rhythmbox was always a hassle. DAAP really saved the day when I finally came across it, but that only solved one problem for one application.
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.)
Hey, I never needed to Google anything for Wine! Oh, wait... yes I did.. hundreds of times...
"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.
Imagine His surprise upon learning that one of His angels had the evil bit set...
There's three different cards to buy, and I have no doubt that they're all identical save for what card they claim to be, thereby limiting what features the manager software will allow the user to access.
I, for one, refuse to subscribe to the belief of binary social ideals in operating systems, phone companies, potato chips, cereals and sexes. Instead, I simply accept that all things are ruled by a single, megalithic overlord that can be described as all things at once, much like a superposition of all things slashdotters have welcomed and more.
Funny that, I've dropped all sorts of shit with no ill to it, yet a friend of mine destroyed every single thing he dropped at much lower heights and much more yielding surfaces.
I've dropped two different laptops several times, dozens of cell phones, sealed cans of soda, glasses, plates...
He broke a hard drive from a foot onto carpet, a mouse, a can of soda exploded on him after dropping in on linoleum, several dishes... he dropped a G4 PowerBook, the display and hard drive were fine but the keyboard stopped working, of all things.
My most successful 'conversions' have never been with frills or features or marketing material. All five of the people I got switched to Ubuntu did so for ideological reasons.
Vista is stunning and beautiful and on recent laptops with updates it's turning out to be damned nice, but that's not because Microsoft is better, their developers are not gods because they are branded by the Microsoft Ranch.
That same beauty, reliability, anything can be done with freely available code that can be shared and improved and openly argued over.
Some people really do care about freedom, about human rights as applied to software. Those are the people I go after, and it works.
Thank you, it was driven by anger, inspiration, psychology class, and a million phone calls coming in at the same time complaining about email not working because no one got the email that the email server was going to be down.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see why Apple and M$ want an ad campaign where the users equate themselves with the product, but I fail to see why the Linux community would want to blindly follow that dubious example.
I am not Linux. I am a Linux user. My reaction to the "I'm a PC" ad campaign is to reply, "You might as well call yourself a toaster. Moron."
Take note of my signature, it explains exactly why I use GNU/Linux. Now that I bought Ubuntu swag, I can both be free thinking and a tool at the same time. Apple can't give you that even if it forced it in an update.
DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS *red and sweating with the devil in eyes* DEVELOPERS!
I think it would emphasize the tension the linux community has regarding the priority of freedom:
Yeah, let's market the fact that we can't agree on anything!
How about a big group of people, all wearing shirts of different distros, and have them yell "We're all Linux".
And bashing each other to death with 80's keyboards, right? I mean, that's what I first thought of...
There's hundreds of alternative conclusions that can be drawn from the study. As much as I do appreciate your insight, you should be careful when you discount another point of view based on the "snarky attitude".
Popular knowledge is inherently biased and often inaccurate, but there's always a reason why some 'fact' becomes popular.
I find that to be a much more satisfying explanation than the plethora of smug, snarky posts like yours on this article.
What is your basis of satisfaction?
"Can I run my Windows programs on Linux?"
"Yeah, it runs just about everything that comes with Windows perfectly, including the amazing word processing power of wordpad, the mad calculating skizzles of calc, the years of entertainment that sol provides. It'll even do minesweeper and paint!
Did I mention that Ubuntu already comes with OpenOffice, Firefox, GIMP, and a calculator that can do everything short of graphing, all for free, without having to register, without having to install cracks, without having to worry if an update will break the crack, or programmers constantly trying to find ways to make it harder for you to steal their software?"
That usually gets people to try a LiveCD at least.
The marketing should be getting rid of the reputation that Linux acquired in the 90's and should be about showing people how exciting and advanced the progress has become in the last 10 years.
Something along the lines that GNU/Linux is in exponential growth while Microsoft doesn't have the curve to surf on anymore?
I was about to argue but now that I think about it, trying to listen to music on a remote share in Rhythmbox was always a hassle. DAAP really saved the day when I finally came across it, but that only solved one problem for one application.
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.)
Hey, I never needed to Google anything for Wine! Oh, wait... yes I did.. hundreds of times...
"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.
Imagine His surprise upon learning that one of His angels had the evil bit set...
He should have created chmod before vi.
How would you fit that inside of an SD slot?
I think the problem here would be "programmed feature removal"
http://www.eye.fi/cards/
There's three different cards to buy, and I have no doubt that they're all identical save for what card they claim to be, thereby limiting what features the manager software will allow the user to access.
I, for one, refuse to subscribe to the belief of binary social ideals in operating systems, phone companies, potato chips, cereals and sexes. Instead, I simply accept that all things are ruled by a single, megalithic overlord that can be described as all things at once, much like a superposition of all things slashdotters have welcomed and more.
Huh, sounds exactly like DRM to me...
I find the conclusion they came up with after the study interesting, but I'm not convinced that it is the only practical explanation.
I'd like the dissuade anyone from taking this article as proof enough to start arguing to start making artists out of us all.
It's just the same old image recognition we've seen used in much more clever ways, now it's just with colored finger condoms.
Funny that, I've dropped all sorts of shit with no ill to it, yet a friend of mine destroyed every single thing he dropped at much lower heights and much more yielding surfaces.
I've dropped two different laptops several times, dozens of cell phones, sealed cans of soda, glasses, plates...
He broke a hard drive from a foot onto carpet, a mouse, a can of soda exploded on him after dropping in on linoleum, several dishes... he dropped a G4 PowerBook, the display and hard drive were fine but the keyboard stopped working, of all things.
Are you trying to tell me that Rot13 is ineffective as an encryption scheme?
A little of everything.
anmv
I use Quadruple-rot-13, far more effective IMHO.
My most successful 'conversions' have never been with frills or features or marketing material. All five of the people I got switched to Ubuntu did so for ideological reasons.
Vista is stunning and beautiful and on recent laptops with updates it's turning out to be damned nice, but that's not because Microsoft is better, their developers are not gods because they are branded by the Microsoft Ranch.
That same beauty, reliability, anything can be done with freely available code that can be shared and improved and openly argued over.
Some people really do care about freedom, about human rights as applied to software. Those are the people I go after, and it works.
But there has to be a catch somewhere! Right? RIGHT?!
I want socialized medicine too u.u
Fuck shit cock piss gay lesbian.
Yeah, you're right, nothing worth suing over at all.
I really do do that, too.
Thank you, it was driven by anger, inspiration, psychology class, and a million phone calls coming in at the same time complaining about email not working because no one got the email that the email server was going to be down.