I'm confronted with this problem at work and follow the arguments (it's been awhile since its come up on/.!)
I think the follow the money and not wanting to shrink the budget apply here as well.
One thing I see missing from the arguments though is the simple fact that much oss is crap, so you must be specific when talking about oss and name projects/products and why they are nescessary. The whole gpl/oss philosophy may be important but doesn't help in winning the 'bringing OSS into a Closed Source' argument when the attitude of the boss is OSS is crap.
I have wondered about this as well. I even thought there should be an organization that helps distribute funds to some of the F/OSS projects, perhaps even administered by the EFF or FSF. Then I thought 'just another layer of bureaucracy.'
Better to just choose and donate. Perhaps not equitable, but trying to rank and choose based on some criterion of 'merit' seems bound to fail.
Our family got ours here in Canada last week. Still trying to find time to explore it, but as has been noted elsewhere it was our little daughter who figured out how to open it!
Ha, ha. Have to relate this: I work at a University and people often can't find my office, so yesterday I was thinking how neato it would be to have a google maps mashup/overlay zooming into a detailed map/picture of me at the office. Funny but scary, too.
Good. In terms of marketing, I would hope that they would market to (rich) kids. Make it a cool niche thing, then all kids will want one and pester their parents for one. Parents can feel good knowing they are helping out.
I want one.
O.k., but how do you get the darned stuff lit? Whenever I have used charcoal, the difficulty of getting it lit has made me swear to never try again. Only by not looking at what I've been buying have I been forced to go through the pain again.
Boredom is what got me started. My mindless job was driving me crazy, but then I realized it was up to me to change it and started working on stuff that I thought was important. At first, I thought the chances of success were 0, but now I'm seeing buyin and I'm engaged. Not always, but it is much better.
One of the biggest benefits has been the participation in an open source project. It is cliche but I can't believe how helpful the people are and how important that community is to me. Something I used to get from work, early in my career but don't now. I say participating quite deliberately, because I am mostly just benefiting from the expertise and productivity of others, but it makes me want to be a 'good citizen' and help the community in whatever limited way I can. It is a debt that I am proud to owe.
I'm in the market as well and this announcement definitely has me interested. I'm not a super techy and what I want to do is dual boot. I have an old pc with xp on it. I want to keep that license and put it on a new pc. Prefereably I'd like to boot xp with no network access when needed, otherwise Ubuntu. Wonder if they've given any thought to people wanting to keep old licenses of software around?
A quick search helpfully turns up dual booting Ubuntu and xp, wonder what I can do to copy my old apps over?
A sincere thank you professor.
I suspect you are in the minority, but I really don't know.
I don't see enough students questioning whether they need to buy a textbook or not. Maybe this is always the way it is, i.e. a few activist, questioning types, everyone else accepting what they are told.
Unfortunately, many new students don't realize there are options.
The best marketing is word of mouth.
As was mentioned, coming pre-installed is also right up there.
Third is integration. We all want a snappy browser, but when I tell someone about how good ff is I often hear, "yeah, I tried that but I couldn't get it to play my videos" or something like that. Even though they are intrigued by the things I tell them I can do with ff, not being able to do something that they already do with ie puts an end to it.
If your marketing to the masses that means windows.
The FUD is attacking a valid point that seems to be missed by the comments I have seen. That is, someone just giving OO a try will notice it is slow, especially if they do not disable java for macros, which the average user probably will not even know about. Thus the perception is established, that it is slow, which is bad.
I know I was dissapointed by the slow startup time of OO until I read about disabling java.
It would be great if OO addressed this somehow, perhaps by disabling java by default then prompting the user to enable when it detects a macro or some such technique.
It doesn't have to be a performance improvement just a percieved improvement.
Perception matters.
How does this compare with SQL for Smarties?
on
SQL Cookbook
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· Score: 0, Redundant
I agree mostly with what your saying, but watching 'The Corporation' http://www.thecorporation.com/ might change your view somewhat. It presents the view that the corporation, a legal individual, is pathalogical in behaviour. Somewhat gimmicky but provocative, entertaining and well worth watching. One of the points made (by Noam Chomsky, I think) is that while the individuals in the corporation mostly do act ethically, the pressure for profit pushes individuals towards actions that aren't ethical and that the corporate veil frees individuals from responsibility for their actions to a degree.
I guess it's the age old battle between protecting our interests vs. helping others, or something like that.
The # of times those thoughts go through my head... I guess I must be a bit of a luddite, yet working in I.T. It's still the promise of solving problems and coming up with elegant solutions that keeps me going I guess.
And just to be even more ot, what I would really like is a monitor with clear text. Not fancy graphics, clear readable text for these old eyes.
That was an aha moment. The seperation of OS and desktop. What ms should have been required to do, but what would really benefit the (mythical?) OSS community IMHO, especially if any user could use any distro and know at a base level what they were going to get (Windows main strength) but hard core development could still go on underneath the covers.
How could I help make this happen, he wonders...
Have you done this at your school? I would be very interested to know how it went. Makes me want to try it where I live. Would have to do some more research, but would like to hear what people's experiences have been.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the follow the money and not wanting to shrink the budget apply here as well.
One thing I see missing from the arguments though is the simple fact that much oss is crap, so you must be specific when talking about oss and name projects/products and why they are nescessary. The whole gpl/oss philosophy may be important but doesn't help in winning the 'bringing OSS into a Closed Source' argument when the attitude of the boss is OSS is crap.
Except one day you wander into musicshop01 and actually talk to a cute girl there.
Later you go back to your computer and surf to musicshop02 and go over the same lists that now seem kind of lame and lifeless.
Better to just choose and donate. Perhaps not equitable, but trying to rank and choose based on some criterion of 'merit' seems bound to fail.
Our family got ours here in Canada last week. Still trying to find time to explore it, but as has been noted elsewhere it was our little daughter who figured out how to open it!
Ha, ha. Have to relate this: I work at a University and people often can't find my office, so yesterday I was thinking how neato it would be to have a google maps mashup/overlay zooming into a detailed map/picture of me at the office. Funny but scary, too.
Good. In terms of marketing, I would hope that they would market to (rich) kids. Make it a cool niche thing, then all kids will want one and pester their parents for one. Parents can feel good knowing they are helping out. I want one.
My head hurts from even reading your reply, though.
O.k., but how do you get the darned stuff lit? Whenever I have used charcoal, the difficulty of getting it lit has made me swear to never try again. Only by not looking at what I've been buying have I been forced to go through the pain again.
Boredom is what got me started. My mindless job was driving me crazy, but then I realized it was up to me to change it and started working on stuff that I thought was important. At first, I thought the chances of success were 0, but now I'm seeing buyin and I'm engaged. Not always, but it is much better. One of the biggest benefits has been the participation in an open source project. It is cliche but I can't believe how helpful the people are and how important that community is to me. Something I used to get from work, early in my career but don't now. I say participating quite deliberately, because I am mostly just benefiting from the expertise and productivity of others, but it makes me want to be a 'good citizen' and help the community in whatever limited way I can. It is a debt that I am proud to owe.
I'm in the market as well and this announcement definitely has me interested. I'm not a super techy and what I want to do is dual boot. I have an old pc with xp on it. I want to keep that license and put it on a new pc. Prefereably I'd like to boot xp with no network access when needed, otherwise Ubuntu. Wonder if they've given any thought to people wanting to keep old licenses of software around? A quick search helpfully turns up dual booting Ubuntu and xp, wonder what I can do to copy my old apps over?
A sincere thank you professor. I suspect you are in the minority, but I really don't know. I don't see enough students questioning whether they need to buy a textbook or not. Maybe this is always the way it is, i.e. a few activist, questioning types, everyone else accepting what they are told. Unfortunately, many new students don't realize there are options.
The best marketing is word of mouth. As was mentioned, coming pre-installed is also right up there. Third is integration. We all want a snappy browser, but when I tell someone about how good ff is I often hear, "yeah, I tried that but I couldn't get it to play my videos" or something like that. Even though they are intrigued by the things I tell them I can do with ff, not being able to do something that they already do with ie puts an end to it. If your marketing to the masses that means windows.
So this is where the interesting conversations are. In the +2 backwaters. Must swim here more often, just not sure I like the weeds.
The FUD is attacking a valid point that seems to be missed by the comments I have seen. That is, someone just giving OO a try will notice it is slow, especially if they do not disable java for macros, which the average user probably will not even know about. Thus the perception is established, that it is slow, which is bad. I know I was dissapointed by the slow startup time of OO until I read about disabling java. It would be great if OO addressed this somehow, perhaps by disabling java by default then prompting the user to enable when it detects a macro or some such technique. It doesn't have to be a performance improvement just a percieved improvement. Perception matters.
by Joe Celko?
I agree. Just say 'users', it makes no assumptions. Say something like creating 'simple documents' if you need to.
I guess it's the age old battle between protecting our interests vs. helping others, or something like that.
The # of times those thoughts go through my head... I guess I must be a bit of a luddite, yet working in I.T. It's still the promise of solving problems and coming up with elegant solutions that keeps me going I guess. And just to be even more ot, what I would really like is a monitor with clear text. Not fancy graphics, clear readable text for these old eyes.
That was an aha moment. The seperation of OS and desktop. What ms should have been required to do, but what would really benefit the (mythical?) OSS community IMHO, especially if any user could use any distro and know at a base level what they were going to get (Windows main strength) but hard core development could still go on underneath the covers. How could I help make this happen, he wonders...
Have you done this at your school? I would be very interested to know how it went. Makes me want to try it where I live. Would have to do some more research, but would like to hear what people's experiences have been.
Also http://www.freeagent.com/ Seems to be what the guy is proposing..