Audience targetting at ITEC

joel jijoel at lava.net
Fri Sep 7 19:54:19 PDT 2001


Warren,

I agree with most of what you said, but must take issue with a few things. ;-)

> I totally agree that "normal people" need an easy, low-risk and possibly
> low fear way of seeing that free software can be excellent.  My way of
> showing this is to show the amazing things you can do with free software
> interoprating with Windows, a platform that people feel comfortable with.
> This upsets a few people here, but I believe that is only because they
> don't understand exactly the concept that you said very well here.

Exactly. Windows holds about 90% of the desktop marketplace. It comes on 
almost every new computer you can buy in a store. Most people have never 
looked at the alternatives, because (in general) they feel it's hard enough 
to learn how one system works. I've heard Windows people talking about how 
hard MACINTOSHES are to use. The only real way to overcome that inertia is by 
showing them that they can do more, neater stuff, using free software. Your 
approach is a very good one (though I think it tends to attract more advanced 
users), but I think we need to go a little bit further.

> End-users fear what they do not understand, and they certainly don't want
> to learn anything new, especially if they had a hard time learning it the
> first time.  Bridging the gap like this is necessary to assuage fears.
> Fortunately the state of Linux desktop software is quickly approaching a
> point where "normal people" can recognize many of it as "familiar", one of
> the first crucial steps toward acceptance.

Absolutely. I think that right now, with KDE 2.2, Linux has become pretty 
much as easy to use as Windows or MacOS. In the future, with KDE 3.0, it'll 
be even easier than the other platforms. Easier + More Powerful will make for 
a very potent combination, if people can be persuaded to use it.

> Unfortunately, I don't agree about the software on the CD.  There is very
> few excellent open source or free software available for Windows that the
> end-user would understand.  Of course Apache, PHP and MySQL work great on
> Windows, but end-users would not understand nor care about that.  It would
> actually scare them. I'm talking only desktop software, and the only
> appropriate example in my book would be StarOffice.  Mozilla has no
> understandable benefits to that user, because they'll see instantly that it
> does the same thing as Internet Explorer and Netscape, only slower. 
> Abiword is a lean and mean promising project, but in its current state and
> lack of features, it would only reinforce a user's idea that "Free software
> can't possibly be good."  GIMP can be totally awesome to show the power of
> free software, but the end-user would need to figure it out themselves and
> the GIMP interface is totally unintuitive.  You could possibly include a
> "Getting Starting Guide" that is easy to read for newbies, but newbies
> don't like reading ANYTHING.  Well, there's also the problem that GIMP for
> Windows isn't being developed much, and it can be very unstable and crash
> prone.

Heh... This is where we disagree. Not on the general principles, though. 
Neither of us want to poison the well of future open-source users by giving 
them something inadequate now. I also agree that Apache, PHP, and MySQL are a 
bit too advanced for the people we're targetting. I think, though, that the 
desktop programs I recommended are excellent, and will be a credit to our 
community. 

Mozilla's only understandable benefit is that of choice. It's a 
full-featured, fully usable browser. It supports extensions and Java 
(something that can't be said for the new version of Explorer). The latest 
version (0.9.3) is very fast and stable. 

GIMP rules, but we definately do need to let people know that it's primarily 
developed for Linux, and that the Windows version is lagging a bit behind. It 
gives us another selling point, a little bit further down the road, that they 
really should make the switch to Linux. Books could (and have) been written 
about how to make neat stuff with the Gimp; we could provide a little bit of 
information on how to get started, as well as some links to sites hosting 
online tutorials, instructions, and so on.

Abiword *is* a lean, mean word processor. It's fast and light (under 3MB for 
the binary). It doesn't have the features of WordPerfect, MS Office, or 
StarOffice, but how often do people really need all that extra stuff? It's 
perfectly capable of handling most of the documents people need on a 
day-to-day basis: letters, memos, basic reports, and so on. If they need 
something AbiWord can't do, they can use StarOffice.

And StarOffice, you'd see fit to include. ;-)

> Back to StarOffice... I'd seriously wait for StarOffice 6 before mass
> distributing CD's.  First impressions mean a lot, and StarOffice 6 will be
> such a large improvement over the current SO that it will be well worth the
> wait.  It finally gets rid of that stupid "Desktop" thing and behaves like
> individual applications.  There are many thousands of additional features
> and improvements, along with serious performance benefits over the current
> StarOffice.

I think that we have an opportunity, right now (well, in a week and a half) 
to present a compelling case on open-source. StarOffice 6 won't be out in 
that time, but we can let people know it's on the horizon, and we can let 
them know what the benefits of upgrading will be. 

> I'm sorry that I'm so cynical about everything....

No worries. You care about making the best impression possible on the 
atendees at ITEC. You care about growing the local open-source community. So 
do I, and I appreciate the feedback.

> Regarding the rant, it may be most effective to include a video of several
> really good and convincing speeches by several Open Source advocates.
> (ANYONE BUT Richard Stallman.  He's a lunatic and he will scare everyone
> but Libertarians and the rare non-stupid Americans).  Bruce Perens, Eric S.
> Raymond, Joe Barr, Lawrence Lessig, Linus Torvalds or Matthew Szulik all
> have made several awesome speeches in the past.  We should find recordings
> and videos of these and find the best among the bunch.  Sort them into
> "Normal People" , "Technical non-Linux People" and "Linux Techie Education"
> categories and give the appropriate category to the right people.

Heh... I don't think we're going to be able to do that effectively in the 
time we have left. What we *could* do, though, is let people who we're 
talking with know that we have some tapes and are willing to share them. We 
could also broadcast some tapes on one of the Olelo channels on TV.

> > This also gives us another opportunity. Instead of seeing ITEC as a
>
> one-shot
>
> > deal, we could give them a taste of free software there, and mention that
> > we'll be hosting an install-fest next month, if they're interested in
>
> doing
>
> > *more* with free software. Not having a date, time, or place for that yet
> > could work in our favor, because it'll give us a chance to gather e-mail
> > addresses of interested people ("we'll e-mail you all the details
> > later").
> >
> > At an install-fest, we could have people installing Linux on their own
> > machines, help them set it up exactly like they want it, fix all the
>
> little
>
> > problems that periodically surface, and help them through the initial
> > learning curve.
> >
> > In a few short months, they'll be ours! Mwuahahahaha! >;-)
> >
> > --Joel
>
> I agree.  We should schedule follow up newbie help sessions and
> installfests after the event, already on our web site calendars when they
> visit them immediately after they get home from ITEC.  I'm thinking the
> following...
>
> * Newbie Educational session targetting suits- What can Linux do?
> * Newbie Educational session targetting techies - Installfest
> * CompUSA Linux demo day
>
> Warren

Definately good ideas!

... I should go now, before my girlfriend flogs me for missing the beginning 
of our Friday night activities. ;-)

--Joel

...flog... I never said anything about flogging... it leaves too many 
marks... --Donna



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