Missed evangelism opportunities was Re: Not Happy with ShipIt

[Jimmie Houchin]

Charles Yao wrote:
> Where do cds from Shpit come? It meybe easier if distribution was done
> regionally? I dont think it will help giving cds to the shops that
> sell pcs, from my experience people just throw them away after they
> get it. Also , unless it is installed on the pc itself i do not
> believe most users would wipe off windows from their pc just to try
> ubuntu. I still believe the best thing to do is to convince those who
> sell the pcs to install it before hand so that the end user will have
> no problems using it.

I don't know how ShipIt is managed.

I don't have any reason to believe they would throw them away upon 
receipt. In fact I would imagine that if official dialogue from 
Canonical to whomever at whatever PC Store took place in order to place 
the CDs, that they would be placed appropriately. I did not speak of nor 
imply just merely mailing them something they knew nothing about and 
just expecting them to do the right thing. No, I am talking about 
marketing free CDs. The AOL, Earthlink, ... CDs that are there in the 
store don't install themselves. Nor are they being picked up by people 
with no interest. I was in the store. I saw all the available free CDs. 
I left them all there in the store.

Having available CDs improves the marketing and the mindshare of a 
product. Everybody who uses Ubuntu got their computer from somewhere. I 
imagine quite a few Linux users got their computers from such stores. 
Linux distros shouldn't just toos in the towel and give up simply 
because "most users" ... Most users aren't going to buy the 
pre-installed Linux either. But that didn't hinder your suggestion.

This isn't a zero sum game. It isn't either or. Lets make progress. Lets 
make inroads. Lets take where we can.

This seems like a simple potential win.

That said, I would love it if these stores would install Linux on the 
machines. I would have loved not paying the Windows tax on my machine.

Til that day lets take what we can get.

Jimmie