Give grandma the right reasons to use Ubuntu, was: Ubuntu book for "grandma" users

[M. Fioretti]

MANDATORY DISCLAIMER: yes, I AM aware that there is no way that this
message is not (also) advertising for my own book. On the other hand,
this is exactly the reason why I wrote it and set up the related
website: to help with making non-geeks understand the real reasons why
it is in their OWN interest to use, or at least demand for Public
Administrations, Free as in freedom formats and software.

For this, and because it is obviously not mandatory to buy the book to
adopt its strategy, I'm going to answer the questions below
(rearranged for clarity) from a recent thread.

> Hello,
>
> Which book would you recommend for non-technical people to learn how
> to use Ubuntu for basic stuff (browsing, emailing, writing
> documents, photo albums, multimedia viewing/listening)?

First of all, I would recommend to not install (ie force on them) any
Gnu/Linux distro if those people are already comfortable with
Windows. If _they_ explicitly ask Linux, OK, otherwise go for the less
risky path. What matters is to not make them dependent on proprietary
file formats, and this can be accomplished, on Windows, by simply
switching to OpenOffice set to save in OpenDocument format by default
or to Thunderbird for email

If and when they are comfortable with these apps you can propose a
switch to Linux.

In the second place, I'd recommend to wait buying books. With respect
to learning, I've found that printing out simple cheatsheets with the
most common operations (copy, paste, save as..., which button to press
to send email, rules like "always remember to fill the Subject line")
is OK to begin with, since it's more than enough for the real needs of
these people. It's useless, if not counterproductive, drop on their
lap anything technical that is more than 20 pages long for the first
weeks or months.

IF they come back to ask for more because THEY realize they need it,
they'll have already mastered enough basics to be comfortable with
most "Dummies" book on Linux and OpenOffice. They may even be able to
go to the bookstore and pick one by themselves.

At a more general level, though, there is a fundamental problem:

On Thu, Dec 06, 2007 22:10:00 PM +0000, nad (nad at sirbe.com) wrote:

> Other than books, a better way to educate grandma about ubuntu

do we really need to educate grandma about ubuntu? Probably not,
unless grandma runs a School or University, or is Minister for
Education or something similar. Trying to convert as many people as
possible, as soon as possible, to use ANY Gnu/Linux is
counterproductive, in my opinion, and it also doesn't fit well with
the very concept of Free as in Freedom software ("to be Free, you MUST
use the kind of software that _I_ like"??? )

I believe that, especially in this particular moment and age, it is
much more important and urgent to make people realize that their own
civil rights and quality of life heavily depend on how software
(_which_ software is secondary) is used *around* them.

Forget manuals. The problem is not that there are no Linux manuals
which are simple enough for grandma. Is that (until now, of course :-)
) there was NOBODY at all who explained to grandma, in a language that
she can understand, starting from principles SHE (not programmers)
cares about, why it would be in HER interest to learn Linux or make it
mainstream.

If your grandma switches to Ubuntu, your _own_ life will be better
because you can administer her PC from home via ssh.

If you leave her at the "OpenOffice+Firefox+Thunderbird on Windows"
level, but make her understand how important it is that she throws a
tantrum NOW, with every public official above her from Parliament
representatives to her Major, until THEY switch to OpenDocument, W3C
compliant websites and, eventually, FOSS too, you and your grandma
will have done something immensely more useful than gaining one more
Ubuntu user.

But this can only happen if you talk to her with the right language
and arguments, without ever expecting that she learns to install or
administer Linux herself, never mind writing scripts. The traditional
pro-Free Software arguments, those of Stallman and the FSF, are enough
ONLY for programmers. For anybody else, they are simply irrelevant. It
is counterproductive to advocate FOSS the way Stallman did when every
computer user was more or less a software professional.

(see also http://www.ukuug.org/newsletter/16.3/#help__marco )

HTH,
	Marco Fioretti
-- 
The one book on software and digital technologies that no parent
can ignore:                       http://digifreedom.net/node/84