[ubuntu-za] CDs from carboots

[Hannes Coetzee]

This is even more cute. I work at an IT company and the amount of users 
looking at or completely changing to Linux keeps on growing every day. 
Quite a few businesses switched over to Linux where they can. It seems 
to be only Pastel that still keep businesses on Windows but TurboCASH is 
gaining ground and all the accounting firms in town now recognize and 
support TurboCASH (Thanks for TurboCASH Phillip).  MS Office is also 
slowly fading away here as more people become aware of OpenOffice. We 
also place FOSS related ads in the surrounding newspapers and give away 
printed OpenOffice (and other) cd's with templates and add-ons to the 
first few that show the ad at the company. The rest of the people get a 
copied disk of the same cd. Next year this cd will also include 
OpenOffice training courses (as soon as we changed it to Oo3) that will 
hopefully make switching from MS Office a whole lot easier. This way I 
can talk to people about FOSS and give demonstrations on our Linux 
machines. We also added a local Ubuntu mirror at the company (thanks to 
Andy who gave me his apt repo) so people can easily update or install 
new programs. I for one are usually to busy to spend a lot of time on 
Launchpad. There always seems to be someone who needs help installing 
Linux, general advice on how to use their new system or just the usual 
"how can I do this or that in Linux" that take up a lot of my time but 
in the end it's worth it. To those promoting and supporting FOSS - keep 
it up, we're getting there. :)

Regards
Hannes
> On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 16:56, philip at pinksoft.co.za
> <philip at pinksoft.co.za> wrote:
>   
>> Its a cute story, but I fear that while we keep this car boot mentality,
>> Ubuntu will slip slowly away. Take a look at the Alexa traffic rankings.
>> Ubuntu has been going one way south since June, Launchpad is now less
>> than TurboCASH.
>>
>> We are playing against some of the most vicious people in the software
>> business and our idea of promotion is giving cds to Church groups who do
>> not even have computers. Keep it real.
>>     
>
> Hi Philip
>
> Alexa traffic rankings mean little to actual adoption, and I wouldn't
> count Launchpad in Ubuntu stats. Most Ubuntu users don't know about
> Launchpad, let alone the other  What counts is that the software
> industry has been profoundly affected by Ubuntu - including the way it
> is distributed. "Here, install this!"
>
> The global Ubuntu developer and contributer community is bigger than
> ever. The local community is bigger than ever.
>
> Regarding the proprietary software vendors, Microsoft's in serious
> trouble - Vista bombed and Ubuntu scored big time from that. Microsoft
> is paying serious attention to open source now - imagine future
> versions of Internet Explorer based on WebKit!
> (http://www.google.co.za/search?q=ballmer+webkit)
>
> As Ghandi said, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then
> they fight you, then you win." We're already getting past the fighting
> stage... and the number of netbooks from major hardware labels
> shipping with Linux is increasing...
>
> Now, our community consists of *us*, and nobody else is going to do it
> for us. We all have unique roles to play, and Rusty can reach people
> you cannot, and vice versa. If everybody reaches two others, we have
> exponential growth.
>
> So here's a challenge for every person reading this: What have you
> done for Ubuntu? That crazy (or sane) idea you've had just isn't going
> to happen unless *you* make it happen...
>
> Regards
> Morgan
>
>