[ubuntu-za] Karma vs Windows 7

[David Rubin]

On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 8:18 PM, David Robert Lewis (ethnopunk)
<ethnopunk at telkomsa.net> wrote:
> Raoul Snyman wrote:
>> On Sunday 25 October 2009 15:56:42 David Robert Lewis (ethnopunk) wrote:
>>
>>> To tell you the truth, I don't think cost is the issue in Windows
>>> upgrades. Sure its a factor, but telling Windows converts that Ubuntu is
>>> FOSS is like telling them, its Linux. There is a major perception
>>> problem, based on real issues to do with Linux being "too complicated"
>>> or "too geeky". Windows is selling itself as
>>>
>>
>> No. It's amongst your IT friends that the above perception exists. Most
>> "ordinary" people have never heard of Linux/Ubuntu.
>>
>> And it's not "Karma" it's "Karmic"
>>
>>
> Ubuntu has good karma, the issue is whether or not it can break out of
> the IT sector and be adopted or embraced by the mainstream? We have to
> do a lot more marketing if we want to achieve anywhere near the kind of
> ubiquity that Windows and Apple have. I'm just curious as to how to go
> about doing this with an essentially community-based Linux distro? The
> benefits for SA would be enormous to say the least, and our country
> could do with a shove in the right direction, so the question again -
> how to promote Ubuntu as a better upgrade solution than Windows 7?

Just as a point in fact this thread is starting to be a my distro is
better then your distro. Which frankly isn't what Ubuntu or Linux is
about. Ubuntu and GNU Linux is about the freedom of choice in what
ever that maybe. What ever!

Ubuntu isn't better then windows in all situations.

Take some one grandfather that is 90odd years old that has learnt he
can read his families emails by pressing the little green button that
says start in the bottom left hand side of the screen and clicking the
.......... You get the point.(Very over the top example but most of
the computer world is in a similar situation where they just do things
by heart and if any thing was to change their computing knowledge
would well cease to be useful)

How would one even try and get them to learn something new? Is there
any thing to gain from this?

The question isn't how to promote Ubuntu as a better choice of OS. It
is rather how to promote users to try and exprience new things and in
the proccess find something that they feel works for them.

I tried Ubuntu due to my geeky nature but I can promises one thing
without the vast amounts of support I got from both the forum [1] and
irc [2] [3] there is absolutely no way I would have even tried as much
as I did, to get my first Ubuntu installed and working 100% with my
graphic card issues.

Some basic things I feel floss/ubuntu has over other proprietary products.

1) Support:  (Personally I feel this is one of the biggest pulls to
floss in general, Users support Users)
2) Repositories:  Apt/deb and Yum/rpm .... how amazing is it to have a
up to date (and tested) repo for installing almost all applications
and keeping them all updated with the latest security patches via a
simple to use GUI/CLI application.
3) Community:  floss is more then a product it is a community prime
example I can think of is get_ubuntu [4] can any one else name a
commuity that is willing to download/burn and distribute CD's to those
that aren't able to download them.
4) Choice: You chose what works for you. Ubuntu, RHEL, Suse, Mint.....
KDE GNOME, Openbox, **box the choice is endless for those that need it
and the freedom to mix and match with out the fear of breaking some
sort of license agreement.
5) Free: I say this very technically and with out legal backing. I
mean in the terms of freedom to use/distribute/copy and not in the
terms of costs! I am fully prepared (and have) to pay products that I
personally feel I use and are worth it.

Those are my five reasons I could think of and was prepared to write
down. I hope that every one reading this will at least take one thing
from it.

It is one thing to try and get people to think Ubuntu is the best, It
is another to be the best and have people *want* to try it. -- Cheesy
I know.  :)


~David


[1] http://ubuntuforums.org
[2] #ubuntu-beginners on freenode
[3] #ubuntu-za on freenode
[4] http://wiki.ubuntu-za.org/Get_Ubuntu