Sorry Martin, I disagree. You have no problem explaining it in person, sure. But with the marketing, you're not explaining it in person. You are explaining it through pictures and writing that the customers can easily ignore.
Also, there are already plenty of materials available on the Ubuntu website to assist in getting involved. If someone wants to get involved, then they can go to the website, just like you and I have. There are countless websites dedicated to FOSS and the why's, how's, etc. I doubt you had to have someone explain it to you in person. I know I didn't. I did my research. People that care will do theirs. When most people buy something, they want to buy something that works. They don't necessarily want to know how. I think the market that you are targeting is entirely too narrow. If you really want to expand the use Ubuntu, you have to keep it simple. To start the endless debate of how FOSS can be better than commercial software, and how they can get involved with it, you create a lot of unneeded confusion, and quite frankly, crap that very few people care about. The people that do care about it, like you and me, will find ways to contribute. The confusion isn't rooted in the explanations. It's rooted in the consumer mentality. You work, make money, buy and get. Nothing is free. Even Ubuntu, while it has no material costs, the cost of learning how to use it is still a cost. When you try to start introducing a lot of new vocabulary and attempt to entirely change the way someone thinks, then you may as well start talking a different language, because a lot of people don't care. They'll walk on by, and all the materials that you worked hard to create and distribute will be ignored. Now when you tell them that they can do most of the same things they would on Windows easier and cheaper on Ubuntu. Then they start listening. They don't care why. They just want to see how it's done, and that's where we come in. We market the Ubuntu solutions!!! I suppose our views differ. Not every user is a contributor, and you shouldn't expect them to be. If you go into marketing (mass recognition) our product (Ubuntu) expecting everyone that downloads to contribute time, energy, or money for a free product, then you will fail. Most users just want something that works. They don't want to spend their time making it better. There are other people that do that. They don't want to waste their money to pay people for a "free" product (on the home page of Ubuntu.com it even states "How can it be free?"). If it's free, then they shouldn't have to pay. Maybe I'm imagining an much broader target market than you are. I would think that we are targeting at home consumers who primarily want a system that they can check email, talk to their family, browse the internet, write letters and stories, balance their bank account, etc. Perhaps you are looking more at a market of devs? Bryan On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 12:16 PM, Martin Owens <docto...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, 2010-08-18 at 11:36 +0900, Bryan Ogden wrote: > > By marketing FOSS in general, I think that we have a lot more to lose > > than to gain, because of the confusion still associated with it. Most > > people are still not sure what to think about something that is free > > (at least in my experience). > > Even if we loose in the short term (which I don't think we do) we'd > loose in the long term. There is no use to having users who do not > contribute or understand how to in any way. This culture needs to be > grown and nurtured. > > I protest again that the confusion is due to the bad explanations and > bad communication of people who do not understand foss well enough to be > involved in creating great, effective marketing. > > I have no trouble explaining foss to people in person and few of them > are _that_ confused. Perhaps it's because I don't say it's free. > > Martin, > >
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