Jeremy White wrote:
No objection from me.. Although, I should mention that I haven't seen
much in the way of a link to donate to the project. Theres no link on
the main page anywhere that I can see. Perhaps the fund would be a
little bigger if it was easier to find a donate link?
Hmm. On the lower right hand side of the main page is a donate
link, and there is also a donations request on Sourceforge.
But you raise a good point; feel free to make a suggestion
for how it should change (a patch?) - I'm certainly not opposed.
(Although the honest truth is that we raise more money than
we need right now, at least for Wine. For CodeWeavers, we can
always use more money :-/)
Cheers,
Jeremy
hmm.. I didn't see that at all lol. I did however notice the
contributing link shortly after I sent the last email. I think if we
put the donate link (as well as the codeweavers link) on the left just
under the search link they might get noticed a little more.. Of course
you do raise a good point about raising more money than wine really
needs, so on to the next idea... The short answer is that I dont have
an idea right now, but I have done some thinking about it.. If you want
the long answer, keep reading, else, just click close lol...
Obviously codeweavers requires advertising and marketing in order to get
new customers. The majority of that advertising so far has been done by
the community and word of mouth. The biggest step towards taking
codeweavers mainstream is obviously to get more people to switch to
linux.. the press has done a decent job of helping us out in that
respect, but a lot of people dont read the magazines.
I mean I see it all the time on various forums, my favorite being the
forum entitled the worst tech support call you have ever made...
Someone will get DSL service, and not have a router, and think that it
will work out of the box with whatever os they use... So when it doesnt
and they cant figure it out, they call dsl tech support, and ask "Do you
support Linux?"... Guess what the tech support rep asks 99% of the
time... "What is Linux? Is that a new version of Windows?".....
Back to the point though, people dont read magazines or stuff on the
internet so they dont know theres an alternative to windows. That means
they dont know about cW or crossover. How do we get more users over to
Linux? Good question, unfortunately one I don't have an answer for
right now. Once we get users to Linux, or maybe even as the hook to get
them to switch would be to show them crossover while showing them linux
and how not prone to viruses it is, show them internet explorer running
under it, or better yet show them stuff like word, excel, and adobe, and
then show them firefox and say ok ie is the only app we are going to
take away from you.. then the security issues are small (no ie to
infect) but they can still use their regular stuff, and their machine
will seem more responsive compared to how it ran on windows.
I'm sure those are all ideas your people have already had and discussed,
but shoot, it would be nice to see some linux based booths at e3 or ces
or the revamped comdex once it comes out.. of course the best way to
get mainstream is the force your way mainstream, more and better
placement on store shelves.. get the stores to start pitching linux and
the benefits of using it over windows. then have the rep help them
decide on a distro and put them in touch with someone familiar with
linux. of course that is all beyond codeweavers and wine's scope, but
that is the idea.. get other linux companies to start pushing it more.
M$ wants to play hardball? We gotta start predicting their pitches.
Tom
