Re: [tlug] How to Push Linux! .......................

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Lyle" == Lyle Saxon <Lyle> writes:

    Lyle> Steve! Buddy! Pal! Why do you defend the indefensible! 

I stand by my words.  Microsoft (and Windows-based) products generally
work, and to the knowledge of most of their market, they work well.
The people I know who have successfully gotten their parents to run
Linux all provided 24/7 hotlines.  The people I know whose parents use
Windows and AOL generally have time to go to nomikais, and didn't have
to do anything (except apologize profusely to their Linux buddies) to
get their parents online.

That Microsoft produces crappy software is probably the single most
detrimental myth to the free software community.  I recommend to you
Richard Gabriel's famous essay "The Rise of 'Worse is Better'"
(available online from http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html --
where else? ;-), and the chapters "Good-Enough Software" and "The
Microsoft Paradigm" in Ed Yourdon's _The Rise and Resurrection of the
American Programmer_.

Please note especially the second-to-last sentence of rpg's essay.
The point I want to make is not that Microsoft is the-right-thing.
It's that if we want to successfully share the market with them (let
alone "beat" them), we have to use a different strategy from calling
them names and spreading FUD about the (alleged lack of) quality of
their products.


-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.