Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
Hi,
Christian replies:
Ian, it would be interesting to see what these FLOSSies are doing
with their old hardware. I found that I was not having a whole lot
of success trying to get people to try just the software (OOo)
itself. Either people had a computer with Microsoft Office, and were
not interested in switching, or they had no computer, and so it was
irrelevant to their lives if OOo existed or not. I have had much
better luck getting people to consider FLOSS and OOo if they had a
box sitting in front of them.
Hi Christian, I encourage you to listen to some of the technologist that
populate the whole south california area. The US is a computer-literate
country
but being computer literate means that you have a lot 'put in' your resources
and you want to secure them.
Also in California there is this show (you could tune in) KFI 640 AM where Leo
Laporte (Tech personality) has a 3 hours talk show every Saturday and Sunday.
He really deals with a lot of the Microsoft Nightmare and he also has a
sense of
a 'Digital Tipping Point' happening in computers. However he don't push people
to Linux but to Mac since he thinks (reasonably enough) is more
friendly to end
consumers.
His motto is... 'if you have an IT staff, use windows... if you are a security
expert, use windows... if you are non of these, use mac...'. He is very aware
of Linux but he doesn't really trust them enough, maybe Linspire.. but he
preffers Macs.
Anyway my point is that you constantly hear him solving windows related
problems
and almost 70% of them is because of a virus, spyware or windows nightmare.
While mac users suffer more about the licensing of their iTunes.
I think once you listen to him for 15 hours you are convince there is a
pattern
how to sutile enough, convice people that Windows is FAR from the computing
nirvana.
You can download some of his shows at http://leo.am and some of his
podcasts at
http://twits.org/
I have also being meaning to find OOo marketing guys to push the marketing of
OOo through the incresively popular podcast shows.
(http://www.alexandrocolorado.com/bloq/index.php?type=OpenOffice.org)
As you folks know, I have been working on getting actual migrations
for quite a while now, and it really takes lots and lots of work from
my experience. My goal right now for my work in San Francisco is to
find just one or two groups here or there, and nurture them with
computers. Provide them with traning. Train some trainers. Very
much like what Ian Lynch is doing with INGOTs, except I don't have
any formal certificates as does Ian.
I wonder if you have got in touch with some of the Linux User groups maybe
someone has a similar idea and could help you out too.
Currently, I have one church in the East Bay (Berkeley) that is
interested in getting computers. I don't have a car, and neither do
the folks to whom I am giving computers, and so we have to find
people with cars, since it is too hard to take monitors on public
transportation. I am going to be getting some computers from a
friend tomorrow night, and I will take those boxes, along with a
monitor, and I have some spare printers (not sure if they work) and
we are going to give that set up to a 25 year-old guy who is working
with the church. Hopefully, he will stick with it, and then teach
others in the church. We will also give computers to the church
directly.
I am also working with a school near my home to put in a computer
lab. The lab will have Mac, Windows, and (hopefully) GNU/Linux.
The big problem that I have encountered is training. People get
discouraged easily. If the computer doesn't work perfectly out of
the box, people will often give up. People blame the software if it
is not exactly like Microsoft or Apple. They think that because it
is free, it either sucks or it is stolen. People will accept
virus-ridden Microsoft problems because better the devil you know
than the devil you don't. They're afraid of something new. FLOSS
therefore really seems to have a higher burden in terms of gaining
acceptance.
We all face this, and some have learn to coupe with this. The difference is
sutile. Like once you said, you ride the bike because your dad was there to
teach hold you up if you were about to fall. I think we need more dump-proof
Linux interface. Since linux desktops are extremely configurable we DO need
more people custom creating new interfaces on top of Gnome. Something like ATM
interface computers, or DVD menu type interface.
This is exactly what Bhaskar Chakravorti explains in his book, "The
Slow Pace of Fast Change." Established technologies have the benefit
of the expectation that they are the standard. People are continuing
to use Microsoft products because people use Microsoft products.
It's the chicken and the egg problem.
Yes and no, a lot of people uses Macintosh for example and they like it and
prefer them than Windows. Other segment is just extremely frustrated wiht
microsoft and their virus. Others are parents that are afraid of kids being on
line on the same work computer and would rather move to a virus-less
secure OS.
There are lots of kids involved in the youth program at the church,
and obviously with the school, too. So I am hoping that we will be
able to train kids and new adult users whose expectations aren't
focused on Microsoft.
Kids as opposed to adults are incredibly more brave about computers and
'learning' that the world is not ruled by Microsoft (as adults tend to
believe). They will adopt the computer at a faster rate. You can see this even
on remote vilages in Colombia like this report:
http://www.kazak.ws/semilla/colegios.php
New users are a different experience altogether. So that's why I'm
targeting adults who don't have computers, and kids, who are often
willing to learn, as long as the computer is in a supervised
environment. I've had the experience that the kids will tear the
mice apart and otherwise destroy the machines if they are left in a
poorly supervised situation, as with the first school that I was
working with. Also, poorly supervised kids are often poorly
motivated. Again, short attention spans. California slashed its tax
base in 1978 with Proposition 13. At that time, California's
education system was first or second in the nation. Now only
Arkansas is behind us. And you can really see it in the schools.
These kids have little respect; they admire thuggish behavior such as
exhibited by some rap artists; they are content to be thrown out of
class so that they can lounge on the benches in the school yard; they
pour what little paint they have in art classes into unlocked file
drawers when the teacher is not looking, which is most of the time
from what I can see of these teachers, who just don't give a damn and
only want to collect a paycheck and count the days until summer
vacation.
The strength of open source really comes back to community on the end
user side, as well as on the developer side. We really need to
establish communities of end users who will support and encourage
each other and teach each other how to use the software, and motivate
each other to continue to try.
When I first came onto this list about 4 years ago, I was pumped
about guerilla marketing. I would talk to people on buses, trains,
and planes and I would carry CDs around and give them out. I still
do that to a lesser degree, and instead, now I focus my time on
finding teachers to teach. Again, this is just like Ian Lynch's
model with INGOTs. The more work that I do in trying to get people
to migrate, the more I like Ian Lynch's ideas. The really crucial
part of INGOTs is the community service aspect of the certificates.
In other words, success in migrating people to FLOSS IMHO seems to be
all about three words: community, community, community.
And it's the same for hardware. Sharing the code is easy, but the
obstacle is often the hardware. Ian, I would be interested to see if
you would be able to get feedback for me from this FLOSSie conference
about DIYparts.org. We do have people exchanging hardware in the UK,
and we will soon start adding cities and towns to our DIYparts.org
website, so that people can specify more narrowly where they are. I
would like to see if we could get people at that FLOSSie con
interested in testing DIYparts.org. If you feel like mentioning it
to them, showing it to them, and making mental notes of their
reactions, I would be much obliged.
Thanks either way.
Christian Einfeldt
415-351-1300
http://www.DIYparts.org
Ian wrote:
The UK Free Libre Open Source Software in Education Conference takes
place on July 14th and 15th. OpenOffice.org will feature strongly so if
you are in the vicinity consider joining us or pass the word to anyone
you know that might want to attend. Details are at
http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/flossie/conference200507.html
--
Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ZMSL
--
Alexandro Colorado
Co-Leader of OpenOffice.org Spanish
http://es.openoffice.org/
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