Comment 1614 for bug 1

Hi :)
Yes, i assumed that people here do test-drive a release before really commenting on it, even if it's only as briefly as my trial-runs of 11.10 and Mint.  LiveCds and virtual machines or even a LiveCd on a vm are soo easy and tempting that i can't imagine not trying a new release of favourite distros.

Now that i think about it like that i wonder if the different paths taken by Ubuntu and Mint were deliberate and coordinated.  Previously i have assumed that they chose different paths at roughly the same time by coincidence and that Mint chose without thinking but now it looks too convenient that each one takes advantage of a niche left by the other.

I agree that it would be good to see glossy adverts or on television and product placement but those things cost money.  It is far far cheaper to ring up a local reporter and get a full article in the local or even national newspaper (or even a magazine if you are really good at this and get lucky) with far more surface-area giving more information.  Ideally about 1 article per month is about what it takes before people start to vaguely notice.  The trick is to not give the full story all at once the first time so that you have another angle for them to cover next-time.

Note that "Document Freedom Day" is coming up in March so perhaps an article about that focusing on LibreOffice with perhaps a mention of Google-docs, OpenOffice, Calligra/KOffice, AbiWord&Gnumeric.
Regards from
Tom :)