Comment 453 for bug 1

... So, i am having fun surfing the web with Ubuntu and Firefox in the Rambam hospital in Haifa and i have a warm fuzzy feeling that i am providing a good example of using Free Software and helping the Ubuntu community to solve this Bug. A guy in his fifties approaches me and asks:

Guy: Do you connect to the Web with your laptop here?

Me: That's right, i do.

Guy: I have a laptop and it didn't work for me here. How do you connect?

Me: Well, i just have this icon here, which shows which networks it detects and i click and connect and it's pretty simple ... Although there's a good chance that you don't have the same operating system as i do.

Guy: Oh, it is the same - i have Windows XP.

Me: Ehh ... this is not Windows XP, this is Linux ...

And this is a big of a problem - i am not sure that he understood what i said. (I must be lucky that he knew what an "operating system" is.)

I am certainly NOT in the camp that hates KDE and Gnome because "they look too much like Windows". Looking like Windows is not a bad strategy, when correctly applied. But apparently some people don't even notice that it's not Windows, so, while it is a success at making the desktop look easy and familiar, it may also work against the marketing and branding efforts.

It's food for thought for designers and marketers of Ubuntu and Gnome ...