On Mon, 2008-11-10 at 05:02 +0000, maximus3d wrote:
> Ubuntu could contract some OEM producer and start selling own computers.
> That would a good patch to the issue.

Who do you mean by Ubuntu? Canonical? The LoCos? I WAS a member of the
marketing team but left ot of fustratiobover issues tha were duplicates
ove the issue youraise - the lack of any centralized entity
calledUbuntu. A lotofpeople here arrgue that this decentralization is
one of the strengths of FOSS, and perhaps it is,at least from the
development point of view. But from the marketing standpoint, and fixing
this bug is a marketing issue, whether everyone sees it or not, this
decentralization is a marketing nightmare.

There have been two suggestions here for fixes for this bug that, IMHO,
have any chance at all at taking on MS:

1. Somehow Ubuntu becomes the sole version of Linux. The standard bearer
of a unified distro that has all the resorces of all the distros
available to it. If that were to happen, then the OEM manufacturers
would be willing to listen to the Linux community and respond with OEMs
with Linux pre-installed. Thatwould be the crack we needed to really put
a fix on ths bug. Bt I suspect that unity is not going to happen soon.

2. A lot more people could do what Christ who posted on Thursday is
doing: supplying Linux machines to the needy at costs that are less than
what they would have to pay for an MS machine, especially in the long
run since MS charges for updates and Linux does not. 

If we could get a couple thoudand people worldwide who have the
necessary expertise to do this, it would definitely chip away at MS's
market share. After all, people do tend to stay with products they are
amiliar with, and if Linux gets to them first, well....

If you think this is nuts, let me tell you my own experience.Irecently
bought a new HP Pavilio box because I needed an additional computer. My
old machine was an Ubuntu that tarted with Gytsy Gorill and upgraded to
Hardy Heron. It worked pretty well. I had set it up myself, with some
difficulty. You see, I am one of the many many many people in the world
who use computers but have very little in the way of technicl skills. 

Before I bought my HP I was looking for someone here in the SA who sold
ORMs with Ubuntu pre-installed that was not Dell. No real luch there,
I/m afraid. So I bought the HP and like the old one, it works pretty
weel, but not as well as it should or could, because I don't know how to
do all the tweking to get it to work exactly right. That's why this
machine is a double boot and why I still have to spend a fair amount of
time using Windows.

The people Imentioned above do not want to spend hours and hours trying
to get their computers to work. They want them to work right from the
start. And by working right, I don't just mean the core stuff, I mean
all of it. My HP vame with a ton of software preinstalled. Stuff I will
never use. Ubuntu came with a lot of good stuff, but not everything I
needed. Some of it was easy to find and install, some of it is not. 

And until the hardware manufacturers take Linux seriously, people will
be leery of Linux, especially if they have to install it themselves,
because of thimgs like proprietary drivers and proprietary software that
only work with windows. This is an issue I'm trying to deal with -
trying to get my HP Deskjet to work right in Ubuntu.

I said this bug as a marketing issse and then talked about all the
technical issues that come with Linux. That's bcuse the first marketing
has to be to the Linux communities to make them see that, givrn the
present state of Linux, the average computer user sees :inux as
something for those more technically adept, not for them, the peope who
buy the vast majority of computers. Unti that perception is changed,
which will require a major attitude change on the part of both sides,
the Borg of Redmond will, sadly, remain untouchable.

Peace!

John Botscharow

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