On Sat, Jul 05, 2003 at 11:01:43PM +0100, James Green wrote:
Unfortunately, complaining to a local newspaper actually doesn't do an awful lot of good. Getting in as an article helps, but you need to be of a) public interest and b) public understanding. Linux/OSS is not understood by the public and more problematic is that they have zero interest in it.
I more or less agree with what you said, but complaining to a local newspaper does lots of good. It gives a few people some ammunition that they need to start making the first few changes in the first few places. It may only have an effect on perhaps 1 person, but that is how we need to grow things.
A similar thing could be said for install fests, istr the last alug install day we did I installed debian on 1 computer (it may not have been an install day, I forget). So in some terms it was not a great success and with that time it took I could probably have done something more "impressive" with my time, but of course that one person could introduce the OS to perhaps a few more maybe it will get introduced to one person who holds lots of sway in a reasonable size company.
Anyhow I think what I am trying to say is that even small amounts of publicity do real good, it means people sit up and listen when they see its a grass roots thing and not just expensive computer companies trying to sell them the "latest greatest" fad. I think that what we are trying to do is spread a message or a word, the more people who listen the better even if they don't do anything about it. I suppose if i was to be extra pretentious++ then I could say we are acting as disciples of a religon.
Adam