Novell, Heal Thy Self

First I read the post on Lobby4Linux and wholeheartedly agreed. Then I've read the post at nixternal and, guess what, I wholeheartedly agreed. Nixternal managed to make a winning argument for me here.

But that puts me in an odd situation. I always agreed that GNU/Linux needs more marketing exposure and thought that anything would be good, but especially if big corporations like Novell start prominently advertising to the masses of ordinary people.

But now I'm left scratching my head over whether that would really work, in addition to realizing that Novell (nor RedHat nor anyone else for that matter) might not even have it in their interest to spend money on such ad campaigns.

And that brings me to square one. Grassroots campaigning indeed; concerted efforts by all of the existing GNU/Linux users converting the market which is inevitably consisted of their friends and relatives to GNU/Linux. I call it the "resident geek approach" or the "resident computer guy". First you convert all of them to GNU/Linux and then they, like some sort of a local software vendo, convert the rest of non-geeks. Mind you converting doesn't necessarily have to happen offline and locally only, but over the internet "neighborhoods" too.

So.. where is this whole GNU/Linux marketing thing ending up at now? Well it seems to have only one valid purpose: brand recognition, as mentioned already, but apparently even here the best and perhaps the only ones who we should count on doing this is.. well.. us, not corporations.

So the best mentality we in the community can have about both spreading GNU/Linux and awareness about it is:

"Don't wait on somebody else to do it, just do it!"

Tux500 was one of the "just do it" attempts. We should have more and in various other diverse ways. There can even be a multitude of various campaigns, initiatives, projects at the same time.

Looks like I might have touched a nerve. Good

I meant to. It's a sad thing when a community as a whole is so difficult to mobilize. We are so spread out, and without a central communications device that doing so has proven next to impossible. And there is a grass roots effort happening to do just what I suggest. http://www.thetuxproject.com

While it is still in the infant stages, it may prove to be just the thing we need. It would appear that this initial criticism was born more from a defense mechanism than any real substance.

"This entire post was created from imagination, it had no real testament nor did it contain anything accurate."

That is a statement obviously made in defensive posture. Remember, I offer opinion, food for thought. the remark concerning Novell's bottom line comes straight from their own people...you know, the ones that quit? The Motley Fool offers some clear information on the ups and downs of Novell's profits. While Novell is touting a "winning quarter", Wall street is saying something quite different.

Now, if you don't like my "crud" don't read it. I never said Novell had any responsibility toward marketing Linux, I said it could possibly put them back in the good graces of the community. Big difference there. You saw what you wanted to see in that. The words are concise and clear. However, you are incorrect on another point:

The products that Novell creates is not for “Real America” it is for “Enterprise America.” Enterprise America already knows what is available and don’t need the commercials to push it during primetime anymore. That is why you don’t see the IBM and Linux commercials anymore, who was watching them was “Real America” and “Real America” did a huge “WTF?”

These were lousy attempts at marketing Linux to the general population. It seems that you have a track record of not really wanting Linux marketed to Joe User anyway so I don't look for any support from you on this. I do however expect an honest reporting of the fact. I deal in opinion and I will use facts when they suit my need. You can raise all the money you want in support of projects. Good idea. Plenty of domain names available for your effort, just let me know what they are and I will promote them with vigor.

Unfortunately, we have spent 10 years swapping disks, building linux robots and coming up with geek-impressive acronyms for the projects we do form. This has absolutely no affect on the fact that the majority of the world is trapped in a buggy, expensive and proprietary operating system. I am going to ask a general question here and I would like to hear an answer.

Why should anyone be forced to purchase and use software designed to make the software they've already purchased to work as designed? to make it worse, MS has gotten into the business of selling software to fix the software THEY have already sold you.

To deny the attempt to market Linux to the general public is not only selfish, I would argue that it's morally reprehensible. Novell has an opportunity here to fix that and at the same time help itself. No, they have no obligation to do so. Neither does Red Hat, Xandros or Linspire. Let me know when you see a television commerical for any of them devoted to the spread of Linux, either here in the US or otherwise. I simply use the US as a base for talking about what I know. I can see anywhere from one to six a day touting MS code.