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Focus to Folly in 3.6 pages - A Microcosm of the Linux Community?
I am going to make a statement that will immediately disqualify me in the minds of many. I am a New Linux User. New being relative of course. I attended my 13 year old daughter's extra-curricular class one evening. It was a "Linux Lab" held by some group I had never heard of. And I am going to be honest. I went with her so I could verify that indeed she was going to school, the event she said she was going to and to see what the heck Linux was. And why does Linux need it's own lab. Today my home computers, my business and my grown children's computers are running Linux. More importantly, I have become an advocate of Linux and a friend to the man that taught that "Linux Lab". His name is Ken Starks and he is the guy who operates Lobby4Linux.com. When I met him, I had no idea of who he was or that he held any measure of Celebrity. As far as being a Celebrity, I don't think he knows it either. Not to talk to him anyway. My point here is straying. Now that I am an advocate of this Linux Thing, I have been paying particular attention to a project called The Tux 500. Not to my surprise at all, I found that Ken Starks or "helios" is neck-deep in it himself. Once I discovered that, my interest in Tux 500 doubled. I have spent the past two evenings combing the internet for news about this project. It is a lively discussion to say the least. No one it seems is without an opinion on the matter and it is even being talked about now outside the Linux Community. I don't know how you guys do the little magic trick where a few words appear with a line under them and that turns into a link. I said I was new at this. The places I have seen it talked about is on a website called speedTV and the actual indianapolis 500 website itself. To see "Tux" on the front of a non-linux site is exciting in itself. But let me tell you what is not. In trying to gather information about what sites are talking a out this, I have found that the distro forums are doing their share of it. This is where the title to this article comes from. I "googled" Tux500 Linux and one of the links took me to the Fedora forum. Since the lead-in sounded interesting, I followed the link and began reading about their opinions on Tux 500. It started out well, someone agreed with it, someone didn't, the first someone defended his position, the second someone did the same. And on it went. However I noticed a phenomenon that is not uncommon in Linux forums. By the end of the discussion and at that point in time it ran just short of 4 pages. The conversation had went from the topic at hand to the subject of zebras and virgins. Now you tell me how that happened. I know this community is diverse. That is one of the things that draws it to me but for the love of Pete folks. It's obvious that many of you do not realize the impact this project can have on Linux. Many of you are getting lost in the seemingly large amount of money talked about. Some of you are talking about "ROI" (return of investment). What Bob, Ted and Ken are doing here has nothing to do with traditional rules and outcomes the financial world would normally be interested in. Look at it this way. Many of you are saying "word of mouth has worked just fine, don't mess with it". Oh yeah? The last time I looked, Microsoft still had a 90 percent plus market share on the operating systems in the world. Just how good is "word of mouth" working for us? Focus people, focus. It was said well on the Mepis forums. If you don't agree with this project, that's your right but don't work against it. You can disagree all day. But as Ken says more plainly on the front page of Lobby4Linux. "If you are not going to help, please get out of my way." We need to keep our eye on the ball here. Bob Moore, the guy who started this whole thing says it plainly. If only 1 percent of the community gives a single dollar to this effort, it WILL get done. So you disagree. Fine, but don't do what many of you are doing and actively attempt to damage this effort. That can come back to cause you grief later. Your thoughts and quotes are a record for all to see. As a successful business man in Austin Texas, I have learned a valuable lesson. You shouldn't get in the way of a man who is trying to do the right thing. They remember who supported them and who didn't. Given the things Ken has done for the Linux Community, I wouldn't want to be known as someone who "got in his way."
Roger Danielson |
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Comments (17)
God help the next person with an idea, motivation and contacts to pull off a bold Linux marketing program if people deliberately throw wrenches into any plan that doesn't match their own idea of marketing. Who would volunteer to step forward to take this kind of abuse next time around?
Make a contribution and give this a chance or risk a bleak future of Linux community marketing.
Two of valid choices really. Either make your contribution, or shut the heck up and give it a chance to work. Anything else is mean spirited beyond belief.
Something along the lines of a full-page advertisement featuring Tux in the Wall Street Journal ...
but hey, I'm not a fan of sponsoring race cars anyway (you can take this post as my *positive* offer of an alternative idea cuz I don't wanna be just another naysayer.)
My hope is that after seeing this, there will be other projects, leading to just such an advertisement. If Helios, et al are putting in their time, I guess we have to live with what they offer.
By the way, do you know what a WSJ ad would cost?
I'd have to see what the Firefox people spent for their ad to get an idea about the costs involved.
Quoting:I'd have to see what the Firefox people spent for their ad to get an idea about the costs involved.
I think it end it up about $50,000. after a special discount for FOSS project. The donations exceeded that by a lot.
I don't believe PPete has any objective loftier than generating clicks. No evidence, no coherence, no interesting arguments. Just heat and noise.
Quoting:He doesn't understand it's a grass roots effort and that ROI doesn't matter...if Linux goes to the Indy500, it's won.
Absolutely, ROI in this big ocean of advertising is incalculable in advance , but we are giving it a sincere effort.
Companies spend millions on TV ads and on every other medium there is without knowing anything about its effectiveness. They won't know anything in advance about whether it is going to be effective or not; they determine that after the fact. What they know for sure is that they are going to get exposure and publicity at the least, and depending on how big the audience is. Indy500, as we all know, has a huge audience.
May be it is not going to be effective on the people who are informed, but those aren't the ones we are trying to reach. It will be effective on people who still haven't heard of Linux yet by intriguing their curiosity, that is a huge audience.
Word of mouth works, but it takes a long time to see results. Events on TV like Indy500 could give us quick and massive results.
No wonder why ads during a Super Ball game half time are so expensive!
This is why I like Lxer -- the peeps is so durned smart.
Absolutely right. ROI is a straw man. It matters for any individual/organization choosing between alternative approaches. It doesn't much matter for something that is, among other things, an effort to get the community interested.
It is the saga of free software itself -- Lots of I, little r. Many projects that fail for every gem that rises to the top.
So what? Everybody wins anyway, even those folks who tried their chops on projects that fold in the end.
Exactly.
Say that we were donating to any charity or communal effort to raise money for hunger or a cure for a disease...do we ask for our money back if hunger isn't solved? or if a cure isn't found?
In this effort, there isn't any negative at all and there is a chance for a major positive. Just like donating to a charity...you have a chance to add your dollar into something that can do for the community.
In the beginning of his silly diatribe, he shouted SCAM! Now that there is too much evidence contrary to that, he shouts ROI! To me, he's just trying to always counter anything helios...all because helios raised the plagiarism flag on him a few years ago....it's personal.
For me, anyone that would let a personal problem get in the way of the Linux community isn't a true member of said community.
A TRUE member of the community would SHOW us a better approach by DOING it, rather than WHINING about what WE are DOING.
That is one of the big reasons why free software has become such a force.
I disagree with that statement. The whole point of releasing your code is that for what little effort you put into writing that code, thousands of people can benefit. That's little investment (from you), BIG returns (for society).
Personally, I think the money would be better used supporting a distro directly. But if you insist on spending it on stickers on cars, perhaps you can spend $350,000 on Linux stickers and give them out to anyone who will put one on their car.
You Think it would or you believe it would? There are millions of Linux users who think it would. Unfortunately, there seems to be only a tiny fraction of them that Believe it would. There is little effort that goes into Thinking something. You can easily recognize the Believers because they are putting forth the effort to perpetuate and solidify that belief.
Perhaps you can organize the movement needed to pay for, manufacture, sell and distribute those stickers? I'd be more than glad to help you with all resources at my disposal...but not until the first of June.
h
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