Promoting FOSS to People Who Don't Care 432
MarcoF brings us his take on how to cultivate interest in open-source software to casual users who aren't interested in or necessarily aware of its existence. Many people simply have trouble leaving their comfort zone of older proprietary software; what's the best way to get them to look at an open-source alternative?
"Since most people would rather die than write or study software source code, it is actually counterproductive to promote software 'because you can modify it yourself and be part of its community'. Look for really practical advantages which can be enjoyed every day by the person you want to convince. Start from the actual deep passions, beliefs, interests and practical needs of the people in front of you and go backwards from there, delaying the apparition of terms like 'source code', 'the four software freedoms', GPL, Gnu, Linux, etc."
Here, try this DVD (Score:5, Interesting)
No evangelism, no preaching. Don't go on about the source code availability, 'giving back' to the community, just let the apps stand on their own. Their eyes will glaze over if you try too hard, because they don't really care. Yet.
They won't understand the underlying FOSS concepts, until they play with it for a while.
Conservative Arguments for FOSS (Score:4, Interesting)
a) Open Source is not communism and its not socialism. Socialism and communism are centrally planned, whereas, an open source system consists of thousands of voices, each operating with their own agenda. If any system is more like a communist system, its a big corporate system, which has all of its components centrally planned and designed. It's not like Linus Torvalds writes all of Linux. He's just famous for writing a very important piece at the center of things. While its true that you are not going to make billions of dollars writing that one thing and selling it over and over again, there's nothing to stop you from building a consulting firm offering open source solutions that makes billions and billions of dollars, if you want.
b) Rugged individualism. Open source is software about the inventor, without all of that unproductive fluff of corporate programming. You make something yourself, and then you publish it. If its good, people will use it. If not, then the project quickly dies.
c) Honesty. Open source systems are brutally honest. Whereas a system in a store will be filled with hype and lies, by contrast, an open source system tells it like it is. One of the things that I love about Linux is that the documentation with most of the software package clearly and immediately lists things that don't work or haven't been tested enough.
d) No spying. These days, using a copy of Windows makes it almost seem like you might be a criminal just for using it. And Windows is completely sealed up, and who knows what sort of deals that Microsoft cuts with the government. Because there's no secret codes in open source systems, everyone would know right away if something was wrong with it.
e) A real community. Every program these days has its communities, but with open source, you have a genuine interaction between the people that write and the people that use the software. Working in an open source community is like working in an old rural town, where everyone chips in to build that neighbor's house. Open source lets all of its dirty laundry out.
Free / No Hassle Argument Not Always Enough (Score:2, Interesting)
During the presentation, I was discussing the motivations to use open source over proprietary software. I explained that one of the largest drivers was that it was free (as in liberty), and often free (as in beer). Very few of the students were programmers, so only the free as in beer resonated with them.
One student put his hand up and asked, "So what's the big deal with Firefox? I already get Internet Explorer 'for free' with Windows. Why would I bother going to the trouble of getting Firefox and using it? The 'free' principle doesn't seem to apply here?"
I thought about his question for a moment and responded with two points.
1) Internet Explorer isn't really free. It's disguised in the price of Windows.
2) The motivation with Firefox is more about preserving open web standards. Here the traditional motivations of using open source are secondary. It's a long term discussion about making sure the Internet doesn't become the Microsoft Net, populated with broken, half-standards.
The students who knew anything about web development (about 3 of the 40) all nodded in agreement. The rest of the class gave me blank stares. It is really important to find a perspective that the listener will relate to.
Suggestions on how to improve my presentation for next term's class would be most welcome.
How I coverted my office (Score:3, Interesting)
Then I installed OpenOffice on my machine. She walked by, and went "you didn't install Office without a key did you, because that's against the rules." I then proceeded to show her OO, how it works, what it was. Then came the big sale, "..and best of all, it's free."
Our office is MS Office free now, altho one holdout refuses to go OO, so eventually I installed the beta of IBM Lotus Symphony and all is good.
Bingo! (Score:3, Interesting)
When that happens, I load it up with Open Office, etc... and explain the new and free stuff. I also explain why their computer got all hosed up, and that lots of shovelware, freeware, etc... can cause them lots of problems. OSS is reliable, free and useful.
From there, they get to make their own choices, knowing they are largely on their own. (I'm not likely to rebuild again, if they've done that crap.)
If possible, I'll answer the how to question, with an OSS application, as well.
As noted elsewhere, the no license key bit is getting powerful these days. I leverage that a lot.
Re:Easy, no Licenses/activation key (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes the setup program would detect the version of Windows you're using and refuse to install if it didn't take into account future releases of Windows. For example there are programs that would install on Windows 95/98 but not ME/2000/XP. Some would install on Windows 2000 but not XP or Vista. Some programs required XP and refused to install on earlier versions even if the program would work fine if I manually copied the files and registry entries.
If I installed a new version of Windows, sometimes it required new drivers, and sometimes those drivers were never available. I bought this one 56K modem from Cardinal and it worked fine in Windows 98. When I upgraded to Windows 2000, the modem required new drivers that never existed because the company went bankrupt. In Linux, the drivers are included in the kernel and are maintained along with the kernel, so I don't have to worry. I don't even have to hunt down driver CDs or visit annoying web sites that require me to take out my card and read some serial number on it, or pay for a drivers CD. I don't have to visit all of those annoying "drivers database" sites that often require passwords and pollute search engine results.
With Linux I can boot up with a LiveCD and access all of my files, even if I forgot a password or if I poked around somewhere I shouldn't have as root (as a Linux noob this helped). I can even take my hard disk out and put it in someone else's machine and I won't have to make a single configuration change to boot up into the environment I had setup. With Windows it would sometimes barf, or at least it would screw up what drivers were installed when I would put the hard disk in another machine and then back in mine. If it was a different motherboard you could be totally screwed.
With Linux I've been able to setup usable systems on old hardware for family members that find their machines too slow with today's antivirus and firewall software. I've been able to limit the damage they can do to their own systems quite easily. I don't know about anyone else but I had a much easier time learning about permissions with Linux than I did about group policies in Windows. I had a much easier time editing config files than I did editing the registry (and figuring out what I had to look for) in order to lock up various user interface settings so that they couldn't be modified.
I had a much easier time using a wider array of file formats for the purposes I wanted... for example I could more easily convert between different video and audio formats, and the programs I liked all shared the same libraries for the various codecs, it's not like you had to have seperate plugin formats for each application like is often the case in Windows.
Those are just a few reasons off the top of my head why I like Linux better. I'm also a gamer, but when it comes to games I have consoles. If I want to play games on my PC I use an emulator, and that suits me fine. I didn't used to enjoy gaming under Windows anyway, any time I had to reins
People don't trust "Free" (Score:3, Interesting)
But when I tell people the software is free as in "you don't have to pay any money, you can copy to as many computers as you want, you can pass it along," they tend to look at me sideways. They are deeply suspicious. They just don't believe it. Generally, they voice two objections. The first is "If it's free, it must be crap." The second is "What's the catch? It can't *really* be free."
At that point, it's easy to reel them in. I just appeal to their natural skepticism, make them think their view of the world is especially insightful, and feed their greed. Here's how: "No, actually, it's not crap; it's better than the stuff they charge money for. Ya see, the people who write this free software give it away to everyone so that people will use it. Every once in a while, the head of I.T. in some big company tries it, likes it, and installs it in the company. Then the company will need some customization or training or other support so they'll call the people that wrote it and give them money to help out. The software writers make big money providing support, the companies save a lot of money because free software plus paid support is still cheaper than paying the ungodly cost of MS Office for every employee, and as this sort of minor, unintended side effect, regular folks like us get to acquire and use really high quality software for no money at all. Ain't that cool?"
The light bulb clicks on over their head. Their eyes furtively dart from side to side. Suddenly, they act like they just found a Rembrandt accidentally thrown out in the trash. They join me in the conspiracy to rip off the man (or so they think) and gladly take the CD that I'm offering.
No, it's not 100% accurate and it does tastelessly appeal to the base instincts of the mark. It's even comparable to an end-user marketing strategy commonly used to push crack. But it gets people to use (most often) a free AV product or (occasionally) OpenOffice, AbiWord, Firefox, et. al. They can learn more deeply later; I just want them to start using the stuff in the here and now. I want them to get used to the notion of not paying for software. This approach has had the most success for me.
Re:Easy, no Licenses/activation key (Score:5, Interesting)
My best effort is say "To add applications there is a little 'add applications' menu, which has a list of all the applications available with a summary of what they do. You just select which ones you want and click install, and it gets it from a trusted place on the internet and installs it for you."
As for your statement about 'the average user doesn't want to learn about repo's', I agree. But, they DO want to learn where they get applications, manage updates, and where these come from. If there is a way to explain this without describing repositories then tell me about it.
Free = zero cost (Score:3, Interesting)
They have been doing this for years, since before the "Internet", although it has really taken off with the advent of warez web sites, P2P downloading and other stuff.
You are never going to convince someone that "vendor lock-in" is bad when they consider they are shafting the vendor just as much as the vendor is shafting them. Excessive costs? What cost? They are getting this stuff for free.
Does everyone do this? No, but it is a sizable group. Certainly enough to make a dent in overall statistics of revenue and use. The folks "in the know" about this consider the people paying to be losers and dummies, so you need a "guide" to get in with the right crowd. Information like this isn't free, especially for the people that are just graduating from AOL U.
Arguing about "free" software is pointless to these people. They aren't going to listen because to them all software is "free". There are no "vendors", there is no "support" and there are no costs.
Are We Leeches? (Score:2, Interesting)
However one person today accused FOSS proponents of being Leeches. He stated that he worked(retired now) for a now defunct British computer maker that was taken over by a large japanese company and that we (FOSS proponents) were nothing more than leeches buy using the R&D of his former company and giving nothing back. His venom was only to obvious to see so I didn't try even think about arguing with him. It was not worth it. However he go me thinking about his statement.
After some reflection, I have to state that he is 'barking mad'. Why would the likes of IBM, Sun, RedHat etc put lots of R&D $$$, Yen, GBP, Euros etc into Open source and actually want to get nothing in return?
It simply does not stack up unless, you follow the Microsoft business model.
But, the question remains though, how do we get this sort of person on our side?
As an aside, many schools seem to be giving two fingers to Vista. Not through ideology but simply expense. Many schools just can't afford the hardware upgrade costs even if M$ were giving away Vista for next to nothing.
I expect that some people simply can't or won't be persuaded.
Re:Easy, no Licenses/activation key (Score:3, Interesting)
Then maybe throw in a tiny professional support contract so they don't feel ripped off when/if they find out it's free.
Or, another cover story: tell him it "costs" $50, but there's a "special site I know about" (i.e. main download site) where you can get it for free if you promise to tell them about bugs.
Re:Article not msft friendly = more flambait posts (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Easy, no Licenses/activation key (Score:4, Interesting)
I usually describe OSS programmers as volunteers.
Most people get the concept of volunteering.
At least it gets them away from the image of "giving it away 'cause it isn't good enough to sell"