it's like being a friend... (Score 2)

When the local group i belong to started talking about linux, people... well... laughed. They kept on laughing and nagging about the lack of money while we helped them with one job after another. They kept laughing at us when we helped them for free, even if they had problems with win9x. But they started asking us for help, even when they knew that we preferred linux, and we helped them out. Sure the top people still laughed at us when the little people came to us begging for help when the money was spent and there was no other support to get. And we helped them stay with the systems they knew, windows mostly, and helped them get more out of the old boxes that companies and people donated to us as samba servers. They laughed at us for not taking a penny for the job we did, but we kept on doing helping them, even when the topdogs came wondering if we could help them stretch the budget a bit the next year. And we were there answering their questions and explaining how we did what we did. They still bought the expensive stuff, and laughed at us for trying, but we helped them get the reports ready and the fancy words out. With linux tools and apache servers. And they laughed at the silly students that installed linux themselves on some of the boxes (dual boot in stealth mode they called it) and they laughed especially loud when the students started helping others the way we did and joined us. They still laugh, but we know how we'll make things happen, because we do what the money doesn't care about. We are their friends and we'll laugh with them through good and bad... It's not about the money at all. *