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On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 22:44:05 -0000 Julian Hall wrote:
With the greatest respect to those more expert in such areas, I think the dual aims of educating people about the nature of various licenses, and converting them from other OSs to Linux are mutually exclusive, at least to a certain extent. A two stage process is more appropriate IMHO, first get them using Linux, *then* teach them what the different licenses and ethos are.
Being someone who (hopefully) will be doing more and more of this in the (hopefully near) future, I would have to disagree here. For most people that are new to the whole "not Windows or Mac" idea, there are many, many questions right at the beginning. Not least of which is "how the hell can anyone afford to just give away this software". If you introduce them to "Linux" as a whole ensemble, this question *will* be asked sooner rather than later. How is one supposed to educate about "Linux" without talking about the Freedom? I am not saying that "Linux 101" should start of with a rant and a rave about software Freedom and the various licences, but I am saying that you *cannot* teach about "Linux" without teaching about Freedom, at pretty much the same time. I would advocate a more softly-softly approach. Use lots of analogies. Although I am pretty fond of car analogies for lots of computer topic, I think the very first analogy on Freedom would benefit from being something different. I particularly like the analogy I came up with at Exeter Uni once. I was giving a presentation about OpenOffice and one rather vocal member of the group asked that very question: "If people are writing this software in their spare time, it can't be very good, can it?" To which my response was: "You volunteer for St. John's Ambulance and do 'First Aid' in your spare time? You volunteer to appear as a JP in your spare time? You can't be a very good first-aider or judge, then, can you?" Alternatively, I have used: "Most of these people are 'professional' software developers anyway. If David Beckham plays football free-of-charge for a charity do, will he necessarily play a bad game simply because he's not getting paid?" I don't believe that covering one topic [in great depth] before moving onto another topic is the key to education. I think that covering all related topics concurrently, but doing so in a stepped manner so that the depth of knowledge of any given individual topic increases at the same rate that all the other related topics, is a much better approach.
If we want Joe/Jane Bloggs in the street to convert to Linux we can't be scaring him/her off with insistence on correct terminology all the time.
Which is true. But as far as I have seen, there hasn't been any "enforcement" of anyone individual agenda here. As far as I am aware, one is free to call the system "knobby's nuts" on this list if so desired, although I can imagine that this would cause confusion. I think "gentle encouragement to learn the reasons behind the" correct terminology is more apt.
The number of customers I've spoken to in the last few years who referred to "Uploading" information from their CD-ROM or floppy disk could make you tear your hair out.
Have you had anyone requesting "the Internet copied to this floppy disk" yet?
On a side issue I just thought of. The average user is familiar with the terms Linux and *Linux User Group* or LUG.
What brings you to this conclusion? What is an "average" user? And of which system?
So if they want help on Linux in their area they will go to Mr Google and type in, for example "Devon LUG". If the group name is changed to GLUG the chances are Google will miss the group entirely, or even if the helpful query says "Did you mean Devon GLUG?" the user will say No not knowing a GLUG from a hole in the wall.
Since GLUG contains the letters LUG, google will probably show it anyway. If, however, the user enters 'Devon "LUG"' into google, then there is a change it'll be missed.... apart from the fact that there have been a number of discussions on this topic which will make it show up anyway. Grant. -- Artificial intelligence is no match for nuratal stidutipy. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.