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I agree with this, one of the reasons I actually quit from the toronto lug was one endless thread about Microsoft getting some sort of security contract, and it was all MS this MS that, with my comments asking where were the people to provide the OSS solution or promote another solution, to which no one really gave an answer. It seems 2007 may be a good year for us, lets start 2007 with a positive attitude, concentrate on what OSS / Free software can do, other wise it seems we are just a bunch of MS bashers, and that has the opposite effect, we need to market what we have to offer. We have the children in need event coming up, lets see how that goes, book a few lug meetings and discuss how public events should go, as people have said we need a balance between., presentations general chat / disussion troubleshooting hardware / software problems. Its not what you tell people it's how you go about telling them, that will make the impression, People want an alternative, so we need to tell them there are 2 alternatives to Microsoft these are GNU / Linux or Apple Incedently OSX looks really nice, i was looking at a apple the other day, you can click on the mouse and up pops another display, that has calculator, weather and loads of other stuff, click somewhere else and it just goes, so it's always there, it's also transparent so does not get in the way. KDE desktop also looks very nice, we just need to let people see whats out there, get them to say thats cool, then explain it's free. in fact the whole distro can be installed at no cost. Lets have a focus for 2007. concentrate on promoting what OSS is really like get people interested then teach about the philosphy be hind free software. any installed should be backed up by members who run computer shops etc, or generally for support. We also need to find out more about who were are targeting and what they are using their computers for. paul >Well I get the impression there are loads of people who rant and rave >about Microsoft. We're at a good time to be promoting Linux over >endless upgrades in hardware (for instance pointless Vista upgrades) - >which in a sense is good for the environment. Instead of arguing about >if free or non-free is good or bad, why aren't we doing something about >getting out there, showing people Linux and spreading the word? > >Half the people I spoke to about Linux didn't know anything (or little) >about it until I explained what it is. > >I get the impression that the more people that start to use Linux the >more people will hear about the benefits of Open Source etc. I have >lost count how many arguments I have had with narrow minded people who >say Linux is crap because it doesn't look like Windows XP. I have kept >talking about Linux and the benefits and slowly I'm getting people >interested. > >It certainly wouldn't look good if they came along and found that a few >Linux users were of the impression that they should have stuck with >Windows if they want to view a flash site. To be honest I'd be put off >by it all. > >I get the feeling that I can argue about this until I'm blue in the >face. Yes I have heard why non-free is bad, but maybe some of those >Windows users who come along with their proprietary flash players may >tinker about with the code or documentation etc to some of these >projects and help out by doing stuff under the GPL rather than under >something like an MS EULA. > >Rant over :-) > >Rob > > > > -- http://www.zleap.net -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html