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On Saturday 19 January 2008 23:29, Neil Williams wrote: > On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:53:29 +0000 > > David Bell <grimpen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Saturday 19 January 2008 22:03, Neil Williams wrote: > > > 1. Money - who do you think pays for the wages of all those > > > footballers and Hollywood-has-beens? Ads are incredibly expensive, > > > especially for a prime-time blitz on lots of channels / media. M$ have > > > plenty, let them spend it. > > > > I don't see the relevance of footballers and hollywood-has-beens. > > They receive the majority of the advertising budget of > FTSE /NASDAQ companies. Still don't see your point. I don't watch or support them anyway :) > > I'm sure > > that costs could be kept down by avoiding advertising agencies. > > Ads on the web are easily ignored and removed. Hmmmm - Google is obviously not your friend > > Ads on TV are the only real way of affecting the masses - why else > would the fees be so high? Only by the big players with either with money to burn or are seeing their sales dropping. They are high because there are those willing and able to pay. The first thing that goes out the window when times are hard is advertising. > > Why use > > television and subsidise all the hangers-on connected with it? There are > > ways of advertising on the web and printed matter which wouldn't cost an > > arm and a leg. > > Depends what you are trying to achieve. Conferences are really cheap > advertising. Getting a mass audience involves spending mass-scale > amounts of money. > > > Canonical must spend a small fortune distributing disks world wide, why > > not advertise the fact in the daily/weekly press or whatever? > > Nah. CD-R distribution is a tiny spend vs the M$ TV ads over Xmas and > SuperBowl interval etc. and M$ don't even need to advertise ... Why do they then? > - imagine > how much they would spend if free software got more than 25% of the > mass pre-installed market. (Imagine how dirty it would get too.) Who cares if it gets dirty, M$ deserve it. My silent prayer is that, one day, the Orient will develope (in more than one sense) a strong dislike to MS. :) > > > > 2. .... Needs a change of attitude from the manufacturers. > > > > Manufactures won't change unless they see that there really is a market > > out there. > > This is a v.dangerous argument because it is how NVidia justify their > proprietary crap. If market share is all that matters, what is the > point of making the source code free? Perhaps long term NVidia are shooting themselves in the foot. > > Freedom is most important - change the attitude *before* the market > share forces a change. > > > I notice that including drivers for Mac seems to be on the increase. > > i386-Mac - not exactly hard to port proprietary i386-win32 code > compared to making free software that can be ported to ARM, MIPS and a > host of other architectures. At least it's a start, recognising there are other OS's. > > > 3. Canonical, Sun, HP, RedHat and others do push their names during > > > exhibitions and conference and stuff. > > > > Preaching mostly to the converted :) > > If it hadn't been for LinuxWorld Expo, I wouldn't be a Debian Developer. But you had "seen the light" before then :) > > > More hardware manufacturers need to publish their source code, not just > > > make proprietary binaries for the Linux kernel. That way, we all get > > > stable, free, code for all devices instead of a proprietary mess where > > > the same device name has a different chipset in February to March and > > > the same chipset appears under a random assortment of names. > > > > A hurdle to overcome by increased usage of OSS. > > > > > Most of the work needs to be within the scope of the hardware > > > manufacturers and the hardware packagers - *not* the retailers or the > > > ad agencies. > > > > To hell with "ad Agencies". Retailers will push what they can sell. > > Agreed. Retailers will only stock the items that customers request - > customers (for better or for worse) are susceptible to ads and ads ... Precisely - "WE" need to advertise OSS (Glad you agree :) ) > .... generate requests which generate orders which generate stock-on-shelves > which generate sales wich generates more stock-on-shelves. Selling cheap low spec' boxes with oss installed. "Didn't somebody who became awfully wealthy once say "pile it high, sell it cheap" Ergo what you say next. How are "we" to do it. Advertising perhaps? > Customer requests are the best weapon to undermine blinkered OEM > contracts and anti-trust non-disclosure agreements. > > > Advertising, making the public aware, in what ever manner is practical > > and effective, will create a (hopefully growing) demand. Even your local > > shop can afford to advertise. > > No doubt. Well :) -- W. Devon ----------- A GNU/Linux user -- 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