[NTLUG:Discuss] Marketting Linux (Was:MS XP Throw it in the trash!)

[Steve Baker]

Aaron Goldblatt wrote:
> 
> On Sunday 04 November 2001 09:29 pm, you wrote:
> >    Yup, she's had macro viruses named after her, and she ran the "Bob"
> >    project.  Melissa...
> 
> I'm pretty certain her name is Melinda.

Yes - that's certainly true.  Do a Google search on 'Melinda Gates' and
you get a gazillion hits for: "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation".

...but then do a search on "Bill Melissa Gates Foundation" and you also
get a bunch of links to "The Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation"...

eh?  I'm confused...But Bill's wife is definitely Melinda.
There is a letter from him and her at: http://www.gatesfoundation.org


> >   b) Microsoft apparently did naughty things, including code into it
> >      that belonged (in some manner) to the vendors of Stacker.
> 
> They lost a big lawsuit over it.  That was the reason DOS 6.21 existed,
> without any compression utility at all.  It would backward support the 6.20
> disks, but you couldn't make new ones.

Wasn't that the lawsuit where Microsoft fought the Stacker guys and lost - then
bought the company for less money than the courts awarded so they ended up
weasling out of it?

> But it is important to recognize one thing Microsoft IS good at:  Marketing.
> If we had a marketing team for Linux like Microsoft has for their products,
> we'd have a real OS war on our hands, and it would be exciting to see.

I was kinda hoping that between IBM and SGI, we'd see some of that.

The IBM campaign has been fairly low key (apart from in SanFrancisco and
NewYork where they painted whole sides of buildings with their 'Peace/Love/Linux'
advert and (illegally) stencilled it on a bunch of sidewalks).

I have some photo's of those here:

   http://www.sjbaker.org/lnx_photos/

...the trouble is that these don't *sell* Linux to people who don't already know
about it.  We all look at the posters and smile knowingly - but to most people,
it's just a complete mystery as to why there would be a Penguin on that ad.

I went into a laundrette in San Francisco some months ago that faced one of those
10 storey high IBM ads - I was wearing my NTLUG Teeshirt at the time - and one
of the people who ran the place remarked - "Oh - you're wearing one of those
IBM Penguins - aren't they cute."

I think our success on the desktop now hinges on a teeny-tiny legal issue
in the Microsoft settlement...Will hardware vendors be allowed to build
dual-boot machines without Microsoft beating them up over it?

If they can then I think it's possible that we'd see vendors installing
Linux as standard alongside Windoze - it's a zero cost item and doesn't
consume a whole lot of disk space, so they have almost nothing to lose
by offering it and they have some extra goodies to list in their adverts.

If that became widespread then the step of actually installing Linux and
getting it all properly tweaked would vanish as an obstacle to users and
then all it takes is ONE good freeware package to get nearly everyone
to dual-boot.  From that point, we have a MUCH easier battle on our hands.

What that one great package might be - I'm not sure.  Something like
GIMP maybe? - Secure email with no virii maybe? - Home web/file servers?

But it all depends on the exact provisions of the agreement.  I heard that
Microsoft will be required to allow vendors to install 3rd party software
in place of the Microsoft equivelents - but whether that also requires
M$ to support dual-booting isn't clear...and besides, it looks like the
states aren't going to swallow it - so it's all up for grabs anyway.


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