Sandals and ponytail set cramp Linux (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

Sandals and ponytail set cramp Linux (ZDNet)

Posted Mar 28, 2006 18:33 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722)
Parent article: Sandals and ponytail set cramp Linux (ZDNet)

I have to agree that having your average open source developer show up to a sales presentation isn't going to make a good impression, but I sort of doubt that this is a common problem in practice. I don't think many people in the open source community actually think they're sales people, nor is it something they're likely to try at that level anyway. And there is generally the attitude in the open source community that if people don't use OSS, that's their loss, not ours.

For Linux, there are distributions that provide do sales, and it seems clear to me that this is a major factor for business adoption of Linux. But I don't know of an entity that does slick presentations and cost estimates for migrating a Windows desktop from MS Office to OpenOffice, which is, I think, the transition that Peter Quinn thinks of when he thinks about open source software adoption.

He goes on to imply that it's actually the IT industry that's failing to recognize an opportunity, and it should generate the business savvy itself, rather than expecting the open source community to sell itself.

(Log in to post comments)