Ceding ground to FUD

Posted Aug 23, 2011 0:56 UTC (Tue) by PaulWay (guest, #45600)
Parent article: LinuxCon: The world's largest Linux desktop deployment

The reason that Microsoft is winning this war is because they've got lots of patience and lots of resources. They can afford to send dozens of people to meet with ministers. In Australia they have millions of dollars for an 'educational fund' which is really for undercutting any open source deployment bid.

Where we can combat them is by not doing drop-ship, set-and-forget deployments. They have to get long-term support. We have to build enthusiasm and dedication in the people working with Linux in the deployment so they can see the reason why it's good. We have to prepare them (just as any lobbyist does) to combat the FUD from Microsoft, to point out the flaws in their arguments, and to provide expert assistance and legal counsel when Microsoft inevitably makes its move.

I suspect there's a culture in FOSS companies of 'why should we be the ones to take on Microsoft'. We already have organisations like the FSF, the SFLC, the EFF and others who have the access and the credibility at the business level to do the work of countering MS FUD. We need to support those organisations and build them. Otherwise we will keep ceding ground, we will keep seeing these deployments reinstalled with Windows, because we expect to just do our work and move on and Microsoft is much more patient an adversary than that.

Nothing new there, I suspect.

Have fun,

Paul

Ceding ground to FUD

Posted Aug 23, 2011 8:53 UTC (Tue) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link] (2 responses)

problem with LTS is that it needs a company to do it. And that company needs to make money. And MS makes darn sure there's not a dime to be made... Both Red Hat and SUSE left the desktop market for precisely that reason: there's no money.

Ceding ground to FUD

Posted Sep 5, 2011 16:52 UTC (Mon) by n8willis (subscriber, #43041) [Link]

Tangent: In his talk, Griffin said that governments usually preferred to contract out the support to local businesses; same with building the content frameworks and web services that support the deployment. Clearly that does not fit into RH/SUSE's business plans.

But perhaps there is room for consulting & training services from the NorthAmerican/European distros to those local businesses. I'm not clear that they're pursuing that any, but if they did then having someone "on the ground" would also help with educating the decision-makers against the Microsoft argument. But absent certification (or any other potential sales/services), asking the distros to send people to advocate is basically asking them to volunteer charitably. I suspect their answer would be "that's the community's job."

</conjecture>
Nate

Ceding ground to FUD

Posted Mar 24, 2012 6:24 UTC (Sat) by jbicha (subscriber, #75043) [Link]

Oh, and Debian makes how much money off their LTS releases?