[NTLUG:Discuss] Open Source

[Robert Pearson]

On Feb 1, 2008 11:29 AM, Dennis Rice <dennis at dearroz.com> wrote:
> Education is the fundamental focus of promoting the use of Open Source,
> be it an application or an operating system.  But who are we attempting
> to educate?  Is it the president of the company, the users, or the IT
> staff that maintains the network?  Is it other geeks or the medical
> doctor who does not care what goes on under the hood of his car or the
> inside of a PC?
>
> To sell open source, one has to have a product that produces results at
> the minimum cost.  Cost in this case includes both the real product $$
> and the time to install and maintain the software over its lifespan.
> These costs must be accounted for over a long period of time.  The
> software has a up front one time cost (it may be free), but the
> maintenance requires a trained individual.
>
> Ignoring security issues (I know that is a major issue), M$ user
> software is a low cost item after the initial purchase.  It is generally
> easily installed and has very few configuration issues to make it
> operational.  One can usually had a CD to an individual with a PHD in
> business administration, one that has absolutely no knowledge of the
> computer or OS's operation, and that individual can install and run the
> software.
>
> To make open source really fly, we need to do the same.  To link back to
> my earlier topic, the installation of open source must be made
> consistent across ALL distributions.  Otherwise we are generating a set
> of specialized geeks to work on one each different distribution in order
> to make a full system operate.  Do we want specialists or do we want to
> promote standardization?  I favor standardization.
>
> Dennis

This should give you hope. It did me...
>From another mailing list...
"My wife's about a foot taller this morning because we got her 70+ year
old mother up-and-running with PCLinuxOS yesterday.  She's already
started blogging about it and insisted that I pass on links to her first
to posts on this subject.  What the heck, it's right on topic."
http://www.lockergnome.com/dirtgoddess/2008/01/30/like-a-virgin/
http://www.lockergnome.com/dirtgoddess/2008/02/01/like-a-virgin-first-blush/