Question for TLUGgers: How can Canada take a leading role in FOSS?

[Peter]

On Mon, 3 Apr 2006, Jamon Camisso wrote:

> How then does a company like Apple or Microsoft successfully market a 
> product? When was the last time a marketing campaign launched by either of 
> the two companies relied on being openly political? When was the last time 
> that you saw a television or magazine ad that highlighted the "political" 
> dynamics of the development or marketing teams? Your definition of politics 
> doesn't change the fact that marketing a product is far easier if there is no 
> tinge of the "political" involved. Of course, it's not impossible, but on the 
> whole, and in the most general sense I can possibly muster in these few 
> words, I pronounce it to be extremely difficult or unlikely to be successful. 
> That being said, I can imagine those few successes would be of most 
> magnificent proportions.

Openly political marketing campaigns exist when the potential buyers 
cannot understand the technical merits and/or are not to understand the 
technical merits, and/or are fed up with numbers and graphs. FUD is 
politics. A professionally done comparison between operating systems, 
with uptime, footprint, coo evaluations and stress and security testing 
will cause the eyes of most readers to glaze over after the first 3 
pages out of 50+. So marketing and advertising for the masses is and 
will remain politics. It can be FUD, it can be appeal to basic instincts 
(pictures of good food, nice ladies, happy workers), it can be a lot of 
things. But a merit-based comparison using canonicalized metrics and 
scientifically done it will not be. Ever.

So I think that what must be done, it to first understand that the 
annoying little ms videos played before some free video clips from the 
internet, which spread FUD about Linux coo and security and integration 
cost, without saying a word about ms server excepting 'maybe turning 
back to it' while giving up on linux, are FUD, are politics, and are 'ad 
pinguinem' attacks in the best election campaign smear/lawyer talk 
pattern, complete with the noisy 70's stick-shifting car and Indian 
(subcontinent) scenery, and insinuating nasal speaker voice and the 
royal 'we' tense used by him.

So, in the context of this list 'not engaging in ms bashing', one should 
verify whether this position is valid. FUD and politics are here to 
stay. I did not make the rules of this game, but I play to stay in the 
game, and maybe to win. One of the names of the game is FUD and 
smearing. Sorry about that.

Peter

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