David, please tell me you weren't part of this...

[Evan Leibovitch]

Jamon Camisso wrote:
> We distributed over 100 cds and people were begging for more.
I used to love my old steady supply of AOL floppies and CDs, they made
for great coasters.

Just because people love getting free stuff doesn't mean that a single
one of those CDs is going to make its way onto someone's computer. But
hey, it's your dime...

> .. We were also quite adamant that no one be approached about Ubuntu,
> but rather, the pitch was "Have you heard of Linux"?
Well, all attempts to promote the event as a publicity stunt
(accurately) mentioned that it was Ubuntu pulling the stunt. The CRN
article may have tried to tar the broader community with the associated
immaturity, and it indeed was the only publicity generated by the event
outside of that generated by the participants themselves.

> After that, out come the cds if people are interested. You'd be
> surprised. The value is in actually talking to people, the cd is
> totally secondary. Face time baby!
Talk about condescention. Many people on this list -- including some
with the worst criticisms of this dumb event -- have done more than
their share of "face time". I for one am personally responsible for
getting more than 3,000 Caldera CDs into the Toronto area more then a
decade ago, back at a time when every distributed CD had to be
accompanied by a lengthy description of what "this Lie-nux thing" was.
Many other folks here have done at least as much, at the Toronto Linux
Centre on Eastern Avenue, the National Installfest and other events that
really had lasting effect.

So please spare the johnny-come-lately lectures on the value of face
time. Don't parrot the Ubuntu sentiment that they're inventing Linux
advocacy.

> But I think you fail to see what Ubuntu is doing for Linux. Just as
> Stallman was and is rightly pissed about Linux overshadowing GNU,
> Ubuntu may be doing the same in part for Linux.
Good lord these guys are full of themselves, aren't they? Please don't
take this personally, Jamon, but if you truly believe this you need some
serious schooling on the history of Linux.

There isn't a single tactic being trotted out -- except for the
CD-mailed-anywhere thing funded out of Shuttleworth's pocket -- that
hasn't been used by other advocates for many, many years. Ubuntu is at
best a refinement of work already been done, it is certainly not the
reinvention -- let alone the revolution -- that its cheerleaders claim.
It is right now the leader (in certain criteria) amongst a crowded field
of distributions, it is certainly a fine piece of work and currently my
distro of choice. But it is no giant leap in technology or process from
the rest of the pack. Unfortunately its cheerleaders, in the pitiful
belief that their baby is indeed a breed apart from everything else, are
rapidly alienating the greater community. The relationship between
Ubuntu Toronto and TLUG (ie, there is no relationship) is typical. Is
the fact that "F*ck Ubuntu" t-shirts are common at Debian meetings a
source of pride? If you dismiss that as petty jealousy, you'd be wrong.

> By this point I think that even the most idealistic can admit
> GNU/Linux is totally not what the public wants to hear and is largely
> academic to most anyways, so go figure.
I guess we're not reading the same magazines. From my POV, Linux is now
a cornerstone of the product strategies of IBM, Novell and Oracle. It's
on track for submission as an ISO standard for operating systems, with
equal status to POSIX. It's being suggested by analysts as a worthy
alternative to a Vista upgrade, and is a source of increasing employment
for its practitioners. It's still not for everyone -- especially those
who want a great games machine -- but it's of value to a steadily
increasing proportion of PC users. Writers like Marcel have been helping
Linux be more accessible to the masses long before Ubuntu was a gleam in
Mark Shuttleworth's eye.

So no, I don't think it's largely academic.

- Evan

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