OT: Microsoft's grinning robots or the Brotherhood of the Mac. Which is worse?

[Darryl Moore]

Of course everybody has a different threshold for what a compelling
rational is, and as you say much of it is outside of the control of the
OSS community.

There are three things we need to do as a community then:

1) Make the compelling case to businesses and individuals. For many the
cost savings and extra security may be sufficient to make the leap.
Unfortunately, as Microsoft is the primary competitor in this field,
many of the arguments one might use could be perceived as Microsoft bashing.

2) Help them through the transition period. Once they decide to switch,
every effort has to be made to relieve the frustrations they will
experience in making it. The worst thing that could happen would be for
them to switch back out of frustration.

3) Lobby governments to do everything possible to prevent the vendor
lock in which increases that inertia substantially. In the hands of a
company like Microsoft some of these lock in tactics can be considered
anti-competitive and therefore illegal. Unfortunately, as with (1),
bringing attention to this can easily be seen as MS bashing again.

Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> 
> 
> 2009/10/7 Darryl Moore <darryl-90a536wCiRb3fQ9qLvQP4Q at public.gmane.org <mailto:darryl-90a536wCiRb3fQ9qLvQP4Q at public.gmane.org>>
> 
>     So what you're really say is:
> 
>     http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/microsofts_secret_weapon_isnt_fud_its_inertia
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, I may have said that once or twice before....
> 
> http://technology.canoe.ca/2009/06/17/9832971-cp.html
> 
> ;-)
> 
>  
> 
>     The real lesson of this sorry episode is that maybe, and I say
>     maybe, the best efforts of Mark Shuttleworth will never be enough to
>     lure Windows users away. It’s not a technology problem, *it’s an
>     inertial mindset problem*.
> 
> 
> 
> The main point is that it's not good enough that FOSS software is
> better, more reliable, etc. It often needs to provide a *compelling*
> reason to switch, to overcome the inertia factor. And sometimes those
> compelling reasons are not of the FOSS community's making
> 
> For instance: If Windows 7 starter edition (the one to be installed on
> netbooks) turns out to cause too many obstacles to users and is too
> expensive to upgrade, that may be one of the compelling reasons to
> consider alternatives.
> 
> Of course, let's not forget about attempts to provide compelling reasons
> *not* to switch, otherwise known as "vendor lock-in". Incompatible file
> formats, lack of interoperability, etc.
> 
> - Evan
> 
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