Advertise Solutions not Linux?

This was from a Linux Foundation summit in Austin, Texas, where a panel of companies' reps spoke about Linux and their use of it. So, they benefit from thousands of world-wide developers working on Linux, they wouldn't have a problem helping the community advertise Linux, right? You'll be surprised.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Linux
• advocacy
• advertise

[bicostp]

HP, Lenovo, Dell, Gareway, Acer, and other OEMs sell Windows as a component of their product (the OS on their desktop PCs). So by his logic, they should all be making and airing their own Windows commercials.

Microsoft advertises their own product. Why should it be different for Linux?

[kingttx]

Um, two problems with that logic, buddy-roe.

1. OEMs do put "Acme recommends Microsoft Shaft 2009" on just about every single web page and ad they run. They get money to do that, surely, but they also still have to pay for licenses to put on the units they sell. As you say, "Why should it be different for Linux?"

2. GNU/Linux is made by a single company, yet tons of them benefit DIRECTLY by thousands of worldwide volunteers along with their own and other companies' paid developers.

FAIL!

[CurtHowland]

I am more and more convinced that Microsoft is pulling strings, using their OEM contract discounts to carefully undermine Linux adoption and advertising.

.

I can hear it in that IBM guys voice that he's been told exactly what to do no matter how stupid.

.

Microsoft is -allowing- Linux to be sold, quietly, in order to avoid that "monopoly" bugaboo.

[CurtHowland]

@winrid Agreed. As a long-time Debian user, even Debian unstable, I agree that Ubuntu is not even as stable as Debian -unstable-, due to discontinuous updates.

[fixedbylinux1]

@DocGorilla

So "Real Service Companies" splash "We recommend Windows" on every website they have isn't advertising Microsoft products?

It wasn't a matter of making money, it was a matter of legitimizing the product. Unfortunately TV and radio advertising does just that. These companies make millions a year from using Linux. Giving back isn't that much to ask.

Ummm...apparently it is.

[killerc0p]

Hmm, okay I'll check PCLinuxOS out then..

[winrid]

PcLinuxOS is extremely user friendly... I didn't have to touch the CLI yet to configure the system, unlike in Ubuntu. (besides installing an older game that requires the cli).

I agree, normal people can use Linux now... But...there are and have been better user-friendly distros than Ubuntu. Ubuntu just makes Linux more known -that it's good at.

[killerc0p]

Yeah, it's not perfect and I've run into problems from time to time, especially with my wacom. But it's very userfriendly, and that's the best of it. "Normal" people can actually begin to use Linux now.

[winrid]

Ubuntu is probably the worst Linux distribution in existence. I'd rather use PcLinuxOS or Debian. Hell, I'd even use BSD before I'd ever use Ubuntu again. Sure, Ubuntu is a great distro to start on, but we need a distribution that doesn't mess itself up with every other update. Ubuntu gives Linux a bad name.