On 7/15/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Richard Reichenbacher</b> <<a href="mailto:richard5@email.arizona.edu">richard5@email.arizona.edu</a>> wrote:<div><span class="gmail_quote"></span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">You need to think about the average everyday human being
here. If you've ever worked help desk you might have a general
understanding of how very little your average person knows about
computers. Hell even most of the IT people I've worked with had
little to no idea what Linux is all about. So when advertising to
the mass market, saying that it's based on GNU/Linux means absolutely
nothing to these people. The more complicated it sounds to them, the less
likely they are to buy it.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">One of the most alluring things about the iPhone is that you can
give it to ANYBODY and within minutes they will be able to use just about every
feature of the phone, even if there aren't all that many. If this
phone is going to make it in the real world then it needs to be useable and
enjoyable to use, by everyone from Linus Torvalds himself, to Joe Bloe the
milkman that never owned a cell phone before in his life and it needs to
marketed the same way. Just about everyone in the open source community
already knows about OpenMoko and what it's capable of, next step is
letting the rest of the world know.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">Richard</span></p></div></div></blockquote></div><br>I agree that it needs to be usable, of course. But part of the issue is that there needs to be some consumer education as well. The openmoko project can be an ambassador of the FOSS world to Joe consumer. If the argument is that the average person doesn't know what Linux is, then openmoko can demonstrated it. What is the point of all this anyways: promoting freedom. The consumer isn't an idiot, although MS would want us all to believe it. If you don't like Linux use "Powered by FOSS". But don't believe the FUD.
<br><br>If we don't get the message out, we are doing all of ourselves a disservice in the long run.<br><br>Jae<br><br>