Hello, I would like to comment on 2 recent expieriences.

1. Pros and Cons of Linux at the Chandler Chanber of Commerce. January 
15, 2004.

The general concept of this presentation as I see it was to present the 
"Pros and Cons of Linux" to a non technical business audience. 
Unfortunatley, most of the attendees are already linux stalwarts, people 
such as myself, whose day to day desktop OS is linux and who also makes 
extensive use of linux for server applications in my working life, Hans, 
about whom no more needs to be said and Thurman, who teaches linux/unix 
at Scottsdale community college.

Personally, I attended, not to learn the Pros and Cons, but to see what 
general business peopole think of linux and if they have any interest at 
all. The only person there that would remotely fall into the general 
business catagory was the representitive of the Chandler Chamber who had 
organizaed the event. So I really  wasn't able to achieve my objective.

To sum up this expierience, it was typical of many linux events that I 
have attended, long on people who are already sold and short on 
potential new converts.

In thinking of a potential solution to this "preaching to the choir" 
situation, I feel as if I personally could have and should have invited 
some of my business and personal friends that either are not using linux 
at all or are and don't really even know it. In other words forget about 
linux stalwarts, they can take care of themselves, lets bring in some 
new blood.

2. Nation Wide Vision.

I stopped in to see what I had read about on plug recently and sure 
enough they are running some linux variant, using the Gnome desktop. The 
desk top was cleared of all icons except 1 for a proprietary program 
that they use. That is the only program they use. I asked the employee 
who I talked to to click on the foot and the full compliment of programs 
and utilities showed up.

He told me that the emplyees are specifically prohibited from using any 
programs other than the one they have the icon form. He reported that 
they system itself is real stable, although he said they do have some 
problems with their propietary application.

He showed me the computers that they use , which were plain white boxes 
whith no visable floppy or cd drives. He also reported that  the 
computers in front don't work unless one of the computers in back is 
running which leads me to believe that they are running a linux terminal 
server.

The employee didn't realize that he was running linux and in fact had no 
idea what linux was. He asked if it was some kind of old operating 
system. He reported satisfaction with the overall system.

I draw the following conclusions from these expieriences.

1. We as linux users love our Linux in particular and computing in 
general. Most people could care less.
2. We need to come up with a plan to attract people to Linux who could 
care less what operating system they use.
3. People in general are not aware of Linux.
4. The vast majority of computer users will never install an operating 
system of any kind. The ease or difficulty of installation is of no 
consequence to them at all.
5. Most users just want to sit down and do whatever they need to do with 
a minimum of concern for their equipment.

Enough ranting for 1 day

Charlie BUllen