Learn about linux brochure

[David Uhlman]

At the end of the last plug meeting I had asked if anyone was familiar with
marketing materials for Linux. Anyway I was not able to find any so I have
worked some connections and I am presenting the first fruit of that labor.
It is a linux brochure for people who have never heard of Linux. The target
audience for this brochure is a lot of people I deal with in organizations,
especially non-profits, to provide pretty glossy marketing advocacy to them
and in general increase awareness of open source technologies.

I have taken a lot of liberties with this brochure and they are listed
below, I am open to constructive criticism about them but I would prefer to
avoid a flame war, or a this is better than that fest.

1) I use Linux as a brand for the whole deal, including, in this instance,
kde screenshots, openoffice, and evolution. I specifically refer to Linux
with the GNU prefix because I do not feel that it is conducive to the
marketing effort I am trying to make here. I personally have enormous
respect for the FSF and GNU efforts, as without them we would all be doing
something else. I would like to avoid a "linux", "gnu/linux" etc. argument
and I feel that there is appropriate justification for using linux in its
lone form.

2) I highlight redhat and mandrake. These distributions were chosen for
several key reasons, they are commercially available everywhere, they have
commercial support, they offer shrink-wrapped boxes, their respective web
infrastructures offer an acceptable level of aesthetic appeal that I think
will be conducive to "selling" Linux. I don't mention debian, which I would
like to, because you can't buy it in stores and in my personal opinion their
website doesn't make the aesthetic cut.

3) There are some extreme simplifications and generalizations, what
immediately comes to mind is the virus/security talk, the distribution
blips.

4) I basically push people toward buying Linux because for the target
audience that will be the shortest path to success and happiness with Linux.

5) I made reference to PLUG and use the plug logo, I don't know if this is
kosher with the plug charter nor who to talk to about logo rights and such.
So I have posted to the list in this form hoping that the appropriate
information will com forward. I don't want to step on any toes, nor try and
force a public/private partnership that members may not want.

6) Please keep in mind that this is for print as well as web consumption so
there are limitations on content, word counts, coloration and so forth.

Areas where I could use help. First there has got to be plenty of
grammatical, syntactical, spelling, "how it reads" changes, all
contributions will be appreciated. The glossary is weak both in terms of its
definitions and it highlighted words. The overall content could use a
clarifying and focus. The learn more links on the back are grasping at
straws, it was the best things I could find that look good and are offer
something to people who barely now how computers work let alone Linux. Your
opinions on layout, look and so forth are very welcome, I am not sure how to
work out contributions to this area if anyone is into that sort of thing.
Let me know if there are ideas for that.

I need to gain access to high resolution redhat and mandrake logo images,
does anyone have any experience on that front?

The 50km link to 50km.com/learnaboutlinux will not be live until a few
details work their way through our bureaucracy.

The brochure will be put under the GFDL as soon as it comes back from legal.
I offer my sincerest assurance that contributions will fall under that
license.

The brochure is available from my plug contributions page at
www.50km.com/duhlman/plug, scroll down. There is a pdf version (the images
look lousy because they have been downsampled, will fix when copy is
prepress
) and a star office as well as rtf version of the text
contained within the brochure. The brochure itself is in adobe illustrator
format and my guess is that the master will not become available for public
consumption but if there is a feeling that it would be helpful I am sure I
could lobby for it and get it to happen.

Sincerely,
David Uhlman
CTO 50km Inc.