Re: How to make Debian more attractive for users, was: Re: The number of popcon.debian.org-submissions is falling
2010/7/21 Jesús M. Navarro <jesus.navarro@undominio.net>:
> Hi, Hans:
>
> On Wednesday 21 July 2010 19:38:02 Hans-J. Ullrich wrote:
>> Hi community,
>>
>> well, I think, the main problem is, WHO are the persons, you want to
>> actiuvate.
>
> [...]
>
>> Group 4: People, who decide in business, which OS to use.
>
> [...]
>
>> Group 4: Business deciders are a big problem. They only see money!
>
> There's nothing inherently wrong with that, specially when Debian can help on
> this front too.
>
>> But I
>> think, if you want to convince them, then you need a web prensentation or a
>> presentation at all, who makes the idea of debian clear: save costs through
>> the work of a community , development will be guaranteed in the future, use
>> of real standards, more power for less money, no license problems and some
>> other things I forgot. For those people, a presentation should be developed
>> by people, who create professionell advertisements.
>
> That's an old rant of mine. Not exactly "colorful shiny brochures" but, yes,
> being able to make a discourse to reach their ears in a language that they
> are able to understand. On this, I think DPL can say and do a lot.
>
> I always asked myself (rethoric question, since I have my own answer) why is
> it the case that hardware and even proprietary software vendors (Dell, IBM,
> HP, Oracle, SAP...) don't use Debian as their base platform of choice given
> its obvious monetary and strategic advantages to them and go instead with,
> say, Red Hat or SUSE.
>
> With Debian there's no risk for them to be stabbed in the back if wind
> changes; there's no need for signing "early access" programs for them to know
> what will happen on the next release or going into a market tit-for-tat,
> heck, with only a little of fair play and time they can even have an obvious
> direct impact being the very driving force that makes Debian advance in the
> direction that better suits them (anyone can be a DD and anyone can make a
> difference with its own work; this is basically a meritocracy, after all)
> without need of dealing with CxOs of other companies with different agendas
> and even competing goals.
>
> With this in mind *why* IBM, Oracle, Dell... are not literally rushing for
> Debian -on the premise that *I* would benefit from that in the form of more
> man hours even for boring things, better hardware support or
> more "enterprise-grade" tools?
>
> My opinion is that happens because IBM, Oracle, Dell... big boys go playing
> golf with Red Hat or SUSE big guys but they don't know a Debian big boy to
> talk to and because of this they don't know the message Debian could bring to
> them (since they don't listen to "minions", they only listen to their pairs).
>
> That's where the DPL can help a lot: by acting to those big guys as one of
> them. Somehow in their minds, Ellison, Dell, Zacchiroli... should resound
> as "birds of a feather" as much as possible.
>
> Is Ubuntu any better platform for Oracle to run their Database or for Dell to
> certify their hardware than Debian? I don't think so. How is it then that
> they do with this relatively new kid in the block what they haven't done with
> Debian in more than a decade? My answer is that Ubuntu has a Shuttleworth to
> talk to them, face to face, in their same language but Debian do not.
>
> Cheers.
>
>
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> Archive: [🔎] 201007220158.50262.jesus.navarro@undominio.net">http://lists.debian.org/[🔎] 201007220158.50262.jesus.navarro@undominio.net
>
>
Also I imagine that it helps that they have some kind of commercial
support behind their projects, whereas Debian has little/none of that.
--
-Will Orr
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