algeriatul team mailing list archive

[Faldegast <1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I think the idea about Cannonical selling hardware with Ubuntu tailored to it is 
> not such a bad idea.  There seems to be a gap in the market at local level.  
> Dell and others sell machines with Ubuntu pre-installed and there are a lot of 
> Dell machines being sold in computer shops locally but sadly none of the Ubuntu 
> Dells are on display and the sales staff are clueless.  Perhaps getting a 
> smaller distributor /OEM might make a difference?  Perhaps getting a local shop 
> to have a specialty section or something might help?  
That's my point. An OEM program will be able to sway a lot of the small local stores into the fold. It will perhaps even make it possible for us Linux nerd to start stores that sell Linux computers. Sing upp OEM:s perhaps city by city. Then start advertising Ubuntu-based computers together with localized information on where to buy them. There should be multiple levels of distributors that takes care of the larger issues. Perhaps continental distributors that coordinates everything on a continent, then smaller district down to city/town. That's a bit feudal, but a quite proven system.

> The original suggestion from Torpedolos seemed based on a few widespread 
> mis-conceptions.  Apple is growing but Ubuntu is almost certainly growing faster 
> but is starting from a smaller market share.  Apple are highly visible and spend 
> a fortune on PR and advertising.  Ubuntu just gets on mostly by word-of-mouth.  
Currently neiter seam to be growing, the curves are quite flattened. If Ubuntu is growing its at the cost of other distributions which is not really win. We wanna get users to leave the Windows platform. What Linux distribution they run is not as important. When Linux has 91% usage share we can start thinking about that.

> I doubt Apple costs less to develop as a lot of Ubuntu is developed for free, 
> certainly a lot of the bug-squad work for free.  Do we really know if Apple's OS 
> is lighter and faster than Ubuntu?  I have found installing Ubuntu on different 
> machines makes Ubuntu look and feel quite different, especially on machines that 
> have bluetooth devices or wireless or both.  Sure there are usually 1 or 2 
> things that need to be tweaked but usually on almost all hardware it seems to 
> set-up just fine.  Out of 4 recent machines 2 didn't need any tweaking to get 
> hardware working although i swapped the window buttons back to the Windows side 
> rather than the Mac side.  1 machine needed to have "cheese" installed but then 
> intgrated the web-cam into all appropriate apps without any further agro.  Just 
> my own home-machine happens to be awkward with 10.04 for some reason but was/is 
> fine with 9.04.  Oh and i never have been good at setting up network printers on 
> any OS.
Supporting hardware IS expensive. Personally i think we should have a certification program and work with hardware producers that are friendly to Linux. Hardware that has Windows-only drivers and does not have full documentation for our kernel developers can go *censored*. Why should we even look at their products. The only exception is when we have no choice. However for stuff like network cards and sound cards we do have a choice. We also have a choice for motherboards. Do they want to put the Ubuntu or Linux trademark on their boxes or not? There are millions of Linux users. If we start to buy only certified hardware with a friendly logotype on their box, then they will care. 

> 
> Still there is clearly a big gap there in local stores.
That's what we need to fix. That's why a supported and commercial OEM version is so important. Combine a hardware certification program like the one Microsoft have, a partner (reseller) program like the one Microsoft have AND phone support, like Ubuntu have as an extra service. Put all that in one box and sell it with computers an Ubuntu will EAT market shares. Also take a look at Mandriva's commercial Linux distribution, and how it comes packed with graphics drivers, codecs and DVD support. The only areas that OSS currently does not cover. Canonical also sell this as an extra service, but users want it out of the box.

-- 
Microsoft has a majority market share
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1
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Status in Club Distro: Confirmed
Status in Computer Science Ubuntu: Invalid
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Status in Ichthux - Linux for Christians: Invalid
Status in JAK LINUX: Invalid
Status in The Linux OS Project: In Progress
Status in The OpenOffice.org Suite: In Progress
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Status in A simple player to online TV streaming: Invalid
Status in Tv-Player: New
Status in Ubuntu: In Progress
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Status in “ubuntu-express” source package in Jaunty: Invalid
Status in Baltix GNU/Linux: Invalid
Status in “linux” package in Debian: In Progress
Status in Fluxbuntu: The Lightweight, Productive, Agile OS: Confirmed
Status in openSUSE: In Progress
Status in Tilix Linux: New

Bug description:
Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace.
This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix.

Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry, restricting access to IT to a small part of the world's population and limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full potential, globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry.

Steps to repeat:

1. Visit a local PC store.

What happens:
2. Observe that a majority of PCs for sale have non-free software pre-installed.
3. Observe very few PCs with Ubuntu and free software pre-installed.

What should happen:
1. A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software like Ubuntu.
2. Ubuntu should be marketed in a way such that its amazing features and benefits would be apparent and known by all.
3. The system shall become more and more user friendly as time passes.