We are talking two different things. I am referring to how well Ubuntu
develops its community and cares for its people and you are talking about
the distribution itself. I concede that Ubuntu may not be the best
distribution, certainly not for everybody, but it has the best community.
Whenever someone disses a distribution they are dissing the work of the
developers (people) and the users who choose that distro (people). We need
to be careful for that reason. If we are critical of a distribution (and we
should) then we should be specific and focus on what works and doesn't in
the distro.
My criticism of Debian is based on personal experience and numerous
encounters over the years with Debian users. I consider myself well versed
on the subject as I have seen it all first hand. I am not making this stuff
up. I think that Debian is an excellent distribution for medium to advanced
users, but the community sucks. I mention this because it is a lesson in
what not to do and why people don't choose Debian.
You must speak their language which is GNU/Linux and not Linux. You cannot
mention Firefox or Thunderbird or you will get a tongue lashing on the evils
of Mozilla. Most users just don't care about the history of animosity
between the Linux Foundation and FSF and don't want to walk on eggshells.
Debian users are different and the exact opposite of Ubuntu users. You can
see why they resent Ubuntu's success while their distribution has declined.
It is all political and something most newbies don't want to get into.
Basically Debian users like to see themselves as a persecuted minority. It
salves their conscience and makes it all worthwhile using a distribution
that many would not. I also think that they go out of their way to alienate
people so that they can maintain their elite status. Contrast this with
Ubuntu.
Ubuntu has gone out its way to welcome newcomers. It maximizes
participation. It has a council to oversee the community, a code of conduct,
blogs, newsletters, mailing lists, podcasts, live IRC discussions, classes,
forums, online help and documentation, wikis, RSS feeds, a full time
community developer, LUGs or LoCo teams, bug squads, project teams, artwork
teams for each flavour, conferences, developer opportunities, release
parties, Launchpad, language and internationalizatio
Brainstorm (suggestions for future releases), testing structure, events such
as Open Week, Ubuntu Women and more. They even give out free CDs so that
there are no barriers to using their product. If this is hype then so be it.
More distributions need this kind of hype and participation.
They are very careful about how they present themselves so that there aren't
a bunch of loose cannons giving the distribution a bad name. Much of this
probably has to do with corporate structure and an understanding that comes
with that on how to market your product. They want to appeal to a broad
range including enterprise users. You can be cynical, but it works.
You don't have to be the best to win people over. You only need to care for
and look after them. That is not hype, but just good practise. If a
distribution wants to grow then they need to make it about the users and not
about an ideology or software. People like to feel a part of something and
not be just a cog in a wheel. They have already had that experience which is
why they are leaving their previous OS. Ubuntu gets it and, fault them if
you will, it is working. Everything else is sour grapes.
Roy
2009/10/26 Scott <scottro@nyc.
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 02:08:37AM -0400, J wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 01:01, Drmgiver <drmgiver@gmail.
> wrote:
> >
> > > And to that I would have to say it is hype...... "Believe the hype".
> > > Especially with 9.10 which is a beast.
> > >
> > > Justin
> >
> > I'm sorry, what part of that was hype? Scott was talking about
> > several different OSs. Or did you mean Scott's wife and Japanese was
> > hype? Or was something else hype? You really didn't trim the quoted
> > stuff, and there were so many different thoughts in Scott's reply that
> > just picking one out to be Hype is rather difficult.
>
> And that, boys and girls, is why one should properly post. Here's the
> thing. Firstly, (some of you made it to my killfile after the last
> time, so I've missed much of this). The folks who suggest proper
> posting are usually those who have Linux in their job title, which could
> be empirical proof of their ability.
>
> Sometimes, due to a handicap, or, for whatever reason being stuck with
> yahoo web mail (or using PDA's) it *is* difficult to post properly,
>
> However, here's the thing. Those of us who do work professionally, get
> literally, hundreds of tech emails a day. If I see something two days
> after I've replied, I'll often have no idea what it's about. Unless
> it's interesting, I'll seldom go beyond a line or two to see what it's
> about.
>
> Roy, for example, uses Yahoo mail (I think.) But he's knowledgeable and
> writes really interesting stuff. What intrigues me (again, some of
> these folks made it to my killfile, so I never saw their original posts)
> is how Jeff, John (who gave up on this list after the last insult--not
> only is he another professional, but does it in at least two
> languages--nice move, folks) will politely mention it in a post to which
> they are giving an answer, and these other folks, who seem to be less
> technically adept, and have never, in my experience (before I plonked
> them), offered an alternative answer to the technical question, will
> hijack a thread--another no-no, see the faq Jeff mentioned, to rant
> about top posting.
>
> Like I said last time, do what you want, but it's best, if you have
> tech questions, to do your best to get the technical folks to answer
> them.
>
>
> >
> > It's just so dark here under my rock, I need help finding the hype.
>
> Must have been my wife. She's hyper. I guess this refers to something
> I wrote.
>
> I could have told ya not to mention posting style in this list. :)
>
> You trolling pirate you.
>
> --
> Scott Robbins
> PGP keyID EB3467D6
> ( 1B48 077D 66F6 9DB0 FDC2 A409 FA54 EB34 67D6 )
> gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys EB3467D6
>
> Xander: I don't like vampires. I'm going to take a stand and say
> they're not good.
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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